Iran - Israel/US War: Israel-US declare war on Iran, Iran responds

[Immortals]

I don't think the problem is just the liberals. If anything, the liberals have helped the system to weather the storm on many occasions. The IR has been a system in conflict with its own people for decades.

Don't you remember Salami? Do you think people like Salami were any better?

Khamenei wasn't a liberal politician and he ruined Iran's future by stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

You misunderstand. You can be conservative overall, but liberal in how you approach war and conflict.

Iran is undoubtedly a liberal oriented society when it comes to war. Iran didn’t invade or start a war in centuries even if it made sense to (Afghanistan killing Iranian diplomats and their families in late 90’s).

Qalibaf, Salami, Vahidi, Khamenai, Rouhani, when it comes to foreign conflict all think the same and that is avoidance. They may approach that avoidance in different flavors, but it’s avoidance.

Iran is the polar opposite to Israel in this regard. In Israel regardless if you get a liberal party our ultra Conservative Party the foreign policy around conflict is max deterrence and punishment because they have faced existential crisis before.

So in the end inside Iran. Titles like pragmatic, reformist, and conservative are just for internal and domestic politics. When it comes war they all are a bunch of chickens pretending to be T-Rex.

 

[ShapurII]

You misunderstand. You can be conservative overall, but liberal in how you approach war and conflict.

Iran is undoubtedly a liberal oriented society when it comes to war. Iran didn’t invade or start a war in centuries even if it made sense to (Afghanistan killing Iranian diplomats and their families in late 90’s).

Qalibaf, Salami, Vahidi, Khamenai, Rouhani, when it comes to foreign conflict all think the same and that is avoidance.

Iran is the polar opposite to Israel in this regard. In Israel regardless if you get a liberal party our ultra Conservative Party the foreign policy around conflict is max deterrence and punishment because they have faced existential crisis before.

So in the end inside Iran. Titles like pragmatic, reformist, and conservative are just for internal and domestic politics. When it comes war they all are a bunch of chickens pretending to be T-Rex.

Yes, but there's a huge difference between Israel and Iran in terms of power projection and military capabilities. Israel is also a nuclear power, Iran is not.

Iran's means of power projection has been limited to proxy groups and missiles after the Iraq-Iran war. Iran pursued a very aggressive regional policy against Israel when it could. The problem is that this was the extent of Iran's conventional capabilities with proxy groups and militias.

Things have changed since 15 years ago. Israel wouldn't have dared to engage Iran in a direct military conflict in 2011. But now they have safe air routes to bomb Iran from the air, Syria has fallen and Iran's economy is on the verge of collapse. That's why Israel has become more aggressive and Iran has decided not to escalate anymore.

 

[Immortals]

Boomer General Rezaee has spoken:

 

[Immortals]

Yes, but there's a huge difference between Israel and Iran in terms of power projection and military capabilities. Israel is also a nuclear power, Iran is not.

Come on my friend. You think the country that is too afraid to attack oil tankers or PGCC ports would ever use nukes in a conflict?

Nuclear deterrence is for mad men like North Korea, Israel, and America. Not for liberal countries like Iran.

Everyone knows nukes in the hands of Iran would be borderline useless at this point. The cat is out of the bag. Even if Tehran was about to fall tomm these chickens wouldn’t use nukes. Look at Russia, largest nuclear supply in the world and yet Putin showed the world he is too afraid to ever even think about it.

The only reason Iran even had a nuclear program was because they were afraid of Saddam going nuclear by early 2000s. Saddam was an existential threat to Iran at one point.

Israel and U.S. are not.

 

[Persian Gulf]

Yeah, we hit Las Raffan but did we ever hit anything of critical value in Israel? Did we hit the US Navy? Everything seems to be normal in the Emirates and Israel now. And we killed only 20-30 American soldiers after they killed over 5,000 of us + our most important political figure.

We can bully Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. But that's about it. That's the extent of our capabilities without nuclear deterrence. Even the Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been treated way too kindly.

We hit Haifa oil refinery (the largest in Israel) twice and central Tel Aviv several times (damaging entire neighbourhoods and the financial district) and most Israeli air bases. What more could we hit considering severe limitations in the accuracy of our missiles, launcher numbers (due to Israeli air superiority and US intelligence assistance), and the peerless US-Israeli missile defence shield?

I think we agree that IRI's boasts are not reflected in its military abilities. But still, we were on track to have a massive military arsenal, and that's why Israel first acted to prevent that. So either we double down on trying to survive for now then build a conventional missile shield (as Trump said), or try to dash for a nuclear weapon while most of our nuclear facilities are destroyed, inoperable, and under 24/7 satellite surveillance.

 

[shapurzolaktaf]

The Iranian regime may not be all that great, but the alternative being put forward is a puppet government in the pay of the US and Israel, whose second move – after abandoning the Palestinians, Yemenis and Lebanese to their fate – will be to sign documents renouncing nuclear capabilities – in any form – long-range missiles, control of the Strait of Hormuz and sovereignty over its own oil resources.

You're wrong. Alternative is total destruction of Iran (Libyanization).