If you want evidence that bombs do not settle the issue, you can consider the current Iran war. The US and Israel have dropped a rather impressive number of bombs on Iran. As far as I know, most of them worked. But whatever issue the leaders of the US and Israel thought they were going to settle is most definitely not settled. The regime has changed from Ayatollah Khamenei to Khamenei, the US’s military position is dramatically worsened, and, while Iran has a lot of rebuilding to do, they are arguably in a strategically stronger position than they were before. Maybe you think Iran’s continued existence “can’t happen period”, but Iran still exists and the US’s ability to anything about it is very much in doubt.
It's so fascinating to read comments like this and realize we live in completely different worlds, wouldn't you agree?
On one hand, I see the US parked 3 aircraft carriers outside of Iran, loaded up ground-based bombers, blew up most of Iran's existing leadership and completely destroyed their air force, navy, and is (well was, until yesterday when Iran capitulated) conducting bombing campaigns on HVTs, military infrastructure, missile launchers, and production facilities and yet, since they haven't destroyed all of the missile launchers in the first 5 weeks of the war I now read, from you, that Iran is "in a strategically stronger position than they were before", and the US military position has "dramatically worsened".
How can this be? Where do you get your news from? I'm curious to read what you are reading about this war. It's mind-blowing how different and counterintuitive it is. Like how is the US military in a dramatically worse position? What specific factors are you talking about? Missile capabilities? Air defense? Did Iran recently sink a US aircraft carrier? I would think if something dramatic happened I'd read about it somewhere but I haven't heard of anything majorly bad happening to the US during the course of this war.
If Iran is in a strategically stronger position, why did they need fewer missiles and missile launchers and less military equipment to get stronger? Are you saying by destroying their equipment and killing their leaders that they grew stronger and more capable? If that's the case, why didn't they just kill their own leaders and dismantle their military equipment themselves?
I think we don't have different facts or sources so much as different perspectives.
There's a Starcraft-like perspective in which you're right. The US has repositioned a bunch of long-range-attack units and has consumed a lot of single-use weapons, with which we have removed most of Iran's defense towers and generally destroyed a good deal of their fixed military assets. Maybe the US has reduced the other team to a mostly a bunch of drones. It looks like the US's team will definitely win.
But there are quite a few things about this analysis that don't really apply to the real world. First, we're not playing last man standing. The US's goal isn't to wipe Iran off the map -- it's goal is (hopefully) to ensure stability for itself and its allies and to let the probes (commercial trade) go around the map freely. But the US has not even come close to removing enough of the Iranian forces to allow weak units to go through the strait safely (or even perhaps strong units). Secondly, one needs to count units more carefully: Iran has on the order of 1M military units left -- the US has destroyed several thousand big, obvious, expensive units but has barely touched the total. Sure, the US also has a lot of military units, but they are not in Iran and it would be an utterly terrible idea to send hundreds of thousands of troops.
Additionally, one needs to zoom the map out. There are lots of other important things going on. Just one of them is that there has been a standoff for decades across the Taiwan Strait. It's been fairly stable because no one involved wants to start a shooting war that they will lose (yes, all parties can easily lose simultaneously). The US gets significant economic value from having Taiwan be independent and friendly to the US. But a bunch of those single-use weapons used in Iran and some very high value US units had previously been near the Taiwan Strait are are not any more.
Also, the US lost some very very high value units that it no longer has the ability to rebuild (cough, AWACS, cough).
Here's some good reading for a less tongue-in-cheek perspective:
> Also, the US lost some very very high value units that it no longer has the ability to rebuild (cough, AWACS, cough).
We can build them if we want since we built them before.
But the US is likely moving away from AWACS toward other platforms precisely because they're big easy targets, especially when they're sitting on the ground at an air base. It's unfortunate but not a big deal - we would expect a country armed with thousands of missiles who is then launching them toward both military and non-military targets to land some hits. Aerial refueling tankers are actually the weak link if I had to guess.
But the reporting around these developments and activities doesn't always hit the mainstream media so the sources can be a little lackluster. That's what I have so far though ^^
> Iran
I'm not sure how you are defining military units, but the only ones that really matter much now are missile launchers which are used to disrupt the free transit of oil through the Straight. It has only been a few weeks. The US can just slowly blow these up over time and end most of Iran's capabilities here. The main issue is the cost to the international community for doing so which subsequently affects the US, albeit less so than most other countries.
But there are many options here. The US for example just forced Iran to agree to a ceasefire and to stop attacking ships in the Straight. I don't mean to suggest Iran doesn't also have capabilities, but the commentary on this is very one-sided in favor of Iran and I think that needs, well, it needs balance and it also needs additional thought. Too many people are so caught up in hating Donald Trump that they're not thinking clearly. (not you in particular or anything)
> Taiwan
Agreed it is incredibly important. Likely the US has judged the risk of China attacking Taiwan at this juncture to be acceptably low. Although it's also worth noting that in the past 6 months (just because I forget the timeframe) the US has put the hammer on both of China's primary oil trading partners. You can't fly jets and operate tanks without oil and that's not going to change anytime soon. It's very nuanced. I agree all parties are likely to lose in an engagement there - it would be a nightmare depending on what China actually did and could immediately involve the US, Japan, SK, and NK along with China in a very nasty war.
> the only ones that really matter much now are missile launchers which are used to disrupt the free transit of oil through the Straight.
I’m still not an expert, but the strait is narrow and there are plenty of weapons that don’t need a “missile launcher”. You can have fun reading through here:
Lots of these weapons have more than enough range to shoot clear across the strait and even to hit ships from concealed inland sites.
A poorly armored vessel transiting the strait goes on a narrow, fixed route along a for a shockingly long distance, and basically all of it is within a few miles of Iran’s coast. This isn’t like a rogue country trying to blockade the open ocean — it’s more like if about half of the Eastern bank of the Mississippi decided to blockade shipping, which would have been eminently doable with Civil War-era weapons.
Missile launchers, projectile launchers, doesn't matter. They fire and then in response they are on the receiving end of a US missile. You know we like detect the launches right? Of course Iran can move them around and conceal them and such but they're not perfect about it. Otherwise we wouldn't have destroyed any at all.
They can lob missiles or rockets or whatever they want at ships in the Straight, that's true enough, but the US can continue to degrade that capability over time. And if Iran doesn't stop we can just escalate further and maybe they won't have any fuel or electricity or running water and as they sit there and launch projectiles they continue to run out of them until they really can't do much. Of course there is pressure from the global economy to get Iran to stop this, but the US is largely immune to that pressure, excluding the desire to keep allies happy and stable. Who cares if gas is $6/gallon life goes on. Maybe MAGA anti-war protestors can trade in their trucks for Hondas.
This is very rich given that the US, is the only country to use nukes, and Israel has illegal nukes and wont even accept inspection. Nobody charged anyone to cross a strait until your pedophile leaders decided to kill a head of state and bomb a school full of children
They aren't illegal. The nuclear non proliferation treaty is an optional treaty. The nukes are only illegal if you sign it. Israel hasn't. Most countries sign the treaty because it comes with a lot of benefits, but you don't have to take the carrot.
Therefore Iran and North Korea and any others have the right to make nukes.
USA has lost long ago the moral authority to demand from others to not make nuclear weapons.
USA were supposed to be the "good guys", who will not abuse their monopoly on having the most advanced weapons, so that the weaker countries should feel safe enough that they do not need such weapons themselves and that they should respect the non proliferation principles.
However, with all the unprovoked wars started by USA during the last quarter of century, which have caused not only huge damages to the attacked countries, leaving them in a much worse state than before, but which have also irreparably destroyed important parts of the cultural heritage of the entire humanity, nobody can believe any more that it is fine to be helpless against USA, by not having nuclear weapons.
Nobody has done more against the non-proliferation treaty than USA.
Exactly. 39 days (so far) of bombing will only convince Iran and other countries around the world of why they need to obtain nuclear weapons at any cost. It is existential.
This current US administration is incredibly shortsighted.
Or other countries will see what happens when you try and get nukes and decide they want no part in it.
And i dont just mean the war, some estimates say iran has spent 2 trillion dollars trying to get nukes. If they spent that on conventional defense they wouldnt have been invaded.
> Therefore Iran and North Korea and any others have the right to make nukes.
Unlike Israel, they signed the treaty in question though.
More to the point though, just because something is technically "legal" doesn't mean other countries aren't allowed to be mad about it. Any sort of massing weapons or weapons of mass destruction
development program is going to make other countries nervous, especially when those countries have a history of threatening mass destruction on their neighbours.
Oh come on man, nobody in the west wants those nutjobs to have nukes. Nobody gives a shit about morality or whatever, if you're our enemy and you try to get an advantage over us were going to slap you on the nuts if we can.
You know it's a proper witch-hunt when a bunch of bandwagoners start defending Iran's right to have nukes. Everyone's forgotten Iran is our (the West) enemy, by their own choice. They used to be our ally, then religious fanaticists took over and here we are.
Fuck Iran. They want to be our enemy, this is what happens to our enemy. They could have chosen to not be annoying counts but just like damn near everyone else in the middle East they're incapable of just shutting the fuck up and sitting down and letting things go, they just have to stir shit.
Iran funded Hamas which led to the attack that started the Gaza war, they're funding Hezbollah leading to the Lebanon thing. Iran is at the center of this entire conflict and all you fools are too busy frothing at the mouth over how Israel is defending themselves to recognize that they are in fact defending themselves.
I’m not going to litigate World War II use of atomic weapons, but suffice to say their usage was justified both morally and strategically.
> leaders decided to kill a head of state and bomb a school full of children
Iran murdered 30,000 of their own people. When we kill 30,000 Iranians we can have a discussion. Until then we don’t intentionally target civilians and even the Iranians know this, which is why they dragged a bunch of people out under the point of a gun and made them hold flags on bridges so we don’t bomb them. So you believe something the Iranian government as murderous and hate-filled for America as it is doesn’t even believe about the US lol.
> I guess Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar don’t exist lol
All of those countries except Iraq facilitated this war, the weapon launches were overwhelmingly from land bases on their territory. If they want to talk with Iran about discounts for expelling american airbases, I'm sure they could find an audience.
They won't be paying, no worries there. But separately that excuses attacking actual military infrastructure, it doesn't excuse intentionally attacking civilian targets as Iran has demonstrably done.
You can be pro-IRGC and be critical of their actions too. I'm constantly reminded as an American that "it's my duty as a Patriot to be extra critical of my own country's actions". No reason you can't do the same for the countries you support or owe allegiance to.
All of those gulf countries would face mass, mass casualties if Iran had chosen to target desalination plants. They are smart enough to know what did and didnt happen regardless of your level of understanding.
> I guess Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar don’t exist lol. They’re not just attacking ships in one tiny area - ships have to pass through bidirectionally which affects trade for everyone. Stop trying to defend this stuff.
You must have a real problem with the concept of the Panama Canal.
It's comparable in that it's a nearly-identical construct that functions in an actually-identical way. Constructing the Strait of Hormuz was cheaper than constructing the Panama Canal.† That doesn't change anything about the fact that it exists.
† Cheaper in an abstract sense. In a more literal sense, the tolling authority, Panama, didn't have to pay for the canal; it was built by the United States.
