Ed Israel/US Attacks Iran /Yet Another Country/Iran

[The Great Zaganza]

I don't care about your opinion on what the Israeli leadership wants - what I care about is your claim about Iran deserving a carrot. It doesn't because the IDF has just pulled its pants down once again

I'm not saying anything about Deserving.
I am talking about what needs to happen to let Israeli go about their daily business without having to fear a missile attack for the next few decades.
History is rather unambiguous that a single bombing campaign will do nothing but delay Iran from launching new attacks, and provide excellent reason for actually building nukes.

How do you propose to safeguard Israel long-term if not by a normalization of relations with Teheran?

 

[Manger Douse]

I'm not saying anything about Deserving.
I am talking about what needs to happen to let Israeli go about their daily business without having to fear a missile attack for the next few decades.
History is rather unambiguous that a single bombing campaign will do nothing but delay Iran from launching new attacks, and provide excellent reason for actually building nukes.

How do you propose to safeguard Israel long-term if not by a normalization of relations with Teheran?

You said Iran should be offered a carrot - why should they be offered a carrot?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You said Iran should be offered a carrot - why should they be offered a carrot?

I did not -
I pointed out that the bombing is no long-term solution, and that incentives will be necessary for peace.

maybe it's time for some carrots instead of just sticks if Israel wants a permanent deal.

the question is "if": Israel has not indicated in slightest that it wants any deal. It wants a permeant conflict.

do you believe that bombs are enough to disarm Iran permanently?

 

[Manger Douse]

I did not -
I pointed out that the bombing is no long-term solution, and that incentives will be necessary for peace.


the question is "if": Israel has not indicated in slightest that it wants any deal. It wants a permeant conflict.

do you believe that bombs are enough to disarm Iran permanently?

Why should Iran be offered any carrots incentives when its them getting their ◊◊◊◊ pushed in?

 

[Steve]

What, exactly, are Israel's plans?
All that Netanjahu has said is that they will bomb Iran because its developing a nuke.
There have been no stated goals, though now it seems that indeed they want Regimen Change.
Mission Creep will always kill everything.

I suspect that IIsrael has determined that sharing their plans with you and others of similar view would be counter productive.

 

[Ziggurat]

According to the principle of Revealed Preference, this is absolutely NOT what the current Israeli leadership wants.
It doesn't even want its hostages back.

What it wants is a steady stream of wounded or killed Israeli and Jews, at home or abroad, to provide cover for a genocide.

That's stupid. Since nothing it is doing is actually getting them close to a genocide, the idea that their actions reveal a desire for genocide is a complete ass pull.

And even on the other stuff, you have an incredibly shallow understanding of the concept of preferences. People want multiple things at the same time, and those desires often conflict with each other. If you chose to pursue one desire over the other, that doesn't mean that you didn't desire the other. Israel wants its hostages back, but it also wants to punish Hamas and make sure Hamas cannot do a similar attack in the future. It would be stupid to get the hostages back at the cost of allowing Hamas to repeat Oct. 7 again.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am talking about what needs to happen to let Israeli go about their daily business without having to fear a missile attack for the next few decades.

And what do you think needs to happen in order for Israel to not have to worry about missile attacks?

 

[Steve]

That's stupid. Since nothing it is doing is actually getting them close to a genocide, the idea that their actions reveal a desire for genocide is a complete ass pull.

And even on the other stuff, you have an incredibly shallow understanding of the concept of preferences. People want multiple things at the same time, and those desires often conflict with each other. If you chose to pursue one desire over the other, that doesn't mean that you didn't desire the other. Israel wants its hostages back, but it also wants to punish Hamas and make sure Hamas cannot do a similar attack in the future. It would be stupid to get the hostages back at the cost of allowing Hamas to repeat Oct. 7 again.

Indeed. Nuance is frequently the first thing to suffer once a person adopts a political ideology.

 

[theprestige]

Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium to 3%, which is the standard for civilian uses.

The problem is that Iran cannot be trusted to limit its enrichment activities to civilian applications.

Under UN inspection and monitoring.

The problem is that UN inspection and monitoring cannot be trusted to effectively deter Iran from secretly enriching uranium beyond 3%.

 

[Ziggurat]

The problem is that UN inspection and monitoring cannot be trusted to effectively deter Iran from secretly enriching uranium beyond 3%.

It's not simply that we can't trust the UN. We already know that they've enriched beyond this. The UN has confirmed that they enriched beyond this. UN deterence has already and verifiably failed.

 

[theprestige]

I did not -
I pointed out that the bombing is no long-term solution, and that incentives will be necessary for peace.

What incentives would you suggest for Iran to adopt a policy of peace?

And no, making it easier for Iran to continue its policy of war doesn't count as a peace incentive.

the question is "if": Israel has not indicated in slightest that it wants any deal. It wants a permeant conflict.

I think it's pretty obvious that it's Iran that wants a permanent conflict. [ETA: Not really a permanent conflict. Iran's end goal is regional hegemony. They will continue to pursue conflict as a means to that end. Ultimately they will pursue nuclear weapons as a means to that end.]

Israel just wants to be able to fight [i.e., to oppose Iran's violent pursuit of regional hegemony at Israel's expense] on its own terms.

do you believe that bombs are enough to disarm Iran permanently?

It's what we have to work with, in the current political climate.

What would permanently disarm Islamofascist Iran are the same things that permanently disarmed Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany: Decisive defeat in total war, military occupation, martial law by the occupiers, and a transfer to democratic self-rule if and when the occupied population demonstrated to the occupier's satisfaction that they were ready for such a thing.

In the meantime, making drastic reductions in Iran's ability to wage offensive war is the best Israel can do.

 

[Mike!]

I guess this puts Trump between a rock and a hard place. Iran and Israel duking it out means it's possible Russia might lose it's drone supplier, which won't make Putin happy. What to do?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Why should Iran be offered any carrots incentives when its them getting their ◊◊◊◊ pushed in?

because you need to keep pushing forever; do you think that would be desirable?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I suspect that IIsrael has determined that sharing their plans with you and others of similar view would be counter productive.

they certainly didn't share them with Trump or anyone in the Israeli government - or you.
Do you have a clue what the longterm plan here is?

 

[Ziggurat]

So I've been thinking a bit about the bunker busting capabilities of the Israeli air force. I don't know exactly what they have in inventory, but they certainly could have GBU-72 bombs, which are 5,000 lb bunker busters and can be carried by F-15's, of which Israel has quite a few. The GBU-72 isn't our biggest bunker buster, though. That honor goes to the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP), aka GBU-57. That sucker weighs 30,000 lbs and is way too big to be carried by an F-15. Officially, it can be carried by the B-2 and is planned for use with the B-21. Israel does not have the B-2 and probably won't ever get the B-21.

Does that mean that they can't use the MOP? Not necessarily. The MOP is well within the weight limit of the C-130 cargo plane. The C-130 isn't specifically designed as a bomber, but it is designed to allow cargo to be pushed out the back during flight. And it has been used to drop the GBU-43 MOAB in this manner. The MOAB isn't a bunker buster, but it is a really big bomb, about 22,000 lbs. The MOP is heavier, but it's also shorter (~20 ft vs ~30 ft), so fitting one inside a C-130 should be possible. Technically speaking, there's really no reason a C-130 couldn't drop a MOP. And Israel has C-130's.

So, why isn't this a standard option already? Well, in most cases where you would want to hit a target that needs a MOP, the target probably has air defenses as well. And the C-130 is NOT a very survivable aircraft in contested airspace (unlike the B-2 and B-21). But right now, Iran is not contested air space. Right now, Iran's air defenses have been disabled. Now, you can't just throw something like a MOP in the back of a C-130 and expect it to work same day. You would need to design a sled for launching, integrate control software into your aircraft, etc. in order to make it happen. Which isn't terribly complex, but also not a one-day project. But it's not inconceivable that this work has already been done. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Israel has the option to drop MOPs on Iran. But do they have that option? I do not know. And if they did, they wouldn't say.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

And what do you think needs to happen in order for Israel to not have to worry about missile attacks?

Israel has to come to terms with its situation as a self-declared antagonist in a primarily Muslim region of the world that is completely depended on support from The West for its survival. By its mere geography it is unable to defend itself in-depth and has no natural borders to protect it. It is supremely vulnerable to a naval embargo in the absence of an outside Superpower on its side. And Climate Change will make it harder to support the population increase the current government envisions.
Considering the next 50+ years, a strengthening of Chinas influence in the region and a decline of the US ability to project power is likely, and with it the desire for economic growth in the least developed countries in the region; this means a relative rise of wealth, power and population of the countries surrounding Israel, all of which are bigger and have a larger population - and have more resources.
If Israel wants a normal, peaceful relation with its neighbours that is based not solely on the threat of US intervention, it has to start making friends, not more enemies.
In Gaza, it is currently raising an entire generation of children who have lost absolutely everything without any fault of their own - if Israel doesn't want them all as enemies, it better get a Marshall Plan going.

 

[Ziggurat]

they certainly didn't share them with Trump

What makes you think that?

 

[theprestige]

because you need to keep pushing forever; do you think that would be desirable?

More desirable than the alternative.

Also, the cold war offers a salutary perspective. The west kept pushing on the USSR, with no end in sight. This was incredibly valuable, since it stymied the Soviet Union's ambitions for European hegemony and global empire. This was too little, too late, for the European states Moscow already occupied at the end of WW2, but it was an immense boon for every other country in the region.

And in the end, the pushing on the Soviet Union did not go on forever. Ultimately, the pushing had the effect of collapsing that awful regime. And while the result has not been an unmitigated success, imperialist Russia today is a mere shadow of its former self. A shadow that probably could not develop nuclear weapons, if it didn't have them already.

I would welcome a similar fate for Iran: Keep pushing until they collapse so far that they can't develop nuclear weapons. Even if that results in more open attempts at expanding their borders, à la Moscow vs Ukraine, I would still welcome that outcome over the status quo.

 

[Manger Douse]

because you need to keep pushing forever; do you think that would be desirable?

No, but one side is coming off a hell of a lot worse and that's why its Iran that needs to offer Israel all the carrots

 

[The Great Zaganza]

What makes you think that?

Because no one, not Trump, not Rubio, not any Israeli have articulated any demands to Iran on what needs to happen for Israel to stop its attacks and assassinations.
if they wanted this to stop, they need to tell Iran what they want, or how could it do what is asked?

Iran was going to negotiate a deal on Sunday, and Israel killed the negotiators instead. So whatever strategy Israel has, it thinks it can achieve it through military means exclusively.
But the only thing that can be the result is a drawn-out violent conflict.