The Israel-Iran War ?

[Legbiter]

Since only the US has the military capability of reaching the underground facilities used for the Iranian nuclear program, how does Israel have a "hard" veto over the program now that the US has said its part is done?

Also, how is the Iranian regime "boxed in" any more than it was before the US launched its attack?

Israel can blow up every point it considers suspicious since it has total air superiority. The regime wanting to manufacture ballistic missiles will as well be pruned back.

[Valmy]

Seeing as how this subplot began with Iran launching missiles at Israel, if they stop launching missiles it will be hard to spin as anything other than we give up.

Obviously I am confused because I thought it started with Israel launching missiles at Iran.

Especially after announcing very publicly they were going to close the Straights and then not sending a single person on a motorboat to his well deserved date with 72 virgins.

Well they might have a problem there. The Shia don't seem to do the 72 virgins thing as much as the Sunnis.

[Valmy]

Iranian regime is embarrassed and boxed in. Israel basically decapitated the regime minus the 86 year old Ayatollah. Their nuclear program given how effortlessly Israel achieved air superiority is under a hard Israeli/US veto at this point. 

Iran's position seems unchanged to me. They were basically a threat to nobody outside of their rather pathetic regional proxies before...and they seem to be the same now.

[Valmy]

Since only the US has the military capability of reaching the underground facilities used for the Iranian nuclear program, how does Israel have a "hard" veto over the program now that the US has said its part is done?

Also, how is the Iranian regime "boxed in" any more than it was before the US launched its attack?

Israel can blow up every point it considers suspicious since it has total air superiority. The regime wanting to manufacture ballistic missiles will as well be pruned back.

Right. So since they are obviously the dominant and unchallenged power in all of West Asia, why do we still need to attack their enemies and give them weapons?

Why do we need to "stand with Israel"?

[HVC]

Apocalypses don't start themselves.

[Tamas]

Iranian regime is embarrassed and boxed in. Israel basically decapitated the regime minus the 86 year old Ayatollah. Their nuclear program given how effortlessly Israel achieved air superiority is under a hard Israeli/US veto at this point. 

Iran's position seems unchanged to me. They were basically a threat to nobody outside of their rather pathetic regional proxies before...and they seem to be the same now.

You are pushing the argument a bit too far the opposite direction, I feel. It is only very recently iran was squaring up against the Saudis in Yemen as equals, while proxying Syria, de facto ruling Lebanon through Hezbollah, and in general quite clearly gunning die regional supremacy.

Sure right now they are no serious contenders or a danger to anyone but that is BECAUSE the Israelis have defeated them.

[Valmy]

I don't see any contradiction. They only ever had their regional proxies who, while dominant in their little fiefdoms were kind of pathetic overall.

Nobody ever thought the mighty Iranian military was going to roll over the local area.

[Jacob]

You are pushing the argument a bit too far the opposite direction, I feel. It is only very recently iran was squaring up against the Saudis in Yemen as equals, while proxying Syria, de facto ruling Lebanon through Hezbollah, and in general quite clearly gunning die regional supremacy.

Sure right now they are no serious contenders or a danger to anyone but that is BECAUSE the Israelis have defeated them.

Yeah that's a good point. Israel already had victory in hand there, before launching these strikes on Iran.

The question for me is what purpose the strikes serve, and how much they contributed towards achieving that purpose. In my mind there are four main purposes:

• Set back the Iranian nuke program significantly or, ideally, render it unviable. I don't know enough to feel confident about this in either direction. I suppose time will tell.
• Continually demonstrate that the Iranian regime has been defanged in the region. I suppose the strikes achieved that in the moment, but if it  is a significant part of the reasoning, they'll need to keep it up the pressure. One and done won't be enough, so if this matters I expect we'll se more such actions. In that view, it is a propaganda action and narratives about who won or lost also matter.
• Effect regime change in Iran. If this was the goal, it did not seem to succeed. But if they succeed in 2. above over the long term, it may eventually work out.
• Keep Nethanyahu safe from domestic challenges. It likely worked for the moment, and like 2. above it suggests a need for continual action.

[Tamas]

The israeli strikes made sense if they genuinely felt they would need to deal with the Iranian nuclear program this way. Because if so, when else a better time to do it, when they have with long careful planning neutralised the Iranian proxies and due to the their Gaza campaign they are already at rock bottom with international PR?

If they had a respectable leadership I would not question their motives and fully support them. But I can very easily imagine of Netanyahu that the only real consideration was to keep escalating so he can personally keep out of prison.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I don't think they don't make sense. For me the question is how effective they were in achieving their goal(s).

[Razgovory]

From a perspective of "when the bully hits you, you hit back so they burn their fingers and don't hit you again" Iran lost.

From a perspective of "we are massively outgunned, they hit us, but we're not really going to change our course or direction, and we were not drawn into destruction. We weathered the storm and maintained our pride" it can probably be seen as a win.

Yeah, weirdly Israel and Iran won, but US may have lost.

Israel won in that they convinced a US president to attack Iran. And somehow they convinced Yi that Iran attacked first. Iran won for the reasons you gave.

I don't think Israel or the US gained anything, but Trump and Netanyahu did.

[crazy canuck]

From a perspective of "when the bully hits you, you hit back so they burn their fingers and don't hit you again" Iran lost.

From a perspective of "we are massively outgunned, they hit us, but we're not really going to change our course or direction, and we were not drawn into destruction. We weathered the storm and maintained our pride" it can probably be seen as a win.

Yeah, weirdly Israel and Iran won, but US may have lost.

Israel won in that they convinced a US president to attack Iran. And somehow they convinced Yi that Iran attacked first. Iran won for the reasons you gave.

I don't think Israel or the US gained anything, but Trump and Netanyahu did.

Yeah, good point.

[Zoupa]

From a perspective of "when the bully hits you, you hit back so they burn their fingers and don't hit you again" Iran lost.

From a perspective of "we are massively outgunned, they hit us, but we're not really going to change our course or direction, and we were not drawn into destruction. We weathered the storm and maintained our pride" it can probably be seen as a win.

Yeah, weirdly Israel and Iran won, but US may have lost.

Israel won in that they convinced a US president to attack Iran. And somehow they convinced Yi that Iran attacked first. Iran won for the reasons you gave.

I don't think Israel or the US gained anything, but Trump and Netanyahu did.

Exactly. There's no point doing a deep analysis of the objectives or motivations, especially in trump's case. He's swayed by fox News discourse and whoever spoke to him deferential last.

[Valmy]

I don't think Israel or the US gained anything, but Trump and Netanyahu did.

Yeah 

[Jacob]

Exactly. There's no point doing a deep analysis of the objectives or motivations, especially in trump's case. He's swayed by fox News discourse and whoever spoke to him deferential last.

It's totally worth it to discuss objectives and motivations. It's just that there are multiple possible scenarios, and that whatever Trump says or does is in service of whoever whispered at him first.

But we can still evaluate what objectives the US and Israel did or did not achieve by their actions, whether or not they intended them - and personally I find it worthwhile to do.