We just got strange alerts on our phones here in Israel (3:00am local time), reading:
"""
Emergency alert: Extreme
Home Front Command instructions must be followed.
Due to the preparation for a significant threat, the Home Front Command's instructions, which are currently being distributed throughout the media, must be immediately followed.
Since 2002 Israeli court ruled individual conscientious objection is an exemption. There are lots of news stories of it being denied, but that is because collective action is considered protest and thus illegal.
The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that refusal to serve was legal on the grounds of unqualified pacifism, but "selective refusal" which accepted some duties and not others was illegal.
It also looks like it's not entirely simple to get the exemption, and if you don't do it correctly you could be jailed:
The diplomatic attempts on the US' behalf have been absolutely bewildering towards Iran. At first they refuse to negotiate, so the US lets them draw their own lines besides nuclear weapons. So Iran draws non-WMD "red line" clauses, and America ignores those immediately. Weeks of negotiating later, no signs of good-faith discussion from the US lead to the hammer coming down because there was "no other way" to solve it.
If it wasn't so goddamn confusing, it would almost appear deliberate. Between this and the US suing Yemen for peace, it's looking like a good decade to strongarm America's soft power.
It gets worse -- the person leading the negotiations with the US was one of the targets:
> Ali Shamkhani has been severely injured in a strike targeting his house and hospitalized. Mr. Shamkhani is currently spearheading nuclear talks committee appointed by supreme leader and is former secretary of National Security Council
It’s because American foreign policy is not dictating the future of this, it’s Israel’s project and they are directing things. America has never had any success negotiating anything in the Middle East. We take what’s given to us.
America's foreign policy forged the first Iran deal. Clearly there was intent to try the same approach a second time, clearly it didn't work.
> America has never had any success negotiating anything in the Middle East.
Trump hasn't, let's be clear. But given his posturing towards the Gaza conflict it really shouldn't surprise you that his credit with Arabs is rock bottom.
You can only pretend Houthis are making ballistic missiles in their caves and arent directly supplied and fed targeting data by Iran to sink ships crossing red sea for so long.
Which of the three points are you suggesting “Iran supplies arms to the houthis in Yemen” satisfies in the above criteria to justify the preemptive attack in Tehran?
It seems like it doesn't justify a preemptive attack, but rather a counter attack. Israel is responding to missile attacks from Yemen by attacking the manufacturers in Iran
Why is Israel in Gaza? Oh yeh, because Hamas invaded Israel on Oct 7 2023 and killed 1,200 people. To put that death toll in perspective, it would be like a Mexican Cartel invading the US and killing 41,000 people. For China it would be 174,000 people.
because usa forced elections to palestine assembly in 2006 despite objections of israel and pa government (which was afraid that hamas that will win).
when hamas won, usa was horrified by outcome and "sponsored" PA security forces to get rid of hamas in gaza, but hamas prevailed and killed everybody who were against (throwing from buildings, dragging behind bikes) it or tortured them into submission
A less militant government would have simply been rolled by the rabid dog that is the Israeli state sooner. The eliminationist ethnocentrism from both officials and citizenry has been consistent and not at all hidden.
Israel is in Gaza because they have funded and supported Hamas, in the hope they would use those funds to invade them, giving them pretext for a genocide.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu [1]
It's an unverified quote which Netanyahu denied saying. In any case, Israel never funded Hamas as many claim; they allowed aid from Qatar which is pretty different.
I'll add that Israel allowed aid from Qatar after pressure from west and headlines in mass media that hundreds of thousands are going to starve in gaza if israel won't allow money from qatar.
the underlaying issues was that after PA tried to depose Hamas in Gaza and failed, it stopped paying salaries to everybody so Gaza was broke
It is quite clear that ever since Yassar Arafat walked away from a deal with Israel during Clinton’s Presidency Israel has deliberately made Gaza and most of the West Bank a giant prison. Over the last 50 years far more Palestinians have been killed by Israel than Israelis killed by Palestinians. Palestinians have no navy, air force, tanks, or helicopters. The power differential between the two sides is vastly in Israel’s favor.
Israel has had plenty of votes since then to elect another Prime Minister who would push for peace.
Why is this considered a success of one assassin instead of a failure of a broad democratic electorate to push for peaceful resolution?
In fact, the protests against Netenyahu and young people refusing to serve the IDF shows that Israel was trying to push for peace internally.
Then Hamas decided to attack a music festival of teenagers and young adults who want a free palestine. They spent over a year planning this operation all to kill a bunch of Israeli's who didn't exactly disagree with their cause.
If Hamas hadn't attacked, Bibi might already be in prison. You know, I'm not convinced Hamas wants peace any more than Bibi does.
multiple rounds of negotiations happened after rabin death. camp david in 2000 for example which resulted in second intifada. taba. etc. negotiations continued till 2013 or so.
even Netanyahu, which was elected after Rabin death signed follow up agreements to Oslo as result of which Israel handed over Hebron and additional areas in west bank to PA.
It wasn't failure of "broad democratic electorate to push for peaceful resolution" but violence of second intifada and non-compliance of PA with oslo accords from very beginning: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm
I’m not claiming it was a good deal. I’m claiming that since he walked away from the deal Israel has decided that it will slowly consume all of the West Bank and make living there and in Gaza a hell for Palestinians. It’s a slow genocide. Though now in Gaza it’s been sped up.
You’ll see the one you posted was unrepresentative of what was actually on the table and what the Israeli’s would agree too wouldn’t deliver a viable state and it was divided up by Israeli roads and other security apparatus
Then 100x those figures and you find the proportion that Israel killed in Gaza versus its population, significantly women and children, for perspective.
Hitler said "lebensraum" was for 'security' too. It did not in fact make Germany more secure, and the same will ultimately prove true for Israel's very transparent attempts to use the Oct 7 ghetto uprising as a pretext to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
It was a gamble, if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor it certainly seems possible Germany would have taken most of Europe and had enough juice left over that their Russian incursions wouldn't have been fatal.
When a people are oppressed and suppressed enough they fight back. People fight back using methods that are available to them. Palestinians have been systematically oppressed by Israel. Gaza is basically a giant prison. The people there have no navy, tanks, helicopters, or air force. They did inflict some damage. The response has been so disproportionate that it is rightfully viewed as immoral. Palestinians deserve peace and pursuit of happiness too. So do Israelis. One side has that much greater than the other and one side has been denying the other side those things for decades.
I agree with all of this. So what do you think the Israelis should do? Ive been against the war from october 8th saying Israel should focus on border control instead but I can see why the Israelis wouldnt be happy with that solution. Tel Aviv has been pretty continuously bombarded for the last 2 decades by Hamas, hard to say they just have to live with that.
Israelis have a right to live peacefully. Unfortunately they are not peaceful toward Palestinians. They continually encroach and annex Palestinian land in the West Bank oppress Palestinians. Palestinians fight back but it’s a hopeless cause for them.
From my understanding Israel tried to make peace by exchanging land for peace treaties. Only the Egyptians took them up on that. I think Israel is done seeking a moral solution and are now slowly annexing all of the West Bank and now Gaza. Palestinians should be given land somewhere and/or forced to emigrate. They’ve clung to what was once theirs but the reality is they are never getting it back.
But Israel is being immoral and their treatment of Palestinians is deplorable.
Im not seeing a plan here. I agree that the Israeli rights goal to annex the west bank is a huge problem and probably makes a peace that the palestinians accept impossible. Im not so sure Israelis want to annex gaza as much as expel the gazans. The more analysis I do the more doomed the situation looks.
> Palestinians should be given land somewhere and/or forced to emigrate.
This is what the Israelis are trying to do. No one is willing to take them.
And why did they do that? It's like gang warfare, never ending. It started long before Hamas and we've all lost track of why so finger pointing only makes it worse.
This is the kind of thinking that keeps this insanity going on forever.
You're demonstrating my point: we've lost track of "who started it" and it doesn't even matter now. It's too easy for each side to claim it's the other side's fault. They both have legitimate reasons to so it's easy to get support for those claims, too.
But I would argue that correct vs incorrect is entirely irrelevant. Nothing you or I can say can justify their actions.
The point is you would not be correct. Hamas wants to end the existence of Israel but lacks the ability. Israel wants to coexist with Gaza but Hamas doesn't want that.
You say you can match any claim I make about Hamas with an equivalent one about Israel.
I say that yes but my statement about Hamas would be factual while yours would not be because Hamas really does want to destroy Israel while Israel just wants coexistence with Palestinians. At its core Hamas is an Islamic Theocratic Supremacists group that truly hates Jews. Just read their charter.
Because in 2023 Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s most powerful enemies in the region, was expressing willingness to normalize relations with Israel. So Iran orchestrated attacks via its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, in order to torpedo the normalization process. (People forget that Hamas wasn’t the only one attacking Israel in October 2023—beginning October 8th Hezbollah began firing rockets and artillery into northern Israel, forcing over 90,000 Israelis to flee for safety.)
Israeli and american intelligence agree that Iran was not aware of the October 7th attack. Hamas did that by themselves. In hindsight we also know that Israel thoroughly infiltrated the Iranian forces, so if they had known, Israel would have known in advance as well.
If Russia had the capability to do so without facing an extreme counter attack you better believe they'd blow the shit out of weapon manufacturers.
The problem for Russia is that such an attack would bring in all of NATO which they likely can't defend against. And either way would result in massive damage to nearly everything in Russia.
OTOH, Israel can attack Iran and as shown in the past[1], Iran will roll over and only send a weak-ass slow drone attack as a response.
I wasn't asking about capabilities. I asked the user if he believed Russia has the right to attack EU countries providing weapons to Ukraine, possibly causing civilian deaths, just as he thinks Israel had the right to do so in regards to Iran.
This question is difficult to answer because it's unclear what you mean by "right" in this context. The moral high ground? Russia doesn't have that now, nor has it ever had it throughout its history of military expansionism.
I think this is lost on many people. There's no authority overseeing sovereign nations, no real law or consequence to law-breaking even if there was one. There's only allies, treaties, pacts between nations, military might, and the consequences of aggression that keep the peace. Russia would be bombing all the supply lines of weapons flowing into Ukraine if the consequences weren't so high. There's certainly no law that is preventing them from doing so, only the consequences of their actions.
I doubt that “many people” are ignorant of the fact that there are no real supranational authorities that can stop wars. But it seems that some people gloss over the fact that these discussions aren’t about stopping nations from waging war, as if the UN (let alone a comment section) could do that. For some reason which goes beyond smug “might makes right” apparent-truisms, even mighty nations justify their wars. Perhaps especially to their own citizens. Which in turn means that discourse on what is “moral” might matter a tiny bit.
> Russia would be bombing all the supply lines of weapons flowing into Ukraine if the consequences weren't so high. There's certainly no law that is preventing them from doing so, only the consequences of their actions.
Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and people in the comments threw their hands up and said the strong take what they can? No, me neither.
> There are no indications that Iran intends to use nuclear weapons against Israel.
The Iranian government are rather extreme theocrats, but they aren’t a suicide cult. They know that a nuclear first strike against Israel would result in massive nuclear retaliation aimed at annihilating Iran as a modern nation-state. They aren’t going to do that.
I think their primary reason for pursuing nuclear weapons is as a deterrent against conventional invasion, forcible “regime change” like what the US did to Saddam Hussein - much as Iran welcomed the removal of one of their national archenemies - given Iraq is majority Shi’a, a democratic Iraq is generally more friendly to Iran, although not all Iraqi Shi’a are pro-Iranian (e.g. Ayatollah Sistani, who is very influential, dislikes how Iran has politicised the religion) - but it raised the risk the Americans might try the same thing on them.
The U.S. shot down a civilian Iranian airplane and killed around 200 people. The commander of the ship that did this later got promoted. This does not mean the U.S. wants to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Your points are not valid.
He did not get promoted later. I was wrong. But he wasn’t fired, relieved of command or put in jail. He later received an award for his naval service. But all of this irrelevant to the point I made.
When a Soviet fighter pilot shot down a Korean jetliner the U.S. reaction to that was quite a bit different than our reaction to the Vincennes shooting down the Iranian jetliner.
Edit: In case people don't understand why this is the kind of comment we'd call out: I've said a few times in different ways that Hacker News should be a place where we can discuss difficult topics. There are few more difficult topics than armed conflict between nations. It's pointless to have a discussion that mostly consists of people with entrenched oppsing views hurling insults at each other. If somebody is wrong, refute them with opposing evidence. Otherwise the only thing we'll achieve is to drive away anyone who is interested in actually learning anything new about the topic, in which case we're much better off not having the discussion at all.
When a person writes something that is obviously nonsensical it should be called out as such. This is especially so when the topic is about ongoing acts of war.
If it's an important topic, which it is, it's all the more important to convey the substance of your point, without the abusive barbs. Dropping the swipe "Please don’t act as if you don’t know that you are peddling nonsense" would have made all the difference. We can't know what people "know" when they write things on a discussion board.
In general I agree. But not in this case. In the “polite” approach what happens is that obviously bad assertions are made and one politely engages but the starting point is such that you are engaged in an attempt to just get to a reasonable place. It’s sort like how combatting a lie is much more effort than spreading one.
My comment above was not for the person who made. I don’t engage with such people. It was for the people who stumbled upon it. I want them to know that there are people who think the comment is ridiculously bad.
There's no "not in the case" on HN, though. People can figure out the quality of a comment themselves, perhaps helped along by a comment that disputes what the first comment says. But the idea you're doing everyone some service by trashing the place is misplaced, it's just not how things work.
Nobody is interested in banning you, people are simply asking you not to shit in the place they use so that they and you can continue using it.
Trying to present this shitting as some sort of principled martyrdom or, heaven help us, favour to the rest of us is silly, selfish and unconvincing. Just ease off on the shitting in the future, it's not like most everyone else has any trouble doing it.
Martyrdom? I’m not important enough or self centered enough to have any feelings of martyrdom with regard to this site. I was just letting you know that I don’t agree with you and I’m not going to stop. As such the only option is for me to be banned. Pointing out this fact does not qualify as martyrdom.
If you cannot make your point clear politely you also cannot force it into people. It just look terrible for everyone reading the conversation. I actually agree with the direction your argument but can't agree with the form. And also unfortunately if you position was the opposite, the moderation would be less severe, but it is what it is. This is an US American forum after all.
Ethics are utterly irrelevant in geopolitical affairs. When nation states face existential threats they'll do whatever it takes to survive. They might invent some ethical justification after the fact for public consumption.
And I don't mean this as a particular criticism of Israel. Most other countries do the same sort of thing when necessary.
That's only because we're throwing away the hard fought prize humanity earned at the cost of two world wars and millions of lives: the system of international laws and the UN.
Nah. The UN is a cute little debating society but it never had any meaningful capacity to enforce international treaties on it's own. Relations between sovereign states have always been fundamentally anarchic, and always will be.
The current system might be bad, but some sort of world government run by the UN would be far worse.
On the contrary, the US has become England: A state of the art cutting edge industrial society and empire turned into a smug entitlement driven immoral turd that is far beyond useless for everyone outside and most inside of it. This will inevitably trigger a global effort to disconnect and help foster the downfall. It will be expensive for everyone involved.
Also wise to remember, there are now so many quiet parts you can't say out loud that pretty much everyone who knows anything no longer participates in online conversation.
We don't make things in the West anymore so our dialog has no constructive purpose. You don't care what I think, say or who I am but those with nefarious intend are the ones paying close attention to everyone.
The destructive people are outperforming the rest of us and it can only end in one way. It has always ended the same way.
> the US has become England: A state of the art cutting edge industrial society and empire turned into a smug entitlement driven immoral turd that is far beyond useless for everyone outside and most inside of it.
Oh don't worry, Trump and his cronies are working hard to make the US not cutting edge at anything anymore.
"Iran general says Tehran aims to wipe Israel off the ‘global political map’", that's consistent with other leaders and the regime ideology since the very start
“We warn them [Zionists] that if a new war breaks out, it will result in their termination,”
and there are no shortage of such quotes, and even concrete plans (for example by using Hamas and Hezbollah), one attempt of which we have witnessed in 2023
> active preparations that turn that intention into a positive danger
>a situation in which the risk of defeat will be greatly increased if the fight is delayed
We know independently that Iran has been enriching massive amounts of uranium to degrees of purity only suitable for nuclear weapons.
See last announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to Israel there have been other advancements in the nuclear program which might lead them to a nuclear bomb
1. Arming and organizing proxies to attack Israel for years is much more than just intention to do injury, it is actual. Those proxies continue attack on Israel (the latest missile launch at Israel was this week). How many missiles does a country have to eat before clause 1 if fulfilled? Any country besides Israel that number would be 1. In additional Iran does not recognise Israel's right to exist as a country and explicitly calls for Israel's destruction.
Wish it didn't come to this, but at this point I can only hope the strikes are successful - nothing good can come out of another fanatic regime with nukes.
US/Israel hegemony is causing massive instability and chaos.
Its driving countries to pursue nuclear weapons as its the only way to ensure you're not at the whims of authoritarian and fundamentalist regimes.
I can see an fundamentalist US president at some point and Israel is certainly not become any more secular or moderate, and their democracy is sliding down the toilet bowl.
That doesn't make any sense in this context. The failed, theocratic pariah state that is Iran, was the result, in part, of 'Western destabilization'. It will be more like an 'undo' when the Iranian people finally overthrow the regime.
If the Iranian people overthrow the regime I agree; that’s not what you are saying though. You are suggesting that Israel should overthrow the regime. You must understand from the last 20+ years of history that this would not be productive.
You are suggesting that Israel should overthrow the regime.
My conception of how Iranians would overthrow their government doesn't involve Israeli soldiers invading Iran, or a full-fledged war. My hope is, given the precarious state that Iran already is in, that an expensive and embarrassing failure - such as the destruction of its nuclear facilities - might be the final straw.
I agree that a regime change could turn out to be a disaster, but if Pahlavi is as prepared for the event as he claims, then it could be fantastic.
I don’t know if there are any “good guys” left. Maybe there are some countries too small and remote to matter on the international scale, like Iceland and New Zealand.
I would include Brazil in the list. And other south American countries. We are quite peaceful with the exception of some drugs war. But when the US is too busy, that problem goes away.
You do understand that an Iranian can hate the regime in their country and at the same time, have zero love or respect for Israel and its government's (at least currently) insane tendencies and bullying tactics.
I say that as someone who previously always defended Israel's responses to its neighbors and the country's better aspects. I'm hard pressed to do the same after months of that raving imbecile Netanyahu's grotesque policy of annihilation in Gaza. I just don't know how to call it anything else. Even if he has a legitimate mandate to destroy Hamas (no flower-power, peace-loving band of idealists themselves by the way) starving children to death through blockades has absolutely no justification.
Yeah I can understand that, but I'm pretty sure the hatred of the Iranian regime far supersedes the feelings towards Israel.
Just put yourself in their shoes - you've been exiled from your country, family and friends, would you not cheer on anyone attacking the regime that caused that? I think that's just expected human psyche.
Just like if, lets say, North Korea suddenly attacked Russia, I'm pretty sure Ukrainians would cheer for that.
>Just put yourself in their shoes - you've been exiled from your country, family and friends, would you not cheer on anyone attacking the regime that caused that?
Yes, you would likely cheer anything that tumbles the regime that caused your miseries. What you likely wouldn't cheer however, are missile and other attacks by an external power against places where civilians are killed. Regardless of how much you hate your country's regime, seeing bombs explode in the country's urban areas will likely make you think of some possible family member of yours being a victim of those bombs. This viscerally goes beyond hatred for your regime.
>Just like if, lets say, North Korea suddenly attacked Russia, I'm pretty sure Ukrainians would cheer for that.
What? This comparison is completely off base. If North Korea attacked Russia, Ukrainians could definitely cheer, but Russians, even those who hate Putin, probably wouldn't. Our debate above has nothing to do with citizens of a third, enemy country's feelings about the regime that has invaded them being attacked by someone.
And you can confirm they don't privately support Israel either through social media.
There's a lot of hopium among Zionists that they have widespread support, but really, they're as hated worldwide as the Nazis were. Japan in particular dropped from massively pro-Israel to massively anti-Israel. And this was from a poll last year. It's only gone more anti-israel since then.
I would implore you to understand how social media influences people.
• And you can confirm they don't privately support Israel either through social media.
• I would implore you to understand how social media influences people.
That seems like a contradiction, but I think this thread has run its course. Nobody needs to read us debating which of us is the more media-literate and level-headed.
A possibility of an imminent strike on Iran was discussed in the Israeli press for the last few days. There have been several signs that it might happen, including the US removing people from its embassies in the region, etc.
TOP SECRET//SCI//NOFORN//SOCCENT-32 POTENTIAL TARGET SITES (TS//TKI/RSEN//REL TO USA, FVEY)
Facility Name Type Latitude Longitude
Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) Nuclear Facility 32,580744 51,827081
Natanz Nuclear Complex Facility Nuclear Facility 33,724229 51,726114
Parchin Ammunition Plant Nuclear Facility 35,527676 51,765176
Khorramshahr Military Base Military Base 30,4580556 48,1889111
IR-40 Nuclear Facility Nuclear Facility 34,37331 49,240749
Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) Nuclear Facility 35,738431 51,388253
TOP SECRET//SCI//NOFORN//SOCCENT-J2
[edit 2] More relevant to HN. the Dolphin-class submarines are launching missiles as predicted, the US also thought they would be part of the 'cyber-war', which they define as "electronic jamming to distort and disable radar signals, rendering air-defense systems ineffective." Intel people are such tools, jamming and spoofing is 'cyber-war' and a 'cyber strike'.... I guess they are more right, it's not like you are hacking during a war, that was months ago which is intel. But it's language used for funding purposes.
[edit 3] I will say the "agents will carry out sabotage operations inside Iran" Who'd be nuts enough to do that? The US would have to have that wrong
It's fascinating that you continue to post on this account, frequently, despite the fact your posts are automatically dead and have been for some time.
He's not the only one, I noticed this trend more than once with shadow banned people continuing to yell at the cloud several times a day for month, I don't know if they didn't notice their ban or didn't care.
Likely yet another effect of our society-wide neglect of mental health issues…
Searching for “Israel” and “downvotes” and “flagged” in the HN search shows a steady stream of people complaining for years about an apparent coordinated campaign to silence criticism on this website. It’s frankly a ridiculous stain on a website that otherwise has a lot of interesting discussions.
Searching that for almost anything will give you the same results - someone is invariably unhappy at the perceived treatment of one topic or another.
There have been a bunch of massive threads on the Israel/Gaza conflict over the last year and a half and the bulk of the comments in those have been critical of Israel.
Generic trope and meta comments get regularly flagged because they are generic tropes or meta comments, not because they have something to do with Israel.
Hopefully Iran does a little retaliation and then goes back to their covert proxy war rather than it escalating to open warfare. I honestly don't even know if either Iran or Israel could sustain open warfare given the distances involved without dragging in other forces to help. I would rather those forces not be ours.
Stay out of what? The Trump admin’s foreign policy is to allow Netanyahu to operate autonomously. The same they offer ICE.
In terms of American foreign policy interest it’s basically making us more vulnerable.
In so many words, Netanyahu might get us all killed. Trump will not decry anything Netanyahu does, so it’s 4 years of war and you better believe it. Putin also has no incentive to give Trump a peace deal. Provide enough war zone cover and Taiwan will just happen, all of a sudden. Negotiate all three peace deals, please, I’d love to see it.
Trump is out of his element here, he’ll be leaving a world at war. When you a let a pot of boiling water keep boiling on the lowest heat, you may not see all the boiling bubbles, but I assure you it’s boiling. It’s a boiling world, and without certain advents like AI, we’d literally have no positive news (think that through for a second). Without the miracle of AI, all we’d have is the most depressing world situation you could imagine.
> The Trump admin’s foreign policy is to allow Netanyahu to operate autonomously. The same they offer ICE.
to be honest, by now, it feels like the opposite, Netanyahu is allowing Trump admin to operate autonomously when it comes to internal affairs, for foreign policy Netanyahu is dictating the US foreign policy.
Go check Twitter, for some reason 90% of congress members immediately started praying for Israel after Israel's attack, as if they were handed over the message
It says a lot about the discussion here that the above negative comments about the proxy nature of Israel/The USA and war are upvoted while this comment about...proxies and war is downvoted. Shows a lack a seriousness/depth of thought but instead it's all just talking points and point scoring.
On the other, based on the comments I have been reading here for the past couple years, you are supposed to embellish or flat out lie to support your point.
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamewar comments and ignoring our requests to stop. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
(This is not a comment about the news, just about accounts that break the site guidelines.)
> There are much better methods to prevent Iran from getting nukes.
And what if those methods don't work?
Obviously I would prefer all this to be resolved in a diplomatic way a decade ago, but in some cases military action will be the only way beyond a certain point.
So comforting, even you, an avowed Zionist hater (in your own words), (and imo terrorist apologist) couldn’t lie enough to claim that they were actually effective.
Would you get on a plane that “worked kinda well”. Would you trust a heart surgeon who said he was “kinda ok”.
Iran has continuously called for the total destruction and death of all Jews and all of western civilization for the last 40+ years as a religious mandate demanded by their god, what makes you think they would ever stop pursuing that?
honestly, I wouldn't engage with runarburg anymore, looking at his comments history, he's got some kinda unhealthy obsession with jews and israel. nearly all his submissions are anti-jewish iranian propoganda, he spends a lot of time spreading totally false nonsense about jews, you're not really gonna get anywhere with him.
This is a testable hypotheses. We can look at arms buildup in history. I predict that you are wrong. Conventional arms buildup tends to correlate with war. The more war there is, the more countries built up their arsenals.
Further, I predict that there is a negative correlation with international treaties, and bilateral agreements and arms buildup. That is, the more nations cooperate, the more they negotiate and agree on stuff, the fewer arms they pursue and keep.
I don‘t feel like doing the research to gather evidence for my hypothesis, but mine at least doesn’t fail the sniff test. Feel free to prove me wrong with data.
That is not my hypothesis. My hypothesis is about weapons buildup in relation to a) war, and b) treaties and agreements. And it is about trends and likelihoods, not absolutes. To restate my hypothesis. More of (a) = more weapons. More of (b) = fewer weapons.
Sure we can look at Israel, a nation which has a part of tons of international treaties and agreements (albeit fewer then most other nations) and yet is one of the most antagonistic militarized nations in history. So we know there are exception. North Korea might be an example of a country that passes the sniff test of my second hypothesis. Outside of the most international treaties and agreements and also extremely militarized.
But on the other hand, according to my first hypothesis, Israel does pass as an example that contributes to the passing of the sniff test. Israel is probably the country that has seen the most wars and conflicts since World War 2 (maybe USA and Russia/Soviet Union have seen more; I don‘t know), and in accordance to my hypothesis, it is also one of the most militarized nation in the world currently (including one of very few nuclear armed nations).
EDIT: I was just reading an interview with Jim Walsh—a US based nuclear weapons expert, and he seems to agree with me and disagree with you:
> “I think there’s strong scholarly evidence – and certainly, if you look at the politics of the moment – to believe that in this attack, Israel will get the exact opposite of what it wanted, which is Iran is going to decide to go for the bomb.”
We know that experts are fairly bad at predictions.
Plus we have the latest report from the UN that Iran has been breaching their nuclear agreements.
Iran most likely won't be able to redevelop a nuclear program if the current one is destroyed (and Israel could easily destroy it again when/if they restart)
Iran’s behavior is exactly in line with my hypothesis. They a) were involved in regional conflicts against Israel (including having bombs dropped on them from Israel), and b) had their treaties broken by the USA.
Dropping the treaties and invading Iran does seem to correlate with weapons buildup.
You seem pretty sure about your beliefs about this, and I doubt there is anything I can say which will convince you otherwise. But when you put forth a testable hypotheses, and experts in the field seem to disagree with your conviction about the matter, perhaps it is time time maybe consider that maybe you are wrong and the experts are right.
Because it seems fairly obvious to me that if the current nuclear program is taken out the chances that they'll be able to redevelop it in the near to medium term future are extremely low.
How exactly will they be able to do so? They won't be able to protect the sites from further attacks, not to mention losing a significant chunk of the expertise in form of personal along with the materials required.
It's not some Lego set, rebuilding such a project is insanely complex and time consuming, chances of success are very low (assuming Russia, North Korea, etc, don't decide to just hand some over)
Plus, even if they did develop a new program by the time it's done anti missile tech will most likely reach a new phase.
Iran’s “treaty” was they get to build a giant stockpile of conventional weapons in exchange for not building a nuclear weapon… but they get to continue enriching uranium at levels that would make it very easy to quickly ramp up to nukes if they choose. And the treaty expires in 10 years (guess how long ago the treaty was signed).
Not only did they immediately flout the rules and enrich uranium past the levels they were allowed to, the also in defiance of the treaty built secret nuclear reactors that weren’t monitored, and pursued building and stockpiling all the parts necessary to build a nuclear warhead.
Throughout this entire conversation you’ve made many claims that aren’t true at all. You’ve shown extreme bigotry against Jews and Israel.
Iran’s military spending has not significantly increased since 2015. Treaties also have a tendency to be extended or replaced by something similar. Your hypotheses that Iran’s buildup of conventional weapons would increase as a result of the nuclear agreement is wrong.
Most experts agree that the Iran nuclear deal was a success until USA withdrew in 2018.
Iran’s military spending hasn’t decreased significantly since 2015. Which you would expect if your “hypothesis” had any legs. It has in fact increased. Thus again disproving your spurious claims.
Please point to these supposed experts, everything I saw from that time was that only those naive enough to believe a pack of lies claimed the nuclear deal would work, while everyone else was pointing out all the ways Iran was totally subverting it.
Note that neither tout the success of 2015 directly (why would they, it failed after USA withdrew) but rather are proposing a new deal would build upon stuff that worked in 2015:
> In 2015, the JCPOA’s durability stemmed in part from expert-level dialogue between scientists, including US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi, then-head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Reestablishing that kind of technical cooperation is essential to crafting a framework that can both verify compliance and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Your own data shows expenditures rose for 2 years after the signing of the treaty… and once the US pulled out they dropped precipitously. That’s ignoring the context of what was happening at the time namely, Iran directly supporting the genocidal Syrian regime.
Those “experts” don’t at all support your claims that the 2015 deal was or could be successful. We’re not currently discussing the deal that might be made, as details are changing too rapidly for anything they said last week to be relevant anymore (e.g. many of the scientists who were pursuing a second jewish genocide are now dead). We’re discussing whether the 2015 deal was viable immediately after it was signed… based on your own data and idea (treaty = declining military spending) it appears it wasn’t.
Again. My hypothesis is about trends and probability, not absolutes. One datapoint is not enough to prove or disprove anything.
I purposefully tried to find the most up to date opinions on the matter while still before Israels attacks. But here is what experts were saying back in March 2018
> Iran is Implementing Nuclear-related JCPOA Commitments, Director General Amano Tells IAEA Board
Lol k. So you opinion is that maybe if the rest of the world lets Iran build up a huge stockpile of weapons and enrich uranium 50% of the way to a nuke, they’ll not be as evil?
I guess that’s an opinion someone could have…
Regarding your sources, yes those are the naive experts I was talking about. The same ones who allowed Iran to build a secret facility right under their nose, the same one that finally admitted years too late that actually Iran is far out of compliance. They’re about as effective as UNIFIL.
Iran just withdrew from the NPT. So once again, your high minded ideas don’t have any basis in reality. This comes on the heels of the IAEA finally deciding to acknowledge the reality that Iran has not been in compliance for quite a while.
Meanwhile you felt your personal opinion should be what decides the fate of half the world’s Jews.
I wasn’t going to engage with you further since you’ve gone pretty far into personal attacks against me, but I do need to correct this.
Iran has not (as of today) withdrawn from the non-proliferation treaty. All that has happened (as of now) is that the Iranian parliament is currently preparing a bill to withdraw, nothing more. Parliament will have to introduce and approve it, and the government will need to enforce it before Iran finally withdraws, and we don‘t know whether any of that will happen.
Iran’s current government (including the foreign ministry) is on record being against nuclear weapons, and the Supreme leader seems pretty much against them, whether or not that is a lie remains to be seen.
Aside: The above link provides a calm summary of version events since USA withdrew from JCPOA, including the fact that Iran was in compliance until 2019; I advice you to read it and reevaluate your stance against treaties as an effective way to disarm states.
What I am arguing here is that the fact that a nuclear armed nation is now attacking Iran will increase the probability that Iran will eventually get nuclear weapons, while negotiating a treaty will do the opposite. Israel is definitely showing Iran a good reason for pursue nuclear weapons, and the military hawks inside Iran’s leadership definitely have a much stronger case now. Hopefully they will still fail at convincing the supreme leader of taking further steps in acquiring them, and remaining a member of the non-proliferation treaty.
Finally, a question. You seem to not believe that treaties are an effective way to disarm states. Why do you care whether or not Iran is a member of the non-proliferation treaty? According to your beliefs, it wouldn’t matter either way. Iran would be equally likely to get the bomb inside or outside the non-proliferation treaty.
I haven’t personally attacked anyone. I pointed out some egregious behavior you engaged in and suggested that you refrain from doing that in the future. But it seems even in this comment you again engaged in that same bigoted behavior. It’s very disappointing. I’m really sorry that it’s so difficult for you to discuss a topic without showing extreme prejudice and in some cases outright hostility. Again this is not a personal attack, but rather me calling out inappropriate and offensive language.
I will engage one last time but I caution you to please reconsider your approach. If you continue to make such racist comments I will simply leave the conversation as I don’t like interacting with hateful people.
The article you shared is from a publication that ain’t known for fair and balanced coverage, but even there they admit that Iran pursuing nuclear power has pushed SA to do the same. Once again showing that it’s not about how many countries maintain nuclear capability but rather how stable their governments are. Belaying the fact that treaties are basically meaningless unless everyone else believes you will keep to them. And guess what, the majority of humanity believes Iran will not keep its word on anything. Even today they were shouting “Death To America, Death to Israel”. A people screaming for blood should be believed not coddled, especially when they openly act out those calls for mass murder. So far they’ve attacked multiple large apartment buildings and a school for mentally impaired children none of which were anywhere near any military targets.
For the record, this is what the experts are saying now:
> For #Israel to attack #Iran including its nuclear facilities (prohibited by international law) and for #Trump to ask Iran for “total surrender” and forgo a treaty right (uranium enrichment) in a clear act of national humiliation, on suspicion that it is developing nuclear weapons (possessed by both #Israel and #US), suspicion that does not constitute an “imminent threat” as confirmed by all western intelligence agencies and was dealt with through negotiations in #JCPOA agreement of 2015 which the US withdrew from in 2018
> To rely on force and not negotiations is a sure way to destroy the #NPT and the nuclear non proliferation regime (imperfect as it is) and sends a clear message to many countries that their “ultimate security” is to develop nuclear weapons !!!
Your hypothesis definitely fails the sniff test. China, Iran, Russia, SA, Pakistan, India… the list goes on. All have many bilateral agreements and yet were or are building up their arms.
Iran choose to insert itself where it didn’t belong and had no reason to be. If Iran (like 1930s Germany) had just focused on torturing its own people instead, none of this would’ve happened and Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel and yes even palestine (without Iran’s interference would already be a state) would all be much nicer places right now. Instead it introduced regional instability with its ambitions of annihilating and subjugating Jews, to which you are lending your full throated support.
Funny you should omit USA from this list, which is the worst offender (and also a very obvious example against my case).
But my hypothesis is time relative, as countries participate in more treaties and agreements, the less they arm them selves. Note that USA has been a significantly worse participate in agreements and treaties as your average western nation, and is also the country which is increasing their arms spending at the greatest rate. Note Europe is also increasing their arms spending, which is why I provided the second hypotheses, that an increased war correlates with increased arms buildup. Europe has been seeing more wars lately, and they are in turn increasing their arms buildup.
Finally, why is South Africa on that list? South Africa has consistently been reducing their arms spending by around 5-10% every year, for the last 5 years at least. And historically (during apartheid) it was one of the most militarized countries on earth. It was also famously not part of hardly any agreements or treaties (as it was sanctioned for their apartheid polices). After apartheid ended South Africa started participating in almost all the treaties and agreements which a modern democracy is expected to (going even further than most western countries). And even famously dismantled their nuclear weapons program. South Africa should be a most prominent example in favor of my hypothesis.
Sure add US to the list, makes your case even worse. The US is party to many more trade and arms treaties than any other country on earth and has the largest stockpile of weapons.
SA is Saudi Arabia.
Regardless I've soundly disproven your theory that treaties lower weapon stockpiles, No one disagrees that war will cause people to increase the arms spending, that’s a given. But it’s also pretty clear that treaties do not necessarily lead to less arms spending. Especially when one of the parties to the treaty is a theocratic dictatorship who has called for the total annihilation and destruction of all western society. Even while Iran was technically agreeing to follow the treaty it was still funding hezb, hamas and propping up Syria, none of those things speak to a country that is interested in peaceful coexistence with it’s regional neighbors. Additionally, SA (Saudi Arabia) expressed strong interest in developing a nuclear program simply because of Iran’s. So allowing Iran to have any sort of nuclear program directly contributes to more nuclear proliferation.
Saudi Arabia is hardly a member of many international agreements relative to most countries.
But you haven’t disproven anything, my hypothesis is about trends over time and probabilities, not absolute. What you have done is pointed to a few possible outliers. The existence of outliers does not disprove a trend. The plural of anecdote is not data.
To disprove my hypotheses you’d need to gather the data and show me there is no such correlation.
I know the burden of proof is on me, and you have no obligation believe me without the data to show it, which is why I only claimed that the hypotheses passes the sniff test. And from what I have been reading is that experts on the matter tend to agree with me, that Iran is actually more likely to pursue the bomb now that it has been attacked, and it was less likely when the Iran nuclear deal was in effect.
We’re not talking about relative to other countries. We’re talking in absolute terms of the country in question, Iran also isn’t party to many treaties, so really SA is a perfect example.
Seeing as you refuse to back up any of your claims with data, we’re not talking real science here but baseless accusations supported by biased bigotry vs anecdotal evidence, I don’t feel the need to disprove anything to a scientific degree, rather, the opposite is true, to prove the hypothesis you need to gather the data and show that it supports you. Until then your opinion is nothing more than that.
It’s truly the height of narcissism to make a completely unsupported claim with only your own feelings as the basis for your evidence and hold the fate of one of worlds old people/religions to it.
> And then you just end up with an Iran with more powerful conventional weapons, so not exactly a major win either.
This is a testable hypothesis. I have shown the specific claim that Iran does in fact not end up with more powerful weapons as a result of a nuclear deal. But what is more interesting is if that pattern is more general, and my prediction is that it is. And furthermore, my additional prediction is that Iran will now have more weapons as a result of it being dragged into a war with Israel. Countries at war tend to own more weapons.
I was also very clear from the beginning that I was not going to look for that data my self, and my only goal was to show that my hypotheses would pass the sniff test. I‘m not an expert in international relations. Surely any data that I would gather would be flawed, and any analysis I did would be biased.
Feel free to prove me wrong with actual data, or cite an expert which already has.
> I have shown the specific claim that Iran does in fact not end up with more powerful weapons as a result of a nuclear deal.
No you haven’t at all.
The problem with your opinion is it’s false on its face with regards to Iran: part of the treaty is that Iran is allowed to build more powerful conventional weapons… and guess what: that’s exactly what they did, in addition to also pursuing nuclear arms. They just only had to hide the nuke development, while the more powerful conventional weapons they were able to develop out in the open. 15 years ago they didn’t have weapons capable of reaching France… now they do. All your other equivocation and high minded ideas about what a rogue colonial, genocidal theocracy might do if you offer enough appeasement are moot. Reality shows that’s not what happened.
Not to mention the other rogue destabilizing things Iran did in the ensuing years, such as supporting Syria in the genocidial war against their own people as well as supporting the Houthis in terrorizing Yemen into a civil war and using that base to also terrorize SA.
The treaty completely failed long before trump pulled out. Any claim to the opposite is ignoring all of reality.
I’d also note: I’ve gone back through your comment history… it’s not pretty. You’re willing to give anyone who wants to kill zionists (aka semites aka Jews) as wide a latitude as possible and you make up justification after justification for why it’s ok and really they don’t intend that and really they mean something else, while specifically for one small seaside nation you think has no right to exist, and no matter what they do it’s not ok, and there’s no possible justification for literally anything they do. You also have a very problematic and honestly bigoted view of Jews, where you try to take control of their religion and dictate their core beliefs. It’s really a shame because I never thought of the Icelandic people as so prejudiced.
Hopefully this sort of behavior isn’t tolerated much longer here.
It failed from day one. Iran ignored it and continued over enriching uranium. They built secret underground nuclear R&D centers and continued development of nuclear warheads. Israel has nothing to do with Iran's attempt at a nuclear holocaust, why are you even mentioning them?
What are you talking about? What methods were effective at denuclearizing Iran? They continued to pursue nuclear arms even during the Obama treaty.
Iran has been at war with Israel for the last 10 years, the fact that Israel held back until now, is 100% bec of the methods that proved totally ineffective.
I wouldn't say such a universal expectation exists; NPT itself has a mechanism for states to withdraw based on "the supreme interests of its country". Countries with generally unthreatening neighbors might be expected to sign; Israel certainly doesn't fall into that category.
Not really, they're responding to what they consider an existential threat against them. If you were to ask them to justify the legality of their operation, the argument would presumably be based on self-defense (Article 51), not the NPT.
Iran didn't have to join the NPT, but by voluntarily joining and then suddenly not cooperating with IAEA inspections (suggesting that they're probably enriching uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian purpose), they've helped Israel make its case for self-defense.
Nuclear weapons have done more for world peace than any other invention in history. Countries with a nuclear option are effectively uninvadable, and that pushes conflicts away from the grueling total wars of the Napoleonic and World Wars, and into constrained, limited proxy wars. Want Israel to stop committing atrocities? Nothing better for it than nuclear armed neighbors. Want to keep Israel from ceasing to exist? That's why they've got the bomb.
Supporting Israel in preventing Iran from getting nuclear capabilities is destablizing, not the opposite.
In these situations I like to point out that Pakistan also has nukes, Muslim terrorists, and skirmishes with another ally of ours (India) and there's no political campaign to crush them over it.
A lot of this is just a consequence of repeated exposure to foreign propaganda. It's not reasonable policy.
The fact of nukes is that they are both a get out of international jail free card and security against existential threat.
Previous decade arms control understood this, and understood something very valuable needed to be offered to keep countries from pursuing them.
Current nuclear arms control is failing (Iran, North Korea) because the international community is pretending they aren't worth pursuing at almost any cost.
If a country wants to pursue a foreign policy antagonistic or counter to the US, they'd be insane not to develop nuclear weapons.
Arguably if India had the intel and military means/technology to quash Pakistan's nuclear program without a full-on invasion at the time they would have. I'm sure several other countries would have too, but the ability just wasn't there during the 70s
"In these situations I like to point out that Pakistan also has nukes, Muslim terrorists ..."
Tell me, did the "Muslim terrorists" nuked Hiroshima and Nakasaki? did the "Muslim terrorists" massacre the Vitenamese and Cambodians ? What about the current genocide occuring in Gaza ?
Dear god I can't even articulate how cunning is/was the western media when it comes to brainwash their people.
The more countries with nuclear weapons, and the more unstable or extremist they are, the greater the likelihood of an eventual detonation, even if accidental. 40 years ago, everyone understood this and agreed nuclear proliferation was bad, the US and USSR committed to reducing their stockpiles, and Reagan himself expressed a desire for complete nuclear disarmament, in part because of the near-catastrophe of the Abel Archer incident--a catastrophe only narrowly avoided despite the US and USSR both being stable superpowers led by rational actors. Anyone encouraging nuclear proliferation for every tin-pot dictatorship or gay-lynching theocracy to make the world safer is insane.
> effectively uninvadable
Yet Israel was invaded during the Yom Kippur War when it had nuclear weapons, the UK was invaded by Argentina during the Falklands War, Russia was invaded briefly by Ukraine (Kursk). And Israel arguably just demonstrated that developing a survivable nuclear deterrent probably isn't as easy as many thought. (Ukraine, to a lesser extent, also with Spiderweb.)
> Supporting Israel in preventing Iran from getting nuclear capabilities is destablizing, not the opposite.
On the contrary, it sends a strong "fuck around and find out" message to any country pursuing nuclear weapons. And if Israel is capable of this kind of decapitating strike against a country's nuclear program, imagine what the US (or China) could pull off.
>"Israel is well past the point of international sanctions for their Gaza genocide, the west has another ace up their sleeve and could even promise to sanction Israel for their nuclear weapons program in return."
Given how gray this comment already is, I'm not afraid to go against what seems to be the HN-hivemind today: Good luck with that proposal, last week Rubio himself stated there's a no-tolerance policy for anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and such behavior can be the single determining factor against one's ability to legally migrate here. This administration is blindly pro-Israel, much to its detriment - and likely its battle between dovish and hawkish foreign policy; because they're damned either way.
It's common in settler colonial societies, particularly during the period when they are still clearing land of indigenous people for settlement by the dominant group.
Actually innocent people do avoid trials. As sometime trials lead even to death sentences of innocent people.
Prosecutor manipulated icc rules and at time of filing was already known that evidence that he shows is wrong and icc still issued warrants. Why would anyone submit to such organization volunteerly ?
And as known now, he rushed warrants and cancelled scheduled arrival to Israel to see facts on the ground in order to protect himself from sexual harassment allegations
This is just a gross thing for you to say. “Yeah what about it, it’s just like anything else”, try for a second and run your logic machine through literally any other scenario.
In fact I dare you. Here’s a new way for you start thinking, repeat after me, one too many. For example, one child shot in a school shooting is simply one child too many. It’s not just a “yeah whatever, happens all the time”. What is happening and what has happened may be out of our control, but how despicable we are in our commentary and beliefs about it is what one needs to meditate on. Morality first.
Anyway, this moral lesson brought to you by a person that just called you a twat above, so, proceed with caution.
The protests haven't stopped, they've been intensifying since the start of the war, especially so in the last few months. (They were larger before the war, but that's because the war itself made it much harder to protest for various reasons.)
In any case, while this government isn't popular and wouldn't be reelected according to most polls, this move against Iran is probably popular.
Well, um, you see, Hamas video'd themselves brutally murdering about 1200 people, including about 380 young adults at a rave, including pretty significant amounts of sexual violence and parading corpses or near dead people around Palestine.
They took around 250 people hostage.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli people were refusing to serve in the IDF because of Palestinian oppression on October 6th. After the attacks, IDF had more volunteers than they could equip.
russia localized production long time ago and made some upgrades to drones. ukraine did bomb this week factory that makes jam resistant antenna arrays and another one that makes assembly of drones
I really hope that's not the real number, but it might be.
Ukraine signing the Budapest Memorandum, and the co-signers' limpness when the agreement was crossed in 2014, seems like it will go down as the biggest nuke proliferation event in history.
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I'm not sure if that's true. I looked it up and it seems that males need a Ptor (exemption) from the Army.
But they may be likely to choose IDF anyway due to the culture, so your point probably stills stands.
Since 2002 Israeli court ruled individual conscientious objection is an exemption. There are lots of news stories of it being denied, but that is because collective action is considered protest and thus illegal.
From wikipedia:
The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that refusal to serve was legal on the grounds of unqualified pacifism, but "selective refusal" which accepted some duties and not others was illegal.
It also looks like it's not entirely simple to get the exemption, and if you don't do it correctly you could be jailed:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/27/who-are-the-israel...
If it wasn't so goddamn confusing, it would almost appear deliberate. Between this and the US suing Yemen for peace, it's looking like a good decade to strongarm America's soft power.
> Ali Shamkhani has been severely injured in a strike targeting his house and hospitalized. Mr. Shamkhani is currently spearheading nuclear talks committee appointed by supreme leader and is former secretary of National Security Council
https://x.com/farnazfassihi/status/1933360333118111907
How so? What non-WMD red line clauses do you mean?
> America has never had any success negotiating anything in the Middle East.
Trump hasn't, let's be clear. But given his posturing towards the Gaza conflict it really shouldn't surprise you that his credit with Arabs is rock bottom.
> One ethical expert (Michael Walzer) has put forward some conditions that he thinks must be satisfied to justify a pre-emptive strike:
>an obvious intention to do injury
>active preparations that turn that intention into a positive danger
>a situation in which the risk of defeat will be greatly increased if the fight is delayed
Is there evidence of these three important points to justify this attack as “preemptive”?
when hamas won, usa was horrified by outcome and "sponsored" PA security forces to get rid of hamas in gaza, but hamas prevailed and killed everybody who were against (throwing from buildings, dragging behind bikes) it or tortured them into submission
https://visualizingpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/...
There was expression during the disengagement process from Gaza: Palestinians can build either Singapore or Somali. It's their choice to make.
They made choice in 2006 when they elected hamas. You can see on graph how Hamas elected to use resources
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/benjam...
the underlaying issues was that after PA tried to depose Hamas in Gaza and failed, it stopped paying salaries to everybody so Gaza was broke
An Israeli they killed then own Prime Minister because he was willing to make peace
Israel has had plenty of votes since then to elect another Prime Minister who would push for peace.
Why is this considered a success of one assassin instead of a failure of a broad democratic electorate to push for peaceful resolution?
In fact, the protests against Netenyahu and young people refusing to serve the IDF shows that Israel was trying to push for peace internally.
Then Hamas decided to attack a music festival of teenagers and young adults who want a free palestine. They spent over a year planning this operation all to kill a bunch of Israeli's who didn't exactly disagree with their cause.
If Hamas hadn't attacked, Bibi might already be in prison. You know, I'm not convinced Hamas wants peace any more than Bibi does.
even Netanyahu, which was elected after Rabin death signed follow up agreements to Oslo as result of which Israel handed over Hebron and additional areas in west bank to PA.
It wasn't failure of "broad democratic electorate to push for peaceful resolution" but violence of second intifada and non-compliance of PA with oslo accords from very beginning: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm
You’ll see the one you posted was unrepresentative of what was actually on the table and what the Israeli’s would agree too wouldn’t deliver a viable state and it was divided up by Israeli roads and other security apparatus
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/map-of-the-israeli-offe...
Yes, focus on this part, not the lopsided casualty count. Much more convincing argument.
From my understanding Israel tried to make peace by exchanging land for peace treaties. Only the Egyptians took them up on that. I think Israel is done seeking a moral solution and are now slowly annexing all of the West Bank and now Gaza. Palestinians should be given land somewhere and/or forced to emigrate. They’ve clung to what was once theirs but the reality is they are never getting it back.
But Israel is being immoral and their treatment of Palestinians is deplorable.
> Palestinians should be given land somewhere and/or forced to emigrate.
This is what the Israelis are trying to do. No one is willing to take them.
And why did they do that? It's like gang warfare, never ending. It started long before Hamas and we've all lost track of why so finger pointing only makes it worse.
This is the kind of thinking that keeps this insanity going on forever.
You're demonstrating my point: we've lost track of "who started it" and it doesn't even matter now. It's too easy for each side to claim it's the other side's fault. They both have legitimate reasons to so it's easy to get support for those claims, too.
But I would argue that correct vs incorrect is entirely irrelevant. Nothing you or I can say can justify their actions.
For every point you make about Hamas I could match you with one about Israel. But what's the point?
The point is you would not be correct. Hamas wants to end the existence of Israel but lacks the ability. Israel wants to coexist with Gaza but Hamas doesn't want that.
You know I'm wrong before I even say anything? That's...impressive.
So either you are not following the conversation or you are trolling. Have a nice day.
I say that yes but my statement about Hamas would be factual while yours would not be because Hamas really does want to destroy Israel while Israel just wants coexistence with Palestinians. At its core Hamas is an Islamic Theocratic Supremacists group that truly hates Jews. Just read their charter.
But since you asked:
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-m...
Because in 2023 Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s most powerful enemies in the region, was expressing willingness to normalize relations with Israel. So Iran orchestrated attacks via its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, in order to torpedo the normalization process. (People forget that Hamas wasn’t the only one attacking Israel in October 2023—beginning October 8th Hezbollah began firing rockets and artillery into northern Israel, forcing over 90,000 Israelis to flee for safety.)
The problem for Russia is that such an attack would bring in all of NATO which they likely can't defend against. And either way would result in massive damage to nearly everything in Russia.
OTOH, Israel can attack Iran and as shown in the past[1], Iran will roll over and only send a weak-ass slow drone attack as a response.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2024_Iranian_strikes_o...
> Russia would be bombing all the supply lines of weapons flowing into Ukraine if the consequences weren't so high. There's certainly no law that is preventing them from doing so, only the consequences of their actions.
Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine and people in the comments threw their hands up and said the strong take what they can? No, me neither.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_... is one such example.
(Not to say that a few months means this conflict has ended, genuinely curious what the media I’ve seen has under/mis/not-reported)
In past couple of months it happens almost every (other) day. Sometime a couple times a day.
The only time it was on news when Israel failed to intercept missile and it fell in vicinity of Ben Gurion airport.
The Iranian government are rather extreme theocrats, but they aren’t a suicide cult. They know that a nuclear first strike against Israel would result in massive nuclear retaliation aimed at annihilating Iran as a modern nation-state. They aren’t going to do that.
I think their primary reason for pursuing nuclear weapons is as a deterrent against conventional invasion, forcible “regime change” like what the US did to Saddam Hussein - much as Iran welcomed the removal of one of their national archenemies - given Iraq is majority Shi’a, a democratic Iraq is generally more friendly to Iran, although not all Iraqi Shi’a are pro-Iranian (e.g. Ayatollah Sistani, who is very influential, dislikes how Iran has politicised the religion) - but it raised the risk the Americans might try the same thing on them.
Israel just showed how effective that deterrent is.
When a Soviet fighter pilot shot down a Korean jetliner the U.S. reaction to that was quite a bit different than our reaction to the Vincennes shooting down the Iranian jetliner.
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: In case people don't understand why this is the kind of comment we'd call out: I've said a few times in different ways that Hacker News should be a place where we can discuss difficult topics. There are few more difficult topics than armed conflict between nations. It's pointless to have a discussion that mostly consists of people with entrenched oppsing views hurling insults at each other. If somebody is wrong, refute them with opposing evidence. Otherwise the only thing we'll achieve is to drive away anyone who is interested in actually learning anything new about the topic, in which case we're much better off not having the discussion at all.
those two are unrelated. Being right and rude (or worse) is not great for a discussion, especially on a topic like this one.
My comment above was not for the person who made. I don’t engage with such people. It was for the people who stumbled upon it. I want them to know that there are people who think the comment is ridiculously bad.
Trying to present this shitting as some sort of principled martyrdom or, heaven help us, favour to the rest of us is silly, selfish and unconvincing. Just ease off on the shitting in the future, it's not like most everyone else has any trouble doing it.
And I don't mean this as a particular criticism of Israel. Most other countries do the same sort of thing when necessary.
The current system might be bad, but some sort of world government run by the UN would be far worse.
Also wise to remember, there are now so many quiet parts you can't say out loud that pretty much everyone who knows anything no longer participates in online conversation.
We don't make things in the West anymore so our dialog has no constructive purpose. You don't care what I think, say or who I am but those with nefarious intend are the ones paying close attention to everyone.
The destructive people are outperforming the rest of us and it can only end in one way. It has always ended the same way.
Oh don't worry, Trump and his cronies are working hard to make the US not cutting edge at anything anymore.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-general-says-tehran-aims-...
"Iran general says Tehran aims to wipe Israel off the ‘global political map’", that's consistent with other leaders and the regime ideology since the very start
“We warn them [Zionists] that if a new war breaks out, it will result in their termination,”
and there are no shortage of such quotes, and even concrete plans (for example by using Hamas and Hezbollah), one attempt of which we have witnessed in 2023
https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/hamas-strategy-to-destr...
> active preparations that turn that intention into a positive danger
>a situation in which the risk of defeat will be greatly increased if the fight is delayed
We know independently that Iran has been enriching massive amounts of uranium to degrees of purity only suitable for nuclear weapons. See last announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to Israel there have been other advancements in the nuclear program which might lead them to a nuclear bomb
2. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-857003
3. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-857003
Some of it will, some of it won't.
Its driving countries to pursue nuclear weapons as its the only way to ensure you're not at the whims of authoritarian and fundamentalist regimes.
I can see an fundamentalist US president at some point and Israel is certainly not become any more secular or moderate, and their democracy is sliding down the toilet bowl.
I'd rather not consider the worst case, because I imagine it's global in scope.
I agree that a regime change could turn out to be a disaster, but if Pahlavi is as prepared for the event as he claims, then it could be fantastic.
I would include Brazil in the list. And other south American countries. We are quite peaceful with the exception of some drugs war. But when the US is too busy, that problem goes away.
No one in Iran supports Israel, young or old.
I say that as someone who previously always defended Israel's responses to its neighbors and the country's better aspects. I'm hard pressed to do the same after months of that raving imbecile Netanyahu's grotesque policy of annihilation in Gaza. I just don't know how to call it anything else. Even if he has a legitimate mandate to destroy Hamas (no flower-power, peace-loving band of idealists themselves by the way) starving children to death through blockades has absolutely no justification.
Just put yourself in their shoes - you've been exiled from your country, family and friends, would you not cheer on anyone attacking the regime that caused that? I think that's just expected human psyche.
Just like if, lets say, North Korea suddenly attacked Russia, I'm pretty sure Ukrainians would cheer for that.
Yes, you would likely cheer anything that tumbles the regime that caused your miseries. What you likely wouldn't cheer however, are missile and other attacks by an external power against places where civilians are killed. Regardless of how much you hate your country's regime, seeing bombs explode in the country's urban areas will likely make you think of some possible family member of yours being a victim of those bombs. This viscerally goes beyond hatred for your regime.
>Just like if, lets say, North Korea suddenly attacked Russia, I'm pretty sure Ukrainians would cheer for that.
What? This comparison is completely off base. If North Korea attacked Russia, Ukrainians could definitely cheer, but Russians, even those who hate Putin, probably wouldn't. Our debate above has nothing to do with citizens of a third, enemy country's feelings about the regime that has invaded them being attacked by someone.
Have any data to back that up?
But otherwise you can follow all sorts of Iranian ticktokers and they’ll give you the rundown.
The only Iranians that support Israel are exiled Pahlavists, like the ones around LA. No one inside Iran supports Israel.
There's a lot of hopium among Zionists that they have widespread support, but really, they're as hated worldwide as the Nazis were. Japan in particular dropped from massively pro-Israel to massively anti-Israel. And this was from a poll last year. It's only gone more anti-israel since then.
I would implore you to understand how social media influences people.
https://tehrantimes.com/news/484990/Cultural-diversity-relig...
[edit] Direct links -
UCF - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=32_34_50_N_... Natanz - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=33_43_27_N_... Parchin - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=35_31_39_N_... Khorramshahr - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=30_27_29_N_... IR-40 - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=34_22_23_N_... TRR - https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?params=35_44_18_N_...
[edit 2] More relevant to HN. the Dolphin-class submarines are launching missiles as predicted, the US also thought they would be part of the 'cyber-war', which they define as "electronic jamming to distort and disable radar signals, rendering air-defense systems ineffective." Intel people are such tools, jamming and spoofing is 'cyber-war' and a 'cyber strike'.... I guess they are more right, it's not like you are hacking during a war, that was months ago which is intel. But it's language used for funding purposes.
[edit 3] I will say the "agents will carry out sabotage operations inside Iran" Who'd be nuts enough to do that? The US would have to have that wrong
> TOP SECRET//SCI//NOFORN//SOCCENT-32 POTENTIAL TARGET SITES (TS//TKI/RSEN//REL TO USA, FVEY)
A leak? Which one?
Unless one knows the provenance, there is the risk it is fabricated
Do you provide this as a journal for yourself?
Likely yet another effect of our society-wide neglect of mental health issues…
There have been a bunch of massive threads on the Israel/Gaza conflict over the last year and a half and the bulk of the comments in those have been critical of Israel.
Generic trope and meta comments get regularly flagged because they are generic tropes or meta comments, not because they have something to do with Israel.
Hopefully Iran does a little retaliation and then goes back to their covert proxy war rather than it escalating to open warfare. I honestly don't even know if either Iran or Israel could sustain open warfare given the distances involved without dragging in other forces to help. I would rather those forces not be ours.
In terms of American foreign policy interest it’s basically making us more vulnerable.
In so many words, Netanyahu might get us all killed. Trump will not decry anything Netanyahu does, so it’s 4 years of war and you better believe it. Putin also has no incentive to give Trump a peace deal. Provide enough war zone cover and Taiwan will just happen, all of a sudden. Negotiate all three peace deals, please, I’d love to see it.
Trump is out of his element here, he’ll be leaving a world at war. When you a let a pot of boiling water keep boiling on the lowest heat, you may not see all the boiling bubbles, but I assure you it’s boiling. It’s a boiling world, and without certain advents like AI, we’d literally have no positive news (think that through for a second). Without the miracle of AI, all we’d have is the most depressing world situation you could imagine.
to be honest, by now, it feels like the opposite, Netanyahu is allowing Trump admin to operate autonomously when it comes to internal affairs, for foreign policy Netanyahu is dictating the US foreign policy.
Go check Twitter, for some reason 90% of congress members immediately started praying for Israel after Israel's attack, as if they were handed over the message
Just say it the way it is because it's clear. US policy is run from Tel Aviv. Trump chickens out with Putin, China, and now Netanyahu....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/27/iran-execution-spree-con...
On the other, based on the comments I have been reading here for the past couple years, you are supposed to embellish or flat out lie to support your point.
(This is not a comment about the news, just about accounts that break the site guidelines.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The US and Russia were committed to working towards that world, at least back in the 80s.
And what if those methods don't work?
Obviously I would prefer all this to be resolved in a diplomatic way a decade ago, but in some cases military action will be the only way beyond a certain point.
So comforting, even you, an avowed Zionist hater (in your own words), (and imo terrorist apologist) couldn’t lie enough to claim that they were actually effective.
Would you get on a plane that “worked kinda well”. Would you trust a heart surgeon who said he was “kinda ok”.
Iran has continuously called for the total destruction and death of all Jews and all of western civilization for the last 40+ years as a religious mandate demanded by their god, what makes you think they would ever stop pursuing that?
Further, I predict that there is a negative correlation with international treaties, and bilateral agreements and arms buildup. That is, the more nations cooperate, the more they negotiate and agree on stuff, the fewer arms they pursue and keep.
I don‘t feel like doing the research to gather evidence for my hypothesis, but mine at least doesn’t fail the sniff test. Feel free to prove me wrong with data.
You know what correlates the most with peace and lack of arms races? Having a single superpower who everyone is afraid of.
Deterrence is the reason why bad actors have kept relatively quiet, not diplomacy.
Sure we can look at Israel, a nation which has a part of tons of international treaties and agreements (albeit fewer then most other nations) and yet is one of the most antagonistic militarized nations in history. So we know there are exception. North Korea might be an example of a country that passes the sniff test of my second hypothesis. Outside of the most international treaties and agreements and also extremely militarized.
But on the other hand, according to my first hypothesis, Israel does pass as an example that contributes to the passing of the sniff test. Israel is probably the country that has seen the most wars and conflicts since World War 2 (maybe USA and Russia/Soviet Union have seen more; I don‘t know), and in accordance to my hypothesis, it is also one of the most militarized nation in the world currently (including one of very few nuclear armed nations).
EDIT: I was just reading an interview with Jim Walsh—a US based nuclear weapons expert, and he seems to agree with me and disagree with you:
> “I think there’s strong scholarly evidence – and certainly, if you look at the politics of the moment – to believe that in this attack, Israel will get the exact opposite of what it wanted, which is Iran is going to decide to go for the bomb.”
https://aje.io/auoxkc?update=3773054
also: https://www.wuft.org/2025-06-13/what-israels-escalation-in-i...
Plus we have the latest report from the UN that Iran has been breaching their nuclear agreements.
Iran most likely won't be able to redevelop a nuclear program if the current one is destroyed (and Israel could easily destroy it again when/if they restart)
Dropping the treaties and invading Iran does seem to correlate with weapons buildup.
And hope isn't much of a strategy.
Obviously there is a huge risk here that if Israel fails then Iran will without a doubt push for a bomb.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/13/iran-to-double-down...
How exactly will they be able to do so? They won't be able to protect the sites from further attacks, not to mention losing a significant chunk of the expertise in form of personal along with the materials required.
It's not some Lego set, rebuilding such a project is insanely complex and time consuming, chances of success are very low (assuming Russia, North Korea, etc, don't decide to just hand some over)
Plus, even if they did develop a new program by the time it's done anti missile tech will most likely reach a new phase.
Not only did they immediately flout the rules and enrich uranium past the levels they were allowed to, the also in defiance of the treaty built secret nuclear reactors that weren’t monitored, and pursued building and stockpiling all the parts necessary to build a nuclear warhead.
Throughout this entire conversation you’ve made many claims that aren’t true at all. You’ve shown extreme bigotry against Jews and Israel.
Most experts agree that the Iran nuclear deal was a success until USA withdrew in 2018.
Please point to these supposed experts, everything I saw from that time was that only those naive enough to believe a pack of lies claimed the nuclear deal would work, while everyone else was pointing out all the ways Iran was totally subverting it.
2023: 10.28 Billion USD (inflation adjusted)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?location...
Expert opinion:
* https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2025/04/iran-nuclear-...
* https://nationalinterest.org/blog/energy-world/us-iran-nucle...
Note that neither tout the success of 2015 directly (why would they, it failed after USA withdrew) but rather are proposing a new deal would build upon stuff that worked in 2015:
> In 2015, the JCPOA’s durability stemmed in part from expert-level dialogue between scientists, including US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi, then-head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Reestablishing that kind of technical cooperation is essential to crafting a framework that can both verify compliance and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Those “experts” don’t at all support your claims that the 2015 deal was or could be successful. We’re not currently discussing the deal that might be made, as details are changing too rapidly for anything they said last week to be relevant anymore (e.g. many of the scientists who were pursuing a second jewish genocide are now dead). We’re discussing whether the 2015 deal was viable immediately after it was signed… based on your own data and idea (treaty = declining military spending) it appears it wasn’t.
I purposefully tried to find the most up to date opinions on the matter while still before Israels attacks. But here is what experts were saying back in March 2018
> Iran is Implementing Nuclear-related JCPOA Commitments, Director General Amano Tells IAEA Board
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iran-is-implementing-nu...
> Collapse of Iran nuclear deal would be ‘great loss,’ says UN atomic agency chief
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/03/1004112
I guess that’s an opinion someone could have…
Regarding your sources, yes those are the naive experts I was talking about. The same ones who allowed Iran to build a secret facility right under their nose, the same one that finally admitted years too late that actually Iran is far out of compliance. They’re about as effective as UNIFIL.
Meanwhile you felt your personal opinion should be what decides the fate of half the world’s Jews.
Iran has not (as of today) withdrawn from the non-proliferation treaty. All that has happened (as of now) is that the Iranian parliament is currently preparing a bill to withdraw, nothing more. Parliament will have to introduce and approve it, and the government will need to enforce it before Iran finally withdraws, and we don‘t know whether any of that will happen.
Iran’s current government (including the foreign ministry) is on record being against nuclear weapons, and the Supreme leader seems pretty much against them, whether or not that is a lie remains to be seen.
https://thearabweekly.com/iran-threatens-leave-nuclear-non-p...
Aside: The above link provides a calm summary of version events since USA withdrew from JCPOA, including the fact that Iran was in compliance until 2019; I advice you to read it and reevaluate your stance against treaties as an effective way to disarm states.
What I am arguing here is that the fact that a nuclear armed nation is now attacking Iran will increase the probability that Iran will eventually get nuclear weapons, while negotiating a treaty will do the opposite. Israel is definitely showing Iran a good reason for pursue nuclear weapons, and the military hawks inside Iran’s leadership definitely have a much stronger case now. Hopefully they will still fail at convincing the supreme leader of taking further steps in acquiring them, and remaining a member of the non-proliferation treaty.
Finally, a question. You seem to not believe that treaties are an effective way to disarm states. Why do you care whether or not Iran is a member of the non-proliferation treaty? According to your beliefs, it wouldn’t matter either way. Iran would be equally likely to get the bomb inside or outside the non-proliferation treaty.
I will engage one last time but I caution you to please reconsider your approach. If you continue to make such racist comments I will simply leave the conversation as I don’t like interacting with hateful people.
The article you shared is from a publication that ain’t known for fair and balanced coverage, but even there they admit that Iran pursuing nuclear power has pushed SA to do the same. Once again showing that it’s not about how many countries maintain nuclear capability but rather how stable their governments are. Belaying the fact that treaties are basically meaningless unless everyone else believes you will keep to them. And guess what, the majority of humanity believes Iran will not keep its word on anything. Even today they were shouting “Death To America, Death to Israel”. A people screaming for blood should be believed not coddled, especially when they openly act out those calls for mass murder. So far they’ve attacked multiple large apartment buildings and a school for mentally impaired children none of which were anywhere near any military targets.
> For #Israel to attack #Iran including its nuclear facilities (prohibited by international law) and for #Trump to ask Iran for “total surrender” and forgo a treaty right (uranium enrichment) in a clear act of national humiliation, on suspicion that it is developing nuclear weapons (possessed by both #Israel and #US), suspicion that does not constitute an “imminent threat” as confirmed by all western intelligence agencies and was dealt with through negotiations in #JCPOA agreement of 2015 which the US withdrew from in 2018
> To rely on force and not negotiations is a sure way to destroy the #NPT and the nuclear non proliferation regime (imperfect as it is) and sends a clear message to many countries that their “ultimate security” is to develop nuclear weapons !!!
https://x.com/ElBaradei/status/1935041599605539211
ElBaradei won the Nobel Price in 2005 for his work on nuclear non-proliferation. I‘m pretty sure he knows more about this than you or I.
You do your argument no favors linked to a twitter account that openly spreads blood libels and invents lies.
Iran choose to insert itself where it didn’t belong and had no reason to be. If Iran (like 1930s Germany) had just focused on torturing its own people instead, none of this would’ve happened and Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel and yes even palestine (without Iran’s interference would already be a state) would all be much nicer places right now. Instead it introduced regional instability with its ambitions of annihilating and subjugating Jews, to which you are lending your full throated support.
But my hypothesis is time relative, as countries participate in more treaties and agreements, the less they arm them selves. Note that USA has been a significantly worse participate in agreements and treaties as your average western nation, and is also the country which is increasing their arms spending at the greatest rate. Note Europe is also increasing their arms spending, which is why I provided the second hypotheses, that an increased war correlates with increased arms buildup. Europe has been seeing more wars lately, and they are in turn increasing their arms buildup.
Finally, why is South Africa on that list? South Africa has consistently been reducing their arms spending by around 5-10% every year, for the last 5 years at least. And historically (during apartheid) it was one of the most militarized countries on earth. It was also famously not part of hardly any agreements or treaties (as it was sanctioned for their apartheid polices). After apartheid ended South Africa started participating in almost all the treaties and agreements which a modern democracy is expected to (going even further than most western countries). And even famously dismantled their nuclear weapons program. South Africa should be a most prominent example in favor of my hypothesis.
SA is Saudi Arabia.
Regardless I've soundly disproven your theory that treaties lower weapon stockpiles, No one disagrees that war will cause people to increase the arms spending, that’s a given. But it’s also pretty clear that treaties do not necessarily lead to less arms spending. Especially when one of the parties to the treaty is a theocratic dictatorship who has called for the total annihilation and destruction of all western society. Even while Iran was technically agreeing to follow the treaty it was still funding hezb, hamas and propping up Syria, none of those things speak to a country that is interested in peaceful coexistence with it’s regional neighbors. Additionally, SA (Saudi Arabia) expressed strong interest in developing a nuclear program simply because of Iran’s. So allowing Iran to have any sort of nuclear program directly contributes to more nuclear proliferation.
But you haven’t disproven anything, my hypothesis is about trends over time and probabilities, not absolute. What you have done is pointed to a few possible outliers. The existence of outliers does not disprove a trend. The plural of anecdote is not data.
To disprove my hypotheses you’d need to gather the data and show me there is no such correlation.
I know the burden of proof is on me, and you have no obligation believe me without the data to show it, which is why I only claimed that the hypotheses passes the sniff test. And from what I have been reading is that experts on the matter tend to agree with me, that Iran is actually more likely to pursue the bomb now that it has been attacked, and it was less likely when the Iran nuclear deal was in effect.
Seeing as you refuse to back up any of your claims with data, we’re not talking real science here but baseless accusations supported by biased bigotry vs anecdotal evidence, I don’t feel the need to disprove anything to a scientific degree, rather, the opposite is true, to prove the hypothesis you need to gather the data and show that it supports you. Until then your opinion is nothing more than that.
It’s truly the height of narcissism to make a completely unsupported claim with only your own feelings as the basis for your evidence and hold the fate of one of worlds old people/religions to it.
mupuff1234 2 days ago
> And then you just end up with an Iran with more powerful conventional weapons, so not exactly a major win either.
This is a testable hypothesis. I have shown the specific claim that Iran does in fact not end up with more powerful weapons as a result of a nuclear deal. But what is more interesting is if that pattern is more general, and my prediction is that it is. And furthermore, my additional prediction is that Iran will now have more weapons as a result of it being dragged into a war with Israel. Countries at war tend to own more weapons.
I was also very clear from the beginning that I was not going to look for that data my self, and my only goal was to show that my hypotheses would pass the sniff test. I‘m not an expert in international relations. Surely any data that I would gather would be flawed, and any analysis I did would be biased.
Feel free to prove me wrong with actual data, or cite an expert which already has.
No you haven’t at all.
The problem with your opinion is it’s false on its face with regards to Iran: part of the treaty is that Iran is allowed to build more powerful conventional weapons… and guess what: that’s exactly what they did, in addition to also pursuing nuclear arms. They just only had to hide the nuke development, while the more powerful conventional weapons they were able to develop out in the open. 15 years ago they didn’t have weapons capable of reaching France… now they do. All your other equivocation and high minded ideas about what a rogue colonial, genocidal theocracy might do if you offer enough appeasement are moot. Reality shows that’s not what happened.
Not to mention the other rogue destabilizing things Iran did in the ensuing years, such as supporting Syria in the genocidial war against their own people as well as supporting the Houthis in terrorizing Yemen into a civil war and using that base to also terrorize SA. The treaty completely failed long before trump pulled out. Any claim to the opposite is ignoring all of reality.
I’d also note: I’ve gone back through your comment history… it’s not pretty. You’re willing to give anyone who wants to kill zionists (aka semites aka Jews) as wide a latitude as possible and you make up justification after justification for why it’s ok and really they don’t intend that and really they mean something else, while specifically for one small seaside nation you think has no right to exist, and no matter what they do it’s not ok, and there’s no possible justification for literally anything they do. You also have a very problematic and honestly bigoted view of Jews, where you try to take control of their religion and dictate their core beliefs. It’s really a shame because I never thought of the Icelandic people as so prejudiced.
Hopefully this sort of behavior isn’t tolerated much longer here.
Iran has been at war with Israel for the last 10 years, the fact that Israel held back until now, is 100% bec of the methods that proved totally ineffective.
Iran didn't have to join the NPT, but by voluntarily joining and then suddenly not cooperating with IAEA inspections (suggesting that they're probably enriching uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian purpose), they've helped Israel make its case for self-defense.
Supporting Israel in preventing Iran from getting nuclear capabilities is destablizing, not the opposite.
A lot of this is just a consequence of repeated exposure to foreign propaganda. It's not reasonable policy.
Previous decade arms control understood this, and understood something very valuable needed to be offered to keep countries from pursuing them.
Current nuclear arms control is failing (Iran, North Korea) because the international community is pretending they aren't worth pursuing at almost any cost.
If a country wants to pursue a foreign policy antagonistic or counter to the US, they'd be insane not to develop nuclear weapons.
Tell me, did the "Muslim terrorists" nuked Hiroshima and Nakasaki? did the "Muslim terrorists" massacre the Vitenamese and Cambodians ? What about the current genocide occuring in Gaza ?
Dear god I can't even articulate how cunning is/was the western media when it comes to brainwash their people.
> effectively uninvadable
Yet Israel was invaded during the Yom Kippur War when it had nuclear weapons, the UK was invaded by Argentina during the Falklands War, Russia was invaded briefly by Ukraine (Kursk). And Israel arguably just demonstrated that developing a survivable nuclear deterrent probably isn't as easy as many thought. (Ukraine, to a lesser extent, also with Spiderweb.)
> Supporting Israel in preventing Iran from getting nuclear capabilities is destablizing, not the opposite.
On the contrary, it sends a strong "fuck around and find out" message to any country pursuing nuclear weapons. And if Israel is capable of this kind of decapitating strike against a country's nuclear program, imagine what the US (or China) could pull off.
Given how gray this comment already is, I'm not afraid to go against what seems to be the HN-hivemind today: Good luck with that proposal, last week Rubio himself stated there's a no-tolerance policy for anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and such behavior can be the single determining factor against one's ability to legally migrate here. This administration is blindly pro-Israel, much to its detriment - and likely its battle between dovish and hawkish foreign policy; because they're damned either way.
As soon as USSR made their nukes, there was peace.
As soon as DPRK made nukes, everyone stopped bothering them and threatening to invade
That's second amendment for nuclear weapons. Inside US people are generally nice to each other because you don't know who's carrying.
and protests are happening on daily basis
Normally, innocent people don't avoid trial and sanction the courts that accuse them.
Prosecutor manipulated icc rules and at time of filing was already known that evidence that he shows is wrong and icc still issued warrants. Why would anyone submit to such organization volunteerly ?
And as known now, he rushed warrants and cancelled scheduled arrival to Israel to see facts on the ground in order to protect himself from sexual harassment allegations
In fact I dare you. Here’s a new way for you start thinking, repeat after me, one too many. For example, one child shot in a school shooting is simply one child too many. It’s not just a “yeah whatever, happens all the time”. What is happening and what has happened may be out of our control, but how despicable we are in our commentary and beliefs about it is what one needs to meditate on. Morality first.
Anyway, this moral lesson brought to you by a person that just called you a twat above, so, proceed with caution.
> so, proceed with caution.
or what ? you will write another profanity ?
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b0b28a6d1947b730f170fff625105...
What words would anyone have? A picture is worth a thousand words. A portrait of sin.
it's not indicative of anything but destroyed houses
In any case, while this government isn't popular and wouldn't be reelected according to most polls, this move against Iran is probably popular.
They took around 250 people hostage.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli people were refusing to serve in the IDF because of Palestinian oppression on October 6th. After the attacks, IDF had more volunteers than they could equip.
I really hope that's not the real number, but it might be.
Ukraine signing the Budapest Memorandum, and the co-signers' limpness when the agreement was crossed in 2014, seems like it will go down as the biggest nuke proliferation event in history.