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The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding: * I think this is the longest-range use of a balli

The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding: * I think this is the longest-range use of a ballistic missile in anger, possibly ever? * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe?

madaxe_again 6mo ago
Iran have boats.
- myth_drannon 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - fnordpiglet 6mo ago
    They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades, and I wouldn’t believe this administrations propaganda if they claimed the sky was blue.
    - nozzlegear 6mo ago
      Five decades doesn't seem to mean much when most of their leadership, military and air defenses can be laid prostrate by the US and Israel in a couple of days. I don't ever take Trump for his word, but neither do I think there's wisdom in believing that a technologically superior force couldn't easily wipe out Iran's ballistic-capable navy just because they've been preparing for a long time. Edit: am I wrong? Can copium in fact save inferior boats from a vastly superior military force?
      - fnordpiglet 6mo ago
        You’re wrong in a few ways - - Iran has structured the functioning of its government and military to be highly resilient to decapitation. Every function has redundancy and every military unit can exercise autonomy. Their goal is to build a theocratic revolution around an ideology and not a personality, and intentionally built a system to survive a hostile environment. - You have to find what you want to destroy and quantity can out last highly sophisticated and expensive systems. They have been aware of satellite imaging for some time and almost certainly have planned for closing the straight against the US navy for decades. What they have going for them is asymmetric warfare that relies on mass and surprise. For instance, the $20,000 drone that requires multiple $4mm interceptors to stop. They can just keep dropping those randomly indefinitely on their time table and burn a steady supply of interceptors that are increasingly spread out then roll out the hypersonic missiles they have but haven’t even used yet knowing the defenses have been spread thin across an ever increasingly wide region as they demonstrate the radius of attack they have. Ground warfare would be against an enemy who has fortified and prepared for decades with full awareness of our capabilities as we demonstrated them globally. - the idiocy of a talk show host leading a military commanded by a real estate developer turned reality tv show host with delusions of megalomaniacal grandeur can self defeat any military against any foe
        nozzlegear 6mo ago
        Thanks, I appreciate the reply. My contention was only about Iran's navy and their ability to field ships that can launch ballistic missiles. I believe the GP or GGP was implying that Iran still has "boats" with which they could extend the range of their ballistic missiles even further. That's what I think is a far cry from reality – the US and Israel surely know where those ships would be and would be more than capable of destroying them. Regarding the substance of your comment: I'm not sure I agree about being resilient to decapitation, as the US and Israel have apparently become very skilled at locating the people they want to kill. But I agree with all the rest, especially regarding that bloviating ass, Hegseth.
        fnordpiglet 6mo ago
        The thing is, as I understand it, is every function has four designated replacements and a process for the replacements replacement in the scenario all four people are lost. Every military unit has autonomous instructions they carry out without central command. Israel has been assassinating people for decades. They’re aware that the strategy would be this one. They’ve designed an organizational structure that’s not dependent on individuals. That’s why you see a lot of the senior leaders have had very varied roles over the years - like wildly so. No one in their organization is indispensable, and the supreme ayatollah is a title not a person. They elected his son in coma as a message that the person isn’t relevant, it’s a symbolic role with invested power in the role not the person. There’s no reason to believe assassinating individuals will achieve very much. It has not seemed to slow them down an iota so far, and I think at this point we have done enough personal damage to their leadership that there is no way to end the war. Even if we stop, it will go one through terrorism and proxy wars at a greater clip than ever before. Only an invasion will work, and I suspect that would be next to impossible to succeed at. I do not think the US will win this. If we had had a plan, had enlisted allies, had prepared perhaps. But Trump just thought this was like Venezuela and YOLO’ed not realizing it’s not a dictatorship there.
        jacquesm 6mo ago
        Think Hydra, not lion.
    - 1over137 6mo ago
      >They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades... So have the USA & Israel I suspect.
  - spiderfarmer 6mo ago
    Don’t believe Hegseths obvious buffoonery. They still have boats.
  - verdverm 6mo ago
    Large surface and mini subs, yes. They still have many small boats for laying mines. These are indistinguishable from a typical motor boat. Look at how Ukraine has denied Russia access to most of the Black Sea. It's going to be real hard to stop Iran from creating enough uncertainty to ease the worries of the shipping world. Iran will have to say they are done threatening the straight.
    - nozzlegear 6mo ago
      We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?
      - verdverm 6mo ago
        Comments and threads typically digress into related topics, so I don't see the plot lost, rather the context expanded in a subthread.
    - irishcoffee 6mo ago
      The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/3111891/initial-operating-capability-declared-for-unmanned-influence-sweep-system-uiss/ https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...
      - verdverm 6mo ago
        Many experts think Iran has already won. They don't have to lay mines to seed doubt, they don't need boats to close the straights, shaheds are sufficient. One does need to define what it means to "win" For Iran, it seems the regime will stay in power, you can't remove them from the air. The geography and population size of Iran will prove more challenging than Iraq or Afghanistan. There is very little support for Trump's War. They never sought to persuade the people, it appears they have no plan b (which they wish to be illegal /s) Hubris is an apt way to describe Trump's approach to Iran. One evidence to this is that they thought Venezuela was the model for Iran. A SA dictator is nothing like a religious movement that has taken root for ~50 years. What does winning look like for the US & Israel? Trump has already claimed they won, but have more winning to do. What they have said changes daily and between who's talking. I imagine this will continue after hostilities end, they will backfill their goals to claim they "won", like so many other things they do this with. The real winners from this? Probably Russia and China more than others.
- derektank 6mo ago
  Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries. This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.
  - zer00eyz 6mo ago
    The question is do they have a launcher that fits in a shipping container...
alephnerd 6mo ago
Yep. Hence why I posted it. > previously-unknown It was implied by Iran's space program. There's a reason most regional powers also invested in a space program as well as a civilian uncles program. The name of the game is dual-use technologies. The Biden admin also warned about Iran-NK collaboration on building these kinds of capabilities [0] [0] - https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-official-says-iran-has-restarted-missile-co-operation-with-north-korea https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-officia...
- arkensaw 6mo ago
  > civilian uncles program I know its just a typo but lol'ed so hard
  - alephnerd 6mo ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM
AnotherGoodName 6mo ago
> This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe True but they have also literally launched multiple orbital satellites from iran on iranian rockets. Eg. The Noor 2 spy satellite and before that the Noor 1 series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) These are in orbit to this day. They regularly post images it takes of US military bases. Essentially it’s similar to how sputnik was a demonstration of icbm capability. Iran can launch a first generation ICBM right now. Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily) and a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) and so these aren’t used militarily but essentially everyone acting shocked they can hit 4000km range was not paying attention. I think one of the problems we are having right now is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities. It’s one thing for the common civilian to think the enemies missiles are made of cardboard and tanks of paper but it’s another when the leader of a nation believes it. Now here we are with a war that’s stalemated and no way out.
- zabzonk 6mo ago
  > a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) Intercepted? In the UK, by what? London has no missile defence system that I am aware of.
  - chatmasta 6mo ago
    A missile would need to fly all the way over Europe before reaching London. It would be noticed, jets would be scrambled and it would be shot. Just like what happened here.
    - delichon 6mo ago
      These were ballistic missiles. They are only vulnerable during the terminal phase, when they are moving at hypersonic speeds. Standard fighter jets aren't going to do it. It would take ground based THAAD, Patriot, or ship based Aegis systems. London might want to budget for that.
bawolff 6mo ago
> * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe? The Wikipedia article has said they had missiles that can range 4300km since 2019 (as in the article was updated in 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=911582208 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=91... . If Wikipedia has known about it for 7 years, surely military planners were already aware.
jandrewrogers 6mo ago
US intelligence had assessed that this was possible a long time ago. It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia. Of course, there is a significant gap between Iran possessing the capability, having the temperament to use it, and actually doing so.
- alephnerd 6mo ago
  > It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia This was sidestepped by allowing the Poland-SK defense partnership to kick off in 2013 [0] which was further entrenched in 2022 [1], and itself acted as a message against North Korea for acting in a similar manner with Iran [2] [0] - https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/poland-south-korea-adopt-strategic-partnership-declaration,38801 https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/... [1] - https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-irsem-140-paik.pdf https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...
dragonelite 6mo ago
It's a message toward the west don't think you're safe further away. Iran is pushing the west out of west Asia. Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this.
- ignoramous 6mo ago
  > Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this. Diplomacy was working fine, per high-ranking diplomats: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-...
  - rayiner 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ignoramous 6mo ago
      Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.
  - magic_hamster 6mo ago
    Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional. The western "avoid conflict at all cost" approach is extremely detrimental.
    - ignoramous 6mo ago
      > Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundbreaking-book-explained-197429 https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5 https://archive.vn/HoEk5
ChuckMcM 6mo ago
I think the article downplays the element that the attack probably achieved its goal which was not to actually hit something at Diego Garcia, but to show that thing 2500 miles from Iran are potentially targetable by Iran. That starts conversations like the one here and in other fora about whether or not Iran would limit themselves to military targets (Russia doesn't as an example) and if not how could Europe and its East Asian allies protect literally everything with their finite supply of defensive units.
- big-and-small 6mo ago
  Except it would be very weird goal to achieve because it's only give more reasons to bomb whole country into oblivion and justify deployment of ground troops.
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    There is probably a hardline faction within Iran that still thinks it gains from further bombing and forced isolation.
    - PixyMisa 6mo ago
      Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.
    - jhanschoo 6mo ago
      Why would Iran end up further isolated due to this war, and out of escalation? (your sentence is slightly ambiguous so I assume that you are referring to it.) If it successfully asserts control over the Strait as it seems to presently be doing, it should be able to negotiate a peace favorable to itself. Even with the status quo, I don't know how that figures into things, but the US has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil. I don't follow the news very well, but from what I know the claim that you make isn't very obviously true but needs some evidence for it to stand.
      - 6mo ago

madaxe_again 6mo ago

Iran have boats.

myth_drannon 6mo ago
[flagged]
- fnordpiglet 6mo ago
  They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades, and I wouldn’t believe this administrations propaganda if they claimed the sky was blue.
  - nozzlegear 6mo ago
    Five decades doesn't seem to mean much when most of their leadership, military and air defenses can be laid prostrate by the US and Israel in a couple of days. I don't ever take Trump for his word, but neither do I think there's wisdom in believing that a technologically superior force couldn't easily wipe out Iran's ballistic-capable navy just because they've been preparing for a long time. Edit: am I wrong? Can copium in fact save inferior boats from a vastly superior military force?
    - fnordpiglet 6mo ago
      You’re wrong in a few ways - - Iran has structured the functioning of its government and military to be highly resilient to decapitation. Every function has redundancy and every military unit can exercise autonomy. Their goal is to build a theocratic revolution around an ideology and not a personality, and intentionally built a system to survive a hostile environment. - You have to find what you want to destroy and quantity can out last highly sophisticated and expensive systems. They have been aware of satellite imaging for some time and almost certainly have planned for closing the straight against the US navy for decades. What they have going for them is asymmetric warfare that relies on mass and surprise. For instance, the $20,000 drone that requires multiple $4mm interceptors to stop. They can just keep dropping those randomly indefinitely on their time table and burn a steady supply of interceptors that are increasingly spread out then roll out the hypersonic missiles they have but haven’t even used yet knowing the defenses have been spread thin across an ever increasingly wide region as they demonstrate the radius of attack they have. Ground warfare would be against an enemy who has fortified and prepared for decades with full awareness of our capabilities as we demonstrated them globally. - the idiocy of a talk show host leading a military commanded by a real estate developer turned reality tv show host with delusions of megalomaniacal grandeur can self defeat any military against any foe
      - nozzlegear 6mo ago
        Thanks, I appreciate the reply. My contention was only about Iran's navy and their ability to field ships that can launch ballistic missiles. I believe the GP or GGP was implying that Iran still has "boats" with which they could extend the range of their ballistic missiles even further. That's what I think is a far cry from reality – the US and Israel surely know where those ships would be and would be more than capable of destroying them. Regarding the substance of your comment: I'm not sure I agree about being resilient to decapitation, as the US and Israel have apparently become very skilled at locating the people they want to kill. But I agree with all the rest, especially regarding that bloviating ass, Hegseth.
        fnordpiglet 6mo ago
        The thing is, as I understand it, is every function has four designated replacements and a process for the replacements replacement in the scenario all four people are lost. Every military unit has autonomous instructions they carry out without central command. Israel has been assassinating people for decades. They’re aware that the strategy would be this one. They’ve designed an organizational structure that’s not dependent on individuals. That’s why you see a lot of the senior leaders have had very varied roles over the years - like wildly so. No one in their organization is indispensable, and the supreme ayatollah is a title not a person. They elected his son in coma as a message that the person isn’t relevant, it’s a symbolic role with invested power in the role not the person. There’s no reason to believe assassinating individuals will achieve very much. It has not seemed to slow them down an iota so far, and I think at this point we have done enough personal damage to their leadership that there is no way to end the war. Even if we stop, it will go one through terrorism and proxy wars at a greater clip than ever before. Only an invasion will work, and I suspect that would be next to impossible to succeed at. I do not think the US will win this. If we had had a plan, had enlisted allies, had prepared perhaps. But Trump just thought this was like Venezuela and YOLO’ed not realizing it’s not a dictatorship there.
        jacquesm 6mo ago
        Think Hydra, not lion.
  - 1over137 6mo ago
    >They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades... So have the USA & Israel I suspect.
- spiderfarmer 6mo ago
  Don’t believe Hegseths obvious buffoonery. They still have boats.
- verdverm 6mo ago
  Large surface and mini subs, yes. They still have many small boats for laying mines. These are indistinguishable from a typical motor boat. Look at how Ukraine has denied Russia access to most of the Black Sea. It's going to be real hard to stop Iran from creating enough uncertainty to ease the worries of the shipping world. Iran will have to say they are done threatening the straight.
  - nozzlegear 6mo ago
    We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?
    - verdverm 6mo ago
      Comments and threads typically digress into related topics, so I don't see the plot lost, rather the context expanded in a subthread.
  - irishcoffee 6mo ago
    The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/3111891/initial-operating-capability-declared-for-unmanned-influence-sweep-system-uiss/ https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...
    - verdverm 6mo ago
      Many experts think Iran has already won. They don't have to lay mines to seed doubt, they don't need boats to close the straights, shaheds are sufficient. One does need to define what it means to "win" For Iran, it seems the regime will stay in power, you can't remove them from the air. The geography and population size of Iran will prove more challenging than Iraq or Afghanistan. There is very little support for Trump's War. They never sought to persuade the people, it appears they have no plan b (which they wish to be illegal /s) Hubris is an apt way to describe Trump's approach to Iran. One evidence to this is that they thought Venezuela was the model for Iran. A SA dictator is nothing like a religious movement that has taken root for ~50 years. What does winning look like for the US & Israel? Trump has already claimed they won, but have more winning to do. What they have said changes daily and between who's talking. I imagine this will continue after hostilities end, they will backfill their goals to claim they "won", like so many other things they do this with. The real winners from this? Probably Russia and China more than others.
derektank 6mo ago
Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries. This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.
- zer00eyz 6mo ago
  The question is do they have a launcher that fits in a shipping container...

alephnerd 6mo ago

Yep. Hence why I posted it. > previously-unknown It was implied by Iran's space program. There's a reason most regional powers also invested in a space program as well as a civilian uncles program. The name of the game is dual-use technologies. The Biden admin also warned about Iran-NK collaboration on building these kinds of capabilities [0] [0] - https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-official-says-iran-has-restarted-missile-co-operation-with-north-korea https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-officia...

arkensaw 6mo ago
> civilian uncles program I know its just a typo but lol'ed so hard
- alephnerd 6mo ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RejrrkrRShM

AnotherGoodName 6mo ago

> This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe True but they have also literally launched multiple orbital satellites from iran on iranian rockets. Eg. The Noor 2 spy satellite and before that the Noor 1 series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite) These are in orbit to this day. They regularly post images it takes of US military bases. Essentially it’s similar to how sputnik was a demonstration of icbm capability. Iran can launch a first generation ICBM right now. Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily) and a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) and so these aren’t used militarily but essentially everyone acting shocked they can hit 4000km range was not paying attention. I think one of the problems we are having right now is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities. It’s one thing for the common civilian to think the enemies missiles are made of cardboard and tanks of paper but it’s another when the leader of a nation believes it. Now here we are with a war that’s stalemated and no way out.

zabzonk 6mo ago
> a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) Intercepted? In the UK, by what? London has no missile defence system that I am aware of.
- chatmasta 6mo ago
  A missile would need to fly all the way over Europe before reaching London. It would be noticed, jets would be scrambled and it would be shot. Just like what happened here.
  - delichon 6mo ago
    These were ballistic missiles. They are only vulnerable during the terminal phase, when they are moving at hypersonic speeds. Standard fighter jets aren't going to do it. It would take ground based THAAD, Patriot, or ship based Aegis systems. London might want to budget for that.

bawolff 6mo ago

> * This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe? The Wikipedia article has said they had missiles that can range 4300km since 2019 (as in the article was updated in 2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=911582208 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shahab-5&oldid=91... . If Wikipedia has known about it for 7 years, surely military planners were already aware.

jandrewrogers 6mo ago

US intelligence had assessed that this was possible a long time ago. It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia. Of course, there is a significant gap between Iran possessing the capability, having the temperament to use it, and actually doing so.

alephnerd 6mo ago
> It was one of the motivations behind the installation of long-range missile defense capabilities in Poland and Czechia in the late 2000s. Obama killed that program to appease Russia This was sidestepped by allowing the Poland-SK defense partnership to kick off in 2013 [0] which was further entrenched in 2022 [1], and itself acted as a message against North Korea for acting in a similar manner with Iran [2] [0] - https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/poland-south-korea-adopt-strategic-partnership-declaration,38801 https://www.president.pl/archives/bronislaw-komorowski/news/... [1] - https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-irsem-140-paik.pdf https://www.irsem.fr/storage/file_manager_files/2025/03/nr-i... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...

dragonelite 6mo ago

It's a message toward the west don't think you're safe further away. Iran is pushing the west out of west Asia. Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this.

ignoramous 6mo ago
> Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this. Diplomacy was working fine, per high-ranking diplomats: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-friends-must-help-extricate-it-from-an-unlawful-war https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/03/18/americas-...
- rayiner 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ignoramous 6mo ago
    Yes, war is bad. Unless you're from the Complex. No big insight here, Mr. Rayiner.
- magic_hamster 6mo ago
  Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional. The western "avoid conflict at all cost" approach is extremely detrimental.
  - ignoramous 6mo ago
    > Anyone thinking they can talk their way into controlling Iran, a fundamentalist fanatic country with a very loud and visible doctrine literally calling to destroy the west, is delusional Yeah, what's it about peoples of the third world that they're always fanatical, that they're always out to destroy the first world... https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundbreaking-book-explained-197429 https://theconversation.com/orientalism-edward-saids-groundb... / https://archive.vn/HoEk5 https://archive.vn/HoEk5

ChuckMcM 6mo ago

I think the article downplays the element that the attack probably achieved its goal which was not to actually hit something at Diego Garcia, but to show that thing 2500 miles from Iran are potentially targetable by Iran. That starts conversations like the one here and in other fora about whether or not Iran would limit themselves to military targets (Russia doesn't as an example) and if not how could Europe and its East Asian allies protect literally everything with their finite supply of defensive units.

big-and-small 6mo ago
Except it would be very weird goal to achieve because it's only give more reasons to bomb whole country into oblivion and justify deployment of ground troops.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  There is probably a hardline faction within Iran that still thinks it gains from further bombing and forced isolation.
  - PixyMisa 6mo ago
    Yep. The IRGC runs the country at this point, and they do not have anyone else's best interests in mind.
  - jhanschoo 6mo ago
    Why would Iran end up further isolated due to this war, and out of escalation? (your sentence is slightly ambiguous so I assume that you are referring to it.) If it successfully asserts control over the Strait as it seems to presently be doing, it should be able to negotiate a peace favorable to itself. Even with the status quo, I don't know how that figures into things, but the US has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil. I don't follow the news very well, but from what I know the claim that you make isn't very obviously true but needs some evidence for it to stand.
    - 6mo ago