Qatari airspace closed

[AtomicBlondeRose]

I have friends in Qatar who received shelter in place notices from the US embassy earlier, then repeated by the UK Foreign Office. Schools are shut tomorrow and they’ve just closed the airspace. Pretty worried now.

It was a token retaliation so people are uneasy but there are no casualties. It was very obvious many countries, including USA and UK, were tipped off. Started yesterday with many airlines abruptly cancelling flights to Dubai. It's too much of a risk for them to have civilian deaths, particularly from the wealthy Gulf states.

I’m not sure trump will retaliate. I think Iran will feel they’ve saved face and the threat was clearly not very credible, the missiles were easily intercepted.
Now I imagine the gulf states will try to negotiate with Iran.

I hope people are right that this was just a symbolic show of force and then everything cools down. The thing I keep thinking, though, is if I was a billy big bollocks Mullah who’d been attacked by a billy big bollocks orange man unexpectedly (under the decoy of ‘two weeks to consider my response) I might be tempted to try a decoy attack on airbases and then something worse in the coming days when everyone had decided it was all calming down.

Iran put out a statement yesterday saying the stats of American military bases and citizens and basically said words to the effect that they were all fair game.

@Gattopardo ”I might be tempted to try a decoy attack on airbases and then something worse in the coming days when everyone had decided it was all calming down.”

While that may be successful as an attack, it would be suicidal. The Americans have just proved they can fly their B-2 bombers over Iran, and they also have B-52’s which would be equally as safe over Iran, though with a lot more air protection required.
Also today, Israel proved that they can literally ‘blow the bloody doors off’ a building.
I think both the Israelis and Americans are very, very keen not to have civilian casualties, and rightly so. Their gripe is not with the Iranian people.

Because this has all been very carefully orchestrated.

Imagine the poor prisoners, as if they haven't been through enough that they know have to go through the trauma and fear that Israel might kill them too.

The Iranians have already done it before. Told the Americans where they would bomb so they both could save face. Whether this time ends in the same way who knows.

Yes, they have done this previously and it ended there. I don't think they would be keen for further direct escalation with the US.

Iran wanted to respond to the US attack, but warned them in advance because they didn't want casualties.

It was performative, to show the world they had responded.

we just have to hope Trump's advisors give him the steer to STFU now and not do anything daft.

Because Iran informed people of their actions beforehand.

Hopefully an exit strategy and that’s it.

Under Biden though not the orange man. The orange man doesn't understand when to stop

ffs trump calling them weak in his response. Everything else was hopeful but calling it a weak retaliation is surely going to ruffle some feathers!

"Trump has just posted on social media, saying Iran's response was "very weak". He thanks them for "giving us early notice".
"Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered," the US president says on Truth Social.
He says 14 missiles were fired by Iran, 13 of which were "knocked down" and another headed in a "nonthreatening direction".
No Americans were harmed and "hardly any damage was done", he says. No Qataris were killed or wounded, Trump says.
"Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their 'system,' and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE. I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice," he says.
"Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same," he says."

No it was in Trumps first term and he played it down.

Hope that’s it then. ‘Very weak’ is a bit provocative but at least it sounds non retaliatory

@EasternStandard I'd like to think he's used the term 'weak' to justify a non-response?

Well it was weak really, they knew the missiles would be intercepted and just wanted to save face.

It does sound very provocative. Especially saying they were given advanced notice is just goading, since the Iranians were obviously not given any notice. It's almost taunting that is the best you have.

@Whatsinanamehey Personally I think I'd be more concerned if he didn't tone the attack down. He can't really retaliate now with more force after saying the response was weak and have support from others.

Yes it was weak, for reasons explained by others above. Trump should have taken the win diplomatically to end further escalation. What purpose could he have for taunting their response?

That's true aswell.

@katem98yes you may be right. As I read it I thought oh no to ok good.

But the pp on it being weak in reality is fair. I just don’t want any excuses for Iran to say we’ll do more.

No such thing as the element of surprise these days. So much imagery and Intel in various arenas. We would know when a nuke was launched. Whether we could shoot it down however.

Ex-RAF Intelligence

This is what happens when a country of poorly educated citizens elect an egotistical narcissist!