Mastodawn

Dresden S 4d ago

War is politics by other means and sometimes those politics are “keep Benjamin Netanyahu out of prison for a few more weeks” or “keep President Grandpa distracted with a new video game he can watch on Fox News so Steven Miller can kidnap more children,” which is how we end up with a deadly farce like “The Twelve Days War.”

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

The next logical steps for the Iranian regime are to frantically rebuild their air defenses, rethink how they handle opsec, and frantically work towards a nuclear weapon.

Because unless the Israeli and US states are willing to militarily occupy Iran—they can’t and they’re not—then air power alone can’t prevent Iran from doing these things.

You would think that, like, every war ever since the invention of the plane would have convinced the US and Israel of this, but for some reason people really love the idea of quick, easy, and risk-free military victories through bombing.

Chairman Meow ᓚᘏᗢ 🐿️🍉4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum frantically but very quietly, if they have any sense at all.

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

Just keep digging deeper and deeper and do it out of sight.

No one in the world should be surprised when they do it.

Jamey Sharp 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum I keep thinking "if they're going to get punished anyway they might as well do the thing they're getting punished for"; is that kinda what you mean?

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

Rather, all of the resources they invested in conventional defenses and offensive capabilities have failed them against the technological edge that the Israeli and US states possess, so it makes logical sense to pursue an asymmetrical capability to deter further attacks.

Martin Vermeer FCD 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum @jamey Yeah.

https://fediscience.org/@martinvermeer/114728795786818196

Martin Vermeer FCD (@martinvermeer@fediscience.org)

@Sustainable2050@mastodon.energy I just don't get how anybody can seriously claim that this attack will make the world safer, when it is the perfect illustration why small countries are desperate to get their hands on the "equalizer", the weapon that makes them uninvadable? This is the end of non-proliferation. https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/roli001pole01_01/roli001pole01_01_0008.php

FediScience.org

@HeavenlyPossum @jamey

Considering that the only party in the entire affair that really showed restraint or an interest in peace is Iran, one can imagine a world in which they want a nuke just so rogue nations like Israel and the US don't bomb their capital whenever they feel a little spicy or want to distract from something else

"Bomb that non-nuclear State" and "bomb that nuclear State" are super different propositions.

Problem with that line of thinking is you can't use a nuclear weapon. It's too awful. Using it on people means you deserve nothing but death upon you a million times over. So the only people who would want one are people without restraint nor any interest in peace. Otherwise the US just bombs your capital anyway, because what are you going to do, kill 10 million innocent people? Better that you had a million conventional weapons that could be used strategically!

CC: @HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social @jamey@toot.cat

The casualties involved in destroying a nation's nuclear capabilities are a tiny sliver of a fraction of the amount of death caused by allowing them to build bombs. (Including the US. Bomb all the nukes!)

CC: @johnzajac@dice.camp @HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social @jamey@toot.cat

@HeavenlyPossum @jamey It also gives Iran a good reason to seek closer ties to Russia and China. We're seeing quite an alliance forming, of countries which are culturally and politically very different, because they are all united by a common interest in opposing the global dominance of the US.

–modo ⚛️ 🧬 🇪🇺 🇨🇦 🇺🇦4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum in the long run these "quick, easy, and risk-free military victories" start to look awfully like pyrrhic victories.

For his next act Orange Jesus thinks that assassinating the Ayatollah will how magically transform Iran back to something resembling the pre-revolutionary Iran lead by the CIA installed pro-western dictator, the Shah.

That ain't gonna work and invading will kill pver a million civilians, more Americans than Vietnam, and be as successful as the Iraq debacle.

@enmodo @HeavenlyPossum No, a pyrrhic victory is one where the victory is achieved at a cost far too great to justify. This is a likely outcome for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the bombing of Iran was cheap and quick, by military standards.

It's also not really achieving anything. All it does is set back Iran's nuclear program for a bit, ensuring the same situation will recur in a few years. This is a stalling tactic - kick the can down the road for a future administration to deal with.

@HeavenlyPossum might be easier than presumed …

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

Exclusive: Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.

CNN

David Palk#RejoinEU 💖🇪🇺🤎🕊4d ago

@oatmeal @HeavenlyPossum @RejoinEU we all lose. The genii is out of the bottle, (Einstein et al) , how we live with that in this atomic age needs a radically new approach to our politics, social interactions, the whole ball of wax. Maybe the time for collaboration not confrontation is right now. Distressingly the levers of power are in the hands of narcissistic Homo Stupiditus (no relation to Hom. Sap.) #MAD #war #peace #choice

Peace is Not A Fable

@Palky55 @oatmeal @HeavenlyPossum @RejoinEU

“ Homo Stupiditus “
😂 Most Excellent !

@HeavenlyPossum If I were in charge in Iran, I'd still be thinking of how easily Iraq fell to an impulsive, poorly-justified invasion and thinking "If Iraq had nukes, that wouldn't have happened. I should get a nuclear deterrent before a president decides to go looking for some military glory."

Then I'd start eyeing up the deepest mines in the country for bunker sites, and try to negotiate with Russia for technological support.

Duncan Bayne 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum "The next logical steps for the Iranian regime are to frantically rebuild their air defenses, rethink how they handle opsec, and frantically work towards a nuclear weapon."

Orrrrr ... you know, they could start complying with IAEA inspections, stop enriching uranium far beyond levels necessary for civilian purposes, and stop building facilities to do that in *totally* not-suspicious underground Dr. Evil lairs.

Yes Trump acted illegally in bombing Iran. Yes, he was probably improperly influenced by Netenyahu, who is trying desperately to avoid jail time.

But none of that makes the Iranian Government the good guys, either.

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

Nothing I said implies the Iranian regime is good.

The Iranian regime *was* complying with JCPOA, which Trump tore up in a fit of pique and then tried, poorly, to replace with a shittier version of JCPOA he could plaster his face all over.

The strategic lesson the US and Israel have taught the Iranian regime is that even if it signs formal non-nuclearization agreements with the US, it will still face attacks from the US and Israel against which it cannot conventionally defend. So, better to have a nuclear deterrent and face attack than to have no nuclear deterrent and face attack.

Gary Houston 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum @duncan_bayne a nuclear deterrent is useless, Iran could never "win" a nuclear war against Israel and the USA.

I think the best thing for them to do, even in a Machiavellian sense, would be to declare their country a nuclear-free zone, no nuclear weapons, no nuclear power, and no uranium mining.

It would remove the excuses for random bombings and economic sanctions and they could get back to the important businesses of repressing their own population etc.

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

@duncan_bayne @ghouston

If nuclear deterrents were useless, no one would have nuclear arsenals. Yet they exist.

A deterrent doesn’t have to produce *victory* so much as present sufficient costs to an aggressor to make any aggressive action too costly to be worth undertaking. See for example Singapore’s “poisoned shrimp” approach to national defense.

Since Iran didn’t have nuclear weapons, and was not close to a nuclear weapon, and had signed the JCPOA and agreed not to have nuclear weapons, it’s hard to imagine the Iranian regime concluding that a strict “no nuclear” policy would be sufficient to guarantee regime survival—it already did that and was attacked anyway in a manner it cannot deter or defend against conventionally.

Gary Houston 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum @duncan_bayne I think it's useless for Iran, since reaching any plausible level of deterrent, while being bombed all the while, doesn't seem likely. It would just waste resources that they could be allocating to conventional weapons.

Gary Houston 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum @duncan_bayne even if say, they acquired 5 nuclear warheads from North Korea, fitted them to missiles, and announced that Israel had better start conceding to its demands from now on, would it be likely to succeed?

The deterrence would be limited by the chances of getting past Israel's missile defences, the chances of the warhead actually working, and the chances that Iran would be willing to do that and take the reprisals.

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

@ghouston @duncan_bayne

Deterrence is not practically limited in this fashion.

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

@duncan_bayne @ghouston

Unless the US and Israel propose to physically occupy Iran, merely bombing it periodically is insufficient to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon. Air power alone does not win wars and can barely degrade an adversary’s means of waging war without a commensurate ground campaign. Recall that Nazi German war production peaked in 1944 after years of strategic bombing.

Gary Houston 4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum @duncan_bayne I didn't know that about the Nazis. It doesn't look like Iran is taking the non-nuclear route, in any case, so stay tuned for more exciting developments.

ophiocephalic 🐍4d ago

@HeavenlyPossum
Guess at this point he'll have to call it "The Thirteen Days War". Doesn't have the same ring, does it

HeavenlyPossum 4d ago

The ideal situation is that we all keep calling it the 12 Days War regardless of how long it lasts.