Are people still rejoicing about Iran?

[binnibonnieboo]

When Israel and the US took out Khamenei there was a thread on how great it was. Some of us expressed that it may not end well, given how forced regime change went previously in many countries. We were told to stop "leftsplaining" to Iranians. How do those people think it's going so far?

I do not think so either.

Yes, sure their anti aerial and shipping is gone. The entrance to their nuclear installations is gone. Many of their missiles sites and many of their leaders, but:

The Islamic Republic number one line is that the US and Israel are the devil in person and they will not have much to do with them, or the rest of the West. And they keep 93 million people away from the world based on that. This point is hugely re-inforced now. Their determination to keep themselves well out of the rest of the world, do not allow internet access back on and double on the isolation of their population from us will double.
If there was any substantial opposition within Iran, it does not seem strong enough to confront the current government. And it could be crashed by the population having witnessed their land bombed, their people killed by the outsiders too. Both the Iranian government and the outside governments could look as bad as each other to some Iranians by now.
Plus the new leaders have an extra tool to bargain with their citizens to control them. Rationing and repairs and cover of basic needs.
The new goverment has an even bigger incentive to pursue a nuclear weapon than before. Let's hope that the fatwa stays in place. But they will have the money ( from the oil and the 93 million population they control), the contacts (Russia) and the raw materials in their soil. And it makes zero difference if Israel and US take this batch of U and all the centrifuges. Iran does have the ore and they can get themselves to this point as many times as they want. I think it will be rather difficult to sit them on any table to discuss any nuclear deal and 24/7 cameras are allowed in Iran again. I can only hope.
We may not evven have journalists allowed within Iran to report what is going on any more.

You cannot weaken an ideology with bombs or bullets. Nevermind the size of them. It just does not work.

And these guys are still in control of Iran's government and showing zero signs of cracking.

It would have been better to incentivise Iran to open up, keep talks, try to get observers in, show them that we are the guys who held talks in the UN, rather than those who send airplanes to dispatch you off. Too late now. And history will tell if anything better happened after this. But I cannot see it. Not even one better thing. And a shit lot of issues that will take us down.
No one wins in a war. No one.

Plus Trump..... Trump may think that he has won and done really good. But he has dispatch "alliances" for good now. US has lost its status with us, thanks to Trump.

How is the term “regime” suggestive of a small clique?
A regime is a system of government and administration. That alone indicates that it won’t be a small group of people, especially in a country of the size of Iran.
You haven’t seen any evidence they’re the enemy of their own people, really? What would you call a government gunning down people in their thousands, simply for protesting?
Or would you only be willing to call them “enemy” if every single Iranian wanted them gone?

Well, there you go. It’s only been three weeks so far.

My concern is as some are saying IRGC do as you suggest and get through it. The RoW thinks yeh that can’t happen again for a while if ever, politicians bury their head in the sand and in five to ten years Iran get to nuclear weapons.

Nearly everyone because if that evolves it’s at game over level.

Same as for pp I’m not getting the claim the people aren’t severely oppressed given the brutal actions against any one who opposes.

I was going to ask but then I remembered you had answered already @RedTagAlanyou said the outcome you want is for the people to be free of their authoritarian government / regime.

Do you still want that?

I am not claiming Iranians are not oppressed. I don't think there is any place in the modern world for theocracies. And I defo aint a fan of authoritarianism.

So you appear to be saying that the bombing is worth it because they might get nukes. And that somehow, if any IRGC are left at all, then they will get nukes no matter what, in 5 to 10 years.

And keep bombing them, because no matter what they must not have nukes, or a delivery system for them. And never trust anything they say... NEVER... because they will stop at nothing to get nukes.

And lets ignore evidence. Seismograph indicators of nuke testing, atmospheric radiation. All the stuff that can't be hidden, even with underground testing. As shown by the DPRK.

And we could go on and on.

But have you considered, having mentioned the DPRK, that Iran might just buy some nukes from them ?

That would make all the bombing pretty pointless I reckon.

I’ve put my concern which is where we are in five to ten years and a MAD situation. If what you’re saying happens then I think the risk is there.

If someone wants to say the opposite and it’ll be fine I’m happy to hear why.

On the last point, NK have the weapons and don’t use them. They’d be at odds with their own behaviour to sell some to Iran to bring destruction that would likely reach them too.

Plus your point is another reason to question having the IRGC in place.

And you support all the death and destruction going on at the moment because you have concerns that Iran MIGHT develop a nuke in 5 to ten years time.

Just one question really. And it's a genuine question, not a deflection or whataboutism.

Do you not have any concerns at all about the raving lunatic in the Whitehouse ?

MAD by the way. It has worked so far. In fact, it could be said with confidence that MAD has presented wars. Especially total war at WW2 level. That's not me saying I support everyone having nukes. Not at all.

I think you cannot destroy an ideology with bombs.
If it is a small emerging group, then, yeap it could work. But for something of the size of the Islamic Republic, they are far too determined and too strong to disappear because of the bombing. You need some other strong ideology and project to take over, from within.
Comunism has not been destroyed, even after all the attempts.
The Nazis were fully taken by a land invasion, that was what ended them. But... Iran is a huge difficult country to take by land from the outside. That is the core of the problem.
This war may end with the very same Islamic Republic, with the very same type of IRGC, just a few top ones missing. How is that any better?

I think the people do want change it’s just hard when torture and death happen to anyone who tries it.

@RedTagAlanI see your genuine question and will answer it properly just rushing to go out, hence the jumpy replies.

Nobody has said that a good proportion of civilians want change. But which change? Who do they support? Who is the opposition? How extended and strong is that oposition?
I have no clue.
If US really wanted to help the Iranians, they would have the answer to these questions and help said opposition till they were strong enough to take over. Like they, actually, did before with a prime minster who nationalised the oil industry.
It could, actually, even be a political overthrow, rather than military. If they gather a majority large enough.

'Are people still rejoicing (about the war) in Iran'. They seem to have gone very quiet including those who were rejoicing about the war on here.
It's obvious to most people that this war has already been a disaster in every way. It is also obvious that the US has absolutely no interest in helping Iranian civilians, having already murdered thousands of them and destroyed their homes and citites, polluted their air, hit a desalination plan, murdered 160 school girls, hit numberous hospitals. The list goes on.
Trump is clearly a man in full blown panic who has lost his head entirely. Each new TS post says the opposite of the one before it. He is desperate not to send in US troops in an attempt to unblock the S of H because he knows that the casualty numbers would be huge and he has his mid terms to think about. Instead, he is trying to bully the Europeans, China, Japan, Iran and making all sorts of threats that are not going to work.

I can't make sense of your logic here.

Why would the DPRK selling Iran a nuke be at odds with their own behavior ? What behavior ?

Why would the DPRK selling a Nuke bring destruction to the DPRK ?

And why is my point another reason to question having the IRGC in place?

The whole point of MAD is that it is supposed to prevent total destruction.

Going by memory here so happy to be corrected. Think back to Reagan and star wars. The USSR objected because they said it changed the terms of MAD. Because if the US could intercept Soviet Missiles in space, then it would put the US in a potential situation where it could attack first and destroy an incoming soviet reply. So it changed the balance of power such that MAD might not apply.

And FFWD to today with the Patriot and THAAD systems. This has also changed the balance of power. It has meant that ballistic and cruise missiles can be considered ineffective when used against the folk with interceptors. And I would argue that has contributed this war kicking off. Because Trump and Netanyahu appear to consider themselves invincible, because they have the power.

But the weak point with interceptors is numbers. And Iran (PRC also) developed a doctrine of having loads of missiles. Have more missiles than the other side have interceptors. And at the moment, with Iranian missiles getting through Israels Iron dome, and Trump now hyper panicking, that doctrine appears to be effective.

But ICBMs are different. Because physics. To get the range they need to go high into space. And space is big, re-entry speed is about Mach 15, so MAD still applies. ICBMs can't really be defended against.

For sure one could argue that a nuke could be fired on a normal ballistic or cruise the 1000 miles or so at Israel. But given that each warhead can take decades to make, the chance of one missile getting through against THADD would be low. And yes, they could fire loads of missiles to use up the interceptors and THEN fire their nuke.... BUT...

would MAD still not apply ?

That is, if Iran did use a nuke, then it would be replied to with nukes.

It's a flawed system for sure, and I don't want to see nuke proliferation, and Iran should not have them.

But for me, the way to prevent them getting a nuke is not to flatten the place, and say you will keep flattening them... just in case. At some point people need to talk again.

Pakistan has Nukes, India, DPRK, PRC, Russia too, and the thing that stops them using them is MAD. And it can also be said that MAD prevents large scale conventional wars.

But if Iran faces the prospect of a large conventional war every few years against nations who are not willing to talk to them, and who rip up existing non nuke deals , does that not actually incentivize them to get nukes, by any means possible ?

After all, they see DPRK, Russia and Pakistan, pretty much untouchable because of MAD. So are they not more likely to want join that club if a US election can result in an unstable genius in the WH, who is escalating a war he started to try flatten them anyway ?

MAD has worked so far. And yes, Iran should not get nukes. Nobody else should get them. But goodness me, Trump is doing a good job of making people want to have them.

If Iran did buy a nuke from the DPRK, would that not instantly put them into that club ?

Odd take, they really aren’t, do you have any idea how many missiles they have launched at gulf countries and how many have hit? It looks awful when you see a building on fore but actually the gulf has done a very good job. They’ve shot over 340 ballistic missiles and an insane amount of drones at dubai for example. You don’t need THAAD for drones, those can just be shot down. They are basically an extreme annoyance at this level rather than existential for their neighbours. Even the missile that hit Israel, it was bad but not war ending. Eroding THAAD supply is only useful if you have unlimited ballistic missiles and launchers. Which they don’t.

Energy prices are going up, thats not the same thing as no oil or gas.

I think the point is that given how the IRCG has behaved towards neighbours who had not allowed strikes from their own countries it is a regime which should never be able to hold anyone hostage with nukes. Their behaviour has just confirmed they cannot be allowed to stay. They destabilise the levant, iraq, syria and Yemen and now they are an explicit threat to the GCC.

The conversation around this really echoes Venezuela, mumsnet was full of fury at Trump whilst Venezuelans were celebrating. One poor Venezuelan came on to mumsnet to explain that the majority were really happy to see maduro gone but managed to get lectured by mumsnetters telling them what a terrible person Trump is (I don’t disagree with that) and how they should be very unhappy about the whole thing.

I am very sceptical of the idea that most Iranians support the regime, why a complete Internet blackout? Why the level of repression? If Iranians supported the government they would be on-line telling the americans and Israelis to fuck off. If you were the regime you would be happy with that, pretty much everything I saw on-line was protesters publishing video of street executions of protesters, body bags and crying families and the IRCG threatening citizens.

Removing an authoritarian regime is always painful, saying you shouldn’t do it because people will die in the short term seems a bit mad. May as well have said the west shouldn’t have fought Isis because of civilian casualties, people would still be being burned alive in cages in Iraq and Syria if there hadn’t been intervention.

Not an odd take at all.

Here is a Sky news article on it from the 3rd of March.

Iran's attacks are being repelled - but the numbers suggest there could soon be a problem | World News | Sky News

And we are starting to see ballistic missiles being get through And note the photo of the shahad drones in that article. Russia makes these as well now. And yes, small payload, but small arms fire wont do it. These have been using up the patriot interceptors. Ukraine has been developing anti drone drones to deal with these.

Dubai shot down 340 Ballistics. So thats 340 interceptors used. South Koreas stock of THAAD was being moved out a week or more ago.

And yup. There is plenty of oil. But oils are not the same. Each type has a specific refinery design. One oil supply can't just be swapped to another easily.

The US does import Gulf oil for example.

I agree Trump is facing a decision he wants to escape from.
He has been told what each previous president has been told about land invasion of Iran. He has to decide whether to get in or not. He knows the cost. And, obviously, other nations are staying away from it. "Poor Trump"! They are punishing him for being a better leader than them! I am sure that is what he thinks. Well, actually he keeps saying how lucky the world is that he is POTUS because he is willing to pursue this war
He is crazy enough to still take US marines into Iran. We shall see. There are a few days to go till they make it there
We do know many Iranians reject this regime. But how many will accept their land been taken by US? That is a different question. A very very different question.
Plus the financial effects of a long conflict will hit him hard.

If US calls it a day now, the picture is not that great either. The Iranian government is exactly the very same one they had before this, but bruised and full of even more hate.

Yes I think MAD deters all other countries who have nuclear weapons from using them. As seen by the fact they haven’t.

The reason there’s a solid list of countries who think Iran will use them shows they are the outlier and no one wants to risk it.

And going by the just sell them a weapon approach, what has stopped them so far? It’s not as if building a weapon has been easy for Iran. If you are convinced someone will just sell them one why haven’t they?

Good question. But something you said is rather important.

"It’s not as if building a weapon has been easy for Iran."

You said it. And do you have evidence they have been ? I mean real evidence. Not the incoherent ravings of a madman in the WH.

I agree with you.
This is really key imo:
'But how many will accept their land been taken by US? That is a different question. A very very different question.'

As far as I can see, although many Iranians hate the regime, they hate the thought of the US taking over even more. In fact, there are crowds of Iranians protesting against the US and pro regime at present, despite the bombings.
The chances of a 'good outcome' for normal Iranians in Iran when the US decides to invade is extremely close to zero. As I said, the motives of the US have never been to help the citizens of whichever is the latest country they want to overthrow/attack/interfere with. It is about resouces, $$$ and the dollar status. See recent removal of Maduro to commandeer the oil facilities. See deals being done in the ME by Trump's SIL, Kushner under the guise of 'negotiations'. See deals being done in Ukraine. Given the history of US invasions, etc, it is surprising the so many people still don't seem to understand this.

People do understand it. It may be convenient for them to look the other way or keep quiet. US is a huge power.

Or.. it was before Trump put his foot on it. There are a number of things happening around the world on the back of Iran war. The "allies" are not following and their words are being tougher by the minute. Greenland is deffended from the US (who could ever imagine that? If they had and have a full military permission to do whatever around Greenland! But here we are). Canada is pursuing a trade war with US and meeting with a huge number of other countries. Switzerland has halted the sale of weapons to US. Spain has denied use of their bases. India has not allowed US to use their ports.
The list is larger, I am sure I have missed some bits.

@Bringemout

Re the missile v interceptors thing above. When you say, quote, "You don’t need THAAD for drones, those can just be shot down.", have a look at this article.

Patriot interceptor likely behind Bahrain blast blamed on Iran, analysis shows | The Times of Israel

It appears they are using patriot for drones, not just shooting them down with whatever. So that can be added to the numbers calculation I posted above.

You can also find many articles such as this, from a couple of years ago.

Lockheed Martin to Produce 650 PAC-3 Patriot Missiles Annually – Global Defense Corp

That's 650 patriot interceptors made per year, with details for expansion and so on.

So when the analysts pull all this data together, the sums are easy to do. They are not just making stuff up, as Trump endlessly does.