Iran Crisis & the 2026 War between Iran and the United States, Gulf States, and Israel - Please focus on news and coverage, not argumentation.

[Superman93]

If you lose, give me 1000 dollars.

YOULL GET IT AS SOON AS YOU SUCK THE MONEY OUT OF MY ASS

 

[Alphasnail]

YOULL GET IT AS SOON AS YOU SUCK THE MONEY OUT OF MY ASS

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But you did put it up in there for him, right?

 

[The Freak Who Lived]

According to mamlekate (telegram with assorted sources, not bad reliability, but nothing special), 2 of 5 Iranian C-130s parked at Mehrabad Airport were hit recently. Iran has at maximum 27, but the capabilities provided by this aircraft are negligible.

We are getting a series of beautiful images recently.

 

[Russell Coight]

Twitter

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

https://www.sefaria.org/Esther.1.1 has it in English

The Christian version has a prologue which makes things explicit.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Esther%201&version=NABRE

You say "the Christian version", but the prologue isn't recognized as divinely inspired by the Protestant followers. Just saying.

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Twitter

Gotta love that sneaky phrasing; "destroyed in Iranian airspace", "attempts to rescue".

 

[Phillip Green]

Give we have drones with 8k cameras crawling the area, I don't think they'll be waiting for counter battery.
(yes I understand that counter battery doesn't just mean waiting for the enemy artillery to fire let me have this)

Where do we think they're going?

In addition to traditional 155mm, the 142nd has M247s and HIMARS units capable of reaching out 200-300km with the newer ATACMS variants if they want. So, they've got options I suppose...

The artillery boys are already pretty insufferable after sinking a goddamn submarine with ATACMS in the early days of the war. I am curious what they're cooking up next.

 

[Grayback]

Possibly dumb question, but I'd rather stick my neck out and ask it, just to hear some answers:

The point of striking Iran's bridges is to prevent the IRGC from moving weapons, vehicles, troops, supplies, and other equipment within the country, thus disrupting their ability to keep fighting us.
The point of striking Iran's power plants is to prevent the IRGC from using all of their computers and equipment that run on electricity (surveillance, communications, the refrigerators on base, etc.), thus disrupting their ability to keep fighting us.

Instead of hitting bridges and power plants, why aren't we just directly targeting their weapons, vehicles, bases, and so on?

Both would disrupt the IRGC's ability to continue fighting, but the latter option would avoid affecting the civilian population and making them upset with us. Whether we get regime change, and the civilians are in charge post-war; or not, and they're just exerting public pressure; any post-war resolution that's favorable to America will be more durable if we don't have a resentful civilian population in Iran that just lived through a bunch of hardship directly because of us, and which maybe even feels betrayed after all of the shit that we said about them "rising up" and "taking back their country" at the start of this like we only had their best interests in mind.
Plus, as much as I don't want our actions to be dictated by what gay shitlibs in places like Europe think of us, it would still make things easier on us if we pissed off fewer people around the world. There's no reason to do this if we don't have to.

It just seems like there's a high potential cost, and I don't get what the huge benefit will be for going after the infrastructure instead of the IRGC positions directly.
I doubt that the issue is that the IRGC's targets are too well-fortified. We can bust bunkers. So are they just really well-hidden? Do we not have good-enough intel to find them? Are they in civilian areas that we can't hit? Or is there some other reason that makes the infrastructure seem like the better option now?

 

[teriyakiburns]

Instead of hitting bridges and power plants, why aren't we just directly targeting their weapons, vehicles, bases, and so on?

You think the US hasn't been doing this for the last six weeks?

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

I doubt that the issue is that the IRGC's targets are too well-fortified. We can bust bunkers. So are they just really well-hidden? Do we not have good-enough intel to find them? Are they in civilian areas that we can't hit? Or is there some other reason that makes the infrastructure seem like the better option now?

The issue isn't that the IRGC and the state are separate entities--it's that the IRGC is the state (just not the people in it); since the Iranian government refuses to accept terms of surrender that will weaken their grip over the nation in any way, it is the grip itself that needs to be broken.

Bridges and power plants can be rebuilt, and roads can be repaved--but unless the oppressive government which oversees everything is decisively taken care of, they will return to their old ways sooner or later. It is allah's will that the infidel be slain wherever they may be found, after all.

 

[Grayback]

You think the US hasn't been doing this for the last six weeks?

Yeah, and it's been slowly working. There are fewer and fewer of them left.
And I don't think we're running short on munitions to blow up the rest of them that remain.
So why change tactics?

since the Iranian government refuses to accept terms of surrender that will weaken their grip over the nation in any way, it is the grip itself that needs to be broken.

This seems like a gamble, just hoping that cutting off transportation and power will weaken the Iranian government / military faster than it affects the civilians.
Especially since shitbag regimes are usually good at hording food for their own forces in times like this. What the fuck happens if "serve the new Ayatollah and you'll get food" becomes the most reliable way to feed your family?

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

This seems like a gamble, just hoping that cutting off transportation and power will weaken the Iranian government / military faster than it affects the civilians.
Especially since shitbag regimes are usually good at hording food for their own forces in times like this. What the fuck happens if "serve the new Ayatollah and you'll get food" becomes the most reliable way to feed your family?

If it gets to that point, then a real civil war will break out. The people and the Ayatollah, eh...they don't get along too good (for about 40 years, give or take).

 

[Lapsus of the bepsus]

And I don't think we're running short on munitions to blow up the rest of them that remain.
So why change tactics?

1. it gets harder and takes longer to find them as fewer remain, turning this into a forever war trying to hunt down mobile missile launchers would be worse optics for trump than destroying dual use infrastructure
2. striking only military targets has proven insufficient to demoralize iran and destabilize the regime, meanwhile everything iran is threatening to do if their infrastructure is targeted is shit theyre already doing (sniping airports, refineries, power plants, desalination plants and even civilians across the middle east)
3. in case america has to pull out without a decisive victory, destroying infrastructure will be significantly more costly for iran to rebuild which furthers the goal of neutralizing their offensive capability

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

The fact Iran is outright planning to daisy-chain civilians around their infrastructure to stop the US from bombing it is fucking crazy to me

Like I already knew they didn't value these people at all but using literal human shields is wild as fuck.

 

[Lapsus of the bepsus]

The fact Iran is outright planning to daisy-chain civilians around their infrastructure to stop the US from bombing it is fucking crazy to me

Like I already knew they didn't value these people at all but using literal human shields is wild as fuck.

trump ought to start fucking shit up before they can round up the civvies and set this up. america and israel have the ability of precision targetting so they might be able to bomb shit without harming anyone, not that israel would give a fuck but america might. after that its probably going to be a game of outmaneuvering the human shields, iran is a big country and there are presumably more targets than people willing to hop on a bus and ride towards suicide by israel

this is what happens when you have a country governed by rabid death cultists being glazed by bleeding heart leftie retards across the west for decades

 

[01169]

The fact Iran is outright planning to daisy-chain civilians around their infrastructure to stop the US from bombing it is fucking crazy to me

Like I already knew they didn't value these people at all but using literal human shields is wild as fuck.

Are you new to this? Hamas has built their entire organization on top (or rather under) of civilians. Anyone dying "for the cause" is a martyr anyway.

 

[Ghostse]

Possibly dumb question,

There is nothing wrong with questions asked in earnest. (unless its "I'm too lazy to use highlights spoon feed me?") Its when we have to deal with brown questions that the problems develop.

Instead of hitting bridges and power plants, why aren't we just directly targeting their weapons, vehicles, bases, and so on?
[...]
It just seems like there's a high potential cost, and I don't get what the huge benefit will be for going after the infrastructure instead of the IRGC positions directly.

As others have said, we've been doing that. The issue is that even with several hundred aircraft, we can't kill every Basij solider or ack every gun emplacement. There is also issues where the longer this goes on the more odds they can convince Russia or China they're a good investment; the longer the US is distracted in Iran, the more time both nations have to pursue their own ends.

We've been at this for over a month. Pilots are going to be getting tired. Crews are going to be getting tired. Airframes are going to starting hitting "maintenance overhaul" lifetimes. This wouldn't be a problem if this was an existential fight for the US, but is not. This is just us shitting on some violent Turd Worlders. There is no need to degrade our combat capabilities continuing to handle Iran with kid gloves.

Iran is still continuing to make missiles and drones, and launch them. taking out their power shuts off weapon production. Taking out their bridges cripples their logistics. Its not random terror bombing to break the population, its bombing to break the regime or at least make sure they can't rise to be a threat for a long time..

Now I'm going to preface:
No one knows exactly why the shift in tactics except Trump and maybe Bibi. Its all speculation. Anyone who claims they aren't speculating is spinning you a line of bullshit from "sources familiar with the matter" Speculation goes from "Trump said 4-6 weeks and by god we're out on Week 6" to "This is opening the way for the ground invasion*". It might not even be a change in tactics, it might just be a bluff or mind games.

It very literally could be Trump sees we're on week 6 and while Iran's demands are slightly less batshit insane we're no closer to a realistic solution than when we started, and he's done. Peace was never an option, time to send Iran back to the time of the prophet as they've always dreamed of.

This could be a prelude to telling the people to rise up. Power outage means CCTV doesn't work. Destroyed bridges means the regime can't move around vehicles and armor to counter uprisings.

It could be now that the F-15 situaton is resolved, Trump may be figuring Iran could be starting to adapt or get supplied by Russia/China, so its best to start forcing the situation.

The other thing to consider: Trump is a bullshit artist. This is just objective fact. Trump chimps out for 3 days about "Power plant and bridge day" and then hits...anything else.

 

[Kalergi]

Yeah, and it's been slowly working. There are fewer and fewer of them left.
And I don't think we're running short on munitions to blow up the rest of them that remain.
So why change tactics?

It's ultimately political. Trump took a massive gamble (really, his entire presidency now rests on it) that the IRGC can be overthrown in a matter of weeks, with the ultimate goal that they don't get nukes and basically become like the GCC countries, which have massive wealth but only just enough military capability to defend themselves rather than project power beyond their fiefdom. The rub here is that a country like Iran only remains like that for a certain amount of time before it becomes ambitious to become a regional power again, but if you're lucky, you've bought about 20-30 years of relative calm outside of a few dissident Twelver militias that have to be dealt with from time to time.

However, Trump is ultimately constrained by the War Powers Act and public support from carrying out something like this for very long. He (or his advisors, at any length) needs to figure out a way to wrap this up by the end of April, or he won't get any further support for carrying out the war. I suspect the initial plan was to disrupt IRGC operations enough after taking out their lead commanders that an infiltrating force of armed protestors could have started a cascade preference that would break down IRGC resistance from within in the "4-6 weeks" timeframe they were talking about early on. That got taken off the table when the Kurds kept the weapons and went back into the hills.

So they apparently moved on to trying to break down IRGC C4 capability to a sufficient degree that their populace will be emboldened to try something when Pahlavi or whoever else gives them some kind of "go" signal, and give them better odds of causing enough havoc to overthrow the regime. We've already had a real-world example that their control is rather tenuous by the fact that they couldn't capture the WSO on the rescue, because the locals apparently helped him evade their clutches and then prevented them from swarming the area by causing a traffic jam during the extraction. But Trump doesn't have time to just grind them down, which the GCC would probably prefer, because he's handcuffed from doing so politically. That's another reason the PMF probably got pulled back, so they could aid the Basij in putting down any protests. The IRGC's solution to these things is always to massacre protestors.

 

[Schwarzwald]

Like I already knew they didn't value these people at all but using literal human shields is wild as fuck.

The governments of Iran and North Korea are about as close to objectively evil as modern nations can be. They deserve whatever they get.

 

[ThisIsGonnaBeGood]

I think it's overlooked in Christian circles because it's less expressly "religious," as the Jews in question were fairly deeply assimilated into a different culture and we don't see God talking directly or through a prophet. It had some baller illustrations in the Bible Story Books I read as a kid, though.

She's also the hottest VeggieTales character.

 

[aphaln]

Two gunmen have been killed and a police officer injured after opening fire on the Israeli consulate in Turkey. Pretty retarded way to die judging by the fact that Israel evacuated everyone long ago because Turkey are massive Hamas & Iran supporters and any Jew in sight would've been lynched long ago, they're shooting at pretty much only other Turks.

0:25

2:28

Spoiler: Footage dump

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1:09

0:24

Yediot Ahronot report that the consulate has been empty of jooz for 2 and a half years