Iran War?

[Valmy]

I am sure we will eventually skim off enough until we find some seemingly pliant IRGC/ayatollah figurehead who will lead just-as-before oppressive regime that pays sufficient lip service to Trump while at the same time plotting revenge for our future leaders to have to deal with.

Or they can go to Russia...the more militant propagandists there have already invited the IRGC to come fight in Ukraine. 

Yeah what are far right Russian Euro supporters going to say when Islamic soldiers are invading Europe with his support? 

[DGuller]

Didn't see it mentioned here, but Ahmadinejad was also whacked.  Not sure why he was still of interest, I thought he wasn't an entity anymore, and was actually at odds with the clerics since his presidency?

[Jacob]

The Ukrainians have had multiple attacks foiled by radio jammers. And a fiber-optic drone has a very short range. You can bet that the Secret Service has plans to counter such an attack.

Yeah I expect the president is a very hard target.

Were I looking to shock the American establishment with assassinations in response to attacks on my nation, I'd consider the various billionaires who fund and direct the Trump administration. I expect they have less tight security than the president and that targeting them would be pretty high impact.

[Valmy]

Didn't see it mentioned here, but Ahmadinejad was also whacked.  Not sure why he was still of interest, I thought he wasn't an entity anymore, and was actually at odds with the clerics since his presidency?

I also heard the same thing. I also wasn't clear if he was specifically targetted, and why, or if he just happened to be killed.

[viper37]

Not sure why he was still of interest,

To make sure the regime is destabilized as much as possible, no one they can easily turn to for a leadership role in the immediate aftermath of the strikes.

[Valmy]

Not sure why he was still of interest,

To make sure the regime is destabilized as much as possible, no one they can easily turn to for a leadership role in the immediate aftermath of the strikes.

Was he even in the running?

Anyway destabilizing a place just means the most psychotic thug takes charge. I don't know why that would be better.

[HVC]

Or he could have just chosen the wrong bunker at the wrong time.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Ahmadinejad from what I understand was so unpopular with the regime he was at risk of being arrested / executed at one point, it seems like they eventually just opted to leave him alone. He certainly wasn't on any list of people to move in and start running the regime--no matter how long it was. But he may have been on some list of targets that was made without any real consideration to that reality.

Ahmadinejad was a bad dude so certainly not going to shed tears over him, but if he was deliberately targeted vs just being in the "wrong bunker" with other high value targets, it would seem to be a misread of his position in Iran.

It's also possible it was Israel that killed him, my understanding is they have more personal antipathy to him for his Holocaust denialism and other antisemitic rhetoric.

[Sheilbh]

Had to go to the dentist and was 20 minutes late in spite of leaving early due to large throngs of anti-regime demonstrators. The news said 45 000 locally, and more than 100 000 in Toronto.

Yeah I am slightly torn.

My instinct is conservative and better the devil you know.

But there was footage of Iranians and Jews celebrating together in the streets of Finchley (suburb in North London). And today I went to get my haircut and was chatting with the barber who was Syrian. He wasn't necessarily pro-bombing but just said that his country was destroyed by war and that man (Khamenei) sent the bombs and "mafia" who did it. And I'm not going to argue against those views.

The other side I suppose is all the footage of Bahrainis rocking up at the US base to cheer and laugh at them getting bombed.

[Jacob]

Yeah, we have a close friend who's Persian. Her response was basically "today I'm getting out the Champagne to celebrate that that asshole is dead! Tomorrow I'll worry about what happens next."

[Duque de Bragança]

Seen on TV Iranian refugees celebrating Khamenei's death in Portugal.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It would be fantastic if the end result was a half-decent, or better, regime for Iran. I just feel that is rather unlikely 

Well, we will see.

[Valmy]

Seen on TV Iranian refugees celebrating Khamenei's death in Portugal.

Yeah well good for them

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Yeah, we have a close friend who's Persian. Her response was basically "today I'm getting out the Champagne to celebrate that that asshole is dead! Tomorrow I'll worry about what happens next."

a sensible sentiment

[The Minsky Moment]

How many times do we have to play this old record?  Crowds cheering the fall of Saddam, the fall of Qadaffi.  And then what. What makes it even less optimistic is that there is literally no armed or organized opposition force on the ground, as distinct from the US Army in Iraq and powerful armed militias in Syria and Libya.  There is literally nothing on the ground to take advantage of any regime weakness.

It's just nuts watching these MAGA people spend years lecturing the old Bush neocons on how naive they were to think they could blow stuff up in the Middle East and hope that something magical will happen only to rally around and cheer they same thing all over again, only less organized and thought through.