US and Israel strike Iran. (title edited by MNHQ at request of the OP)

[Twiglets1]

Israel attacked Iran early on Saturday morning, saying it had “launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran to remove threats to the state of Israel,” according to a military spokesman.

Israel closed its airspace and declared a state of emergency, in anticipation of
Iranian drone and missile strikes in response.

Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian media reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/28/israel-launches-attack-on-iran-as-explosions-heard-in-tehran

These turds have had a lot of power for a very long time. They're not going to simply roll over. I wonder if Trump has actually realised that.

I'm sure that has been factored in but the US & Israel seem to have decided that Iran don't have a huge amount of capability at this point in time.

Hope they are right ...

That’s an interesting insight about the lack of direction in the Iranian response. I imagine, though, that it’s a bit difficult to tell what is and is not part of a plan with Iran: they probably had to go all in once the Israelis and Trump said that regime change was the goal. ‘All in’ in Iranian terms is presumably sending rockets and drones in all directions.

I very much hope the Israelis have good intelligence on missile sites and IRGC infrastructure and that they and the US can destroy these sufficiently effectively to defang the Iranian regime externally - and more importantly - internally too.

That’s not true though. Because that’s not why the US and Israel are getting involved. They are getting involved because regime change suits them

Governments are killing their own in North Korea, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Sudan….

They do indeed, however, they don't seem to be exporting this to other countries. If you consider the people unfortunate enough to be under the control of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis and the support generally for Islamist terror eg the recently planned Manchester attacks.

Iran has a long history of assassinations and terror plots in Europe.

https://icct.nl/publication/iranian-external-operations-europe-criminal-connection

The US aren't just getting involved because "regime change suits them". There are a lot of reasons why they are getting involved. Being a big ally of Israel is one of them but not the only one. There are also legitimate fears about Iran building up nuclear capability, amongst other reasons. Iran makes it clear that they hate the US and have behaved aggressively towards them in the past.

They would be a danger to many countries if Iran had nuclear weapons, in particular Israel and the US. Look how they are behaving now! And how they have behaved even towards their own people in recent months. And how they have funded terrorism in other countries for so long.

You surely can't deny that Trump gave the Iranian leaders the opportunity to negotiate, on the nuclear issue in particular. They were given both the opportunity to negotiate and fair warning of what would happen if they didn't go into negotiations with the goal of getting a deal done quickly.

None of this means that a precedent has been set on not massacring your own people.

this is very risky. Can anyone think of a previous situation where a successful democracy was born of an air campaign by another country where there were no boots on the ground? Genuine question. Perhaps there is.

I’m not clear how a co-ordinated surrender of the Iranian regeime would happen. Who do they surrender to? Where do they go? And which military keeps the peace during a transition?

Europe, 1945.

I never said it did.

I was commenting on your statement that they are getting involved because regime change suits them. Yes regime change does suit them but there are many complex reasons for the US in particular to attack the Iranian regime at this point in time.

Iran is a risk to an entire region of strategic importance the way those other countries aren't.

9 shot in Pakistan as a crowd storms US consulate in protest.
apnews.com/article/pakistan-protesters-attacked-us-consulate-karachi-iran-a3cc0c3c6f126cc54a657f61d312a203

Have any Pakistanis protested about their own government attacking Afghanistan, or is it just the attack on Iran that's a problem?

Or against Pakistan's long standing terror campaign across the world? No.

Indeed.

No, because no Jews or Americans are involved with the Afghan skirmishes.

Kosovo? Not sure if that counts.

What an absolutely ridiculous thing of them to do - I was just watching the footage.
I will say that was a jont operation with the Pakistani security forces.

Of course.

It’s a bit desperate to imply some sort of Pakistan-Iran brotherhood and sympathy, as if the US and Israel have shattered a wholesome alliance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran–Pakistan_conflict

I think we can safely conclude that anti-US, antisemitic nutters have kicked off.

NATO peace keepers. Boots on ground. Still there.

NATO's role in Kosovo | NATO Topic

Let's face it Irans military capability will be gone in a couple of days and the wild missile strikes are its death throes.

The magnitude of the military defeat in such a comprehensive manner will I think mean the regime will lose all standing. We have to be patient and wait until the end of this aerial campaign before we see the regime start to collapse.

I think they’ll be ground down over the next couple of days too.

If the leaders decide to flee - where will they go? Russia?

I don't have a source, so not sure how true it is, but I've read report of Israeli drone assasinations of the Iranian riot police to facilitate conditions to over throw the regime.