https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-attack-strikes-live-updates-rcna147477
Iran has launched drones toward Israel, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement, in an attack that Tehran had promised to carry out after its embassy in Damascus was hit last week.
Iran has the right to defend itself. Israel bombed their embassy and killed civilians; don’t Biden and Netanyahu repeatedly say for years that a country has the right to respond when attacked and their civilians are killed?
One could argue that the embassy attack was Israel defending itself from the IRGC commander and generals that were supplying the Houthis and Hamas with intel and weapons.
I’m not defending the attack on the embassy, since I’ve learned about civilian casualties. I’m simply saying this is a long standing conflict. Israel didn’t just come at Iran out of nowhere.
So then in that case, Hamas attacking US embassies is completely fair game for arming Israel?
Israel is a sovereign nation, the Houthis are not.
Under international law, the attacks of a nation are the responsibility of the attacking nation. The same is not true for independent militant groups. For example:
France arms Ukraine and Ukraine attacks Russia, Ukraine is responsible. Iran arms Houthis and Houthis attack Israel, Iran is responsible.
Well if they do argue that, then I guess they were already at war. In which case, I guess we let them continue to "work it out"...
No one can argue that. It's stupidity.
By this logic, Israel can also bomb Chinese and Russian embassies. They only did it to Iran, because they want to draw the US into the conflict.
Yes but the reason they acted out this week rather than before is because Biden publicly announced criticisms of Israel and threatened to condition aid. You cannot ignore the context.
I’m not defending the attack on the embassy
And yet you are.
International law says embassies are sacrosanct. Even if there was commander and generals in there, you cannot attack first and argue self defense without a credible threat of “imminent” danger. Israel had none and has not even argued for this claim. We went over this when the US illegally assassinated Suleimani.
No. I’m not. I’m debating the point that Israel attacked “first,” just as you said, in a 40 year long conflict.
That’s not what you said, you said Israel could claim justification for bombing an embassy because enemies were in it. Then you made a vague comment about how long the conflict is, as if that excuses it. If that is true, then all israeli embassies are fair game because Mosaad is in them and US embassies as well since they openly have CIA officers in them.
Firing missiles into a country to blow up an embassy of another country is a “first” no matter what justification you or Israel can come up with.
I said “one could claim it was retaliation” referring to the Houthi Red Sea attacks. My point is this has been going back and forth for 40 years.
So the guy with a week old account is condescending. I’m pretty sure I’ve read and taught more history than you. Peace.
Or tunneling equipment. The surface world can keep its bullshit. Me and my homies gonna build a new society underground... with blackjack and hookers.
I mean, that's what a lot of rich people are doing. Building underground bunkers for the coming apocalypse.
Sounds like a good time for them to stop trying to wipe Palestine off the map. Fighting two wars is a lot harder than one.
The US was believed to have been in back channel talks with Iran until Israel pulled the shit they pulled... potentially on purpose.
It is suspected that they are trying to start shit with Iran because it has a good chance to torpedo the talks... and because then the US, and possibly other European nations, will feel pressured to forget the whole Gaza thing for now and support Israel against Iran. It's ok to keep selling them weapons when there is a real war going on.
The US is intercepting Iranian missiles headed to Israel (in addition to Israel's own defenses). Thoughts? Should the US leave them to defend themselves? Should Biden try to use it to extract promises to stop the genocide? Should the US unconditionally support Israel against foreign attack, while separately trying to stop the genocide?
I haven't formed an opinion myself, just wondering what other people think.
Probably wise to help shoot as much as possible down. If they manage to get all of it and the attack causes no deaths, then it doesn't give Netanyahu much political manoeuverability to opt for retaliatory strikes. That could deescalate things a bit, hopefully.
Still, no clue how this will play out.
In general, I think missiles are bad. I think shooting down missiles is good.
There's the rare exception to this, where the thing the missile is aimed at is about to do something worse than the missile, and the missile has a chance at preventing great harm
This is not one of those exceptions. Missiles hitting in this case would not save anyone, they'd just increase the risk of war
All that being said, you don't try to negotiate as missiles are literally en route to a country. That'd be extremely messed up, that's not how you treat an ally, no matter your relationship. You'd want to shoot them down, playing up your contribution if possible. Make them not want to think about how it would've gone without your help. Then leverage that later
Doesn't iran want to wipe Israel of the face of the earth?
Seems familiar... Almost like why Israel attacked Gaza.
So.... Tit for tat? Good for the goose also good for the gander?
"Where were you when World War 3 broke out, granddad?"
"Interesting story: you are figments of my imagination, conjured up as a brief distraction by my dying brain. Oh..."
In other news today the forces of the Allah meme engaged with the forces of the Jehovah meme.
100 drones isn't enough to do any meaningful damage, so this is a warning shot to Israeli. Or the Iran government is doing this exercise to save face among their own people.
However is Israel doesn't back down from attacking Iranians, Iran might be forced to go all out war with Israel.
In one battle I read on the Ukraine war, Russia sent out 1000 Iranian drones at once to destroy 5 targets. They knew most will be shot down, but if 4 or 5 drones hit the target, it will destroy the target complete. That's how these drones were designed to be used, dirt cheap to make, but impossible to stop in swarms.
Even 200 still isn't a lot if they aren't coming all at once, and Israel's defense can handle that easily. They're designed to shoot down 100+ numbers or rockets, shells & other air borne targets going much faster than drones before they hit their target.
I wonder where they are getting the money for weapons. I thought there were economic sanctions imposed on them. Or did I miss something and were they lifted?
Iran builds them. Iran has supplied Russia with a ton of them to use against Ukraine, if you've been following the conflict there -- cheap, long-range drones are something theylve specialized in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
For components that they can't build, they'll do stuff like have someone buy stuff in some other country, move it into Iran from there.
There was some discussion about them using motors built by an Irish lawnmower motor company a while back, that I recall, for one particular instance.
If I remember correctly, the propulsion motor is repurposed from a Chinese moped. Cheap and plentiful.
drones are pretty cheap as far a weapons go, Iran is a pretty big country with a fair bit of economic potential all on its own, and sanctions can only do so much, especially when theyve been in place for a long time such that the target has had time to work around or adapt to them
Iran has been forging ties with countries like Russia and China. There are emerging alliances like BRICS that seek to reduce the overpowering influence of the USA and other established economies (which is quite a topic of discussion in and of itself). The result appears to be that Western sanctions are, on their own, no longer as crippling a punishment.
I'm pretty sure the sanctions don't apply in North Korea, Russia, China, and any other "non western" country. They can still do business with them all the same.
When we vote in a fascist takeover in November just remember that all the people who refuse to support Biden were very clear about what they wanted from him and he refused.