Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jem

Yes, OK, arguably right. But then what?

Suppose the US carry out a decapitation strike, kill the ‘Supreme Leader’, many if not all of the government - what do you think will happen? There is no opposition party (presumably pro-western) ready and organised to take over. Most likely the entire country will collapse into anarchy, unless the US is prepared to ‘put boots on the ground’ in large numbers and, basically take the country over and run it.

And that is easier said than done, although people may have no real love for the existing regime, they tend to resent a regime forced on them from outside. I do fear that this will make Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan look like a bad cold in terms of US and Iranian casualties.

Always, always have a clearly defined exit strategy, not just ‘oh this isn’t working and the polls are against us, so we are basically going to just pull out and leave chaos behind us, and naturally this wont foster a load of terrorist groups, all of which now have a hatred on the US - well it’ll be something for a future administration to deal with’.

For the US, removing the current regime in Iran is fairly easy, dealing with the consequences, isn’t. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that the current US administration has the foresight to understand this.

You make an excellent point. It boils down to the question as to whether or not the USA has got the ducks lined up for managing Iran in the short term after unseating the mullahs.

The Shia/Sunni thing could well stand in the way of that in terms of finding a solution that has a chance.

It may boil down to bringing back the Pahalavi bloke under a plan that is internationally endorsed.

So yes - we have a serious problem looming. But still, the mullahs need to be offed in every sense.

[thenry]

Mixed reports that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead

https://news.sky.com/story/iran-late...#liveblog-body

https://news.sky.com/story/iran-late...#liveblog-body

[Sephiroth]

Maybe my good friend Carth will think again about claiming his place "down below"!

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Maybe my good friend Carth will think again about claiming his place "down below"!

Get a room!

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Get a room!

Apparently a room is now in the region of £1k a month . . . if you can find one.

Of course that probably depends on if the room is within the M25 corridor or the center of Gateshead

anyway, on topic, here we are yet again with the attacks, the retaliation for the attacks, and the retaliation for the retaliation to the attacks.

More damn repeats than the BBC

That Nobel Peace Prize isn’t going to win itself…

It's pretty notable that they took out Khamenei in the first wave of attacks, big intel win, they presumably have people working for Mossard or the CIA high up in the Iranian regime.

---------- Post added at 09:34 ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 ----------

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The Shia/Sunni thing could well stand in the way of that in terms of finding a solution that has a chance.

As I understand, Iran is largely Shia and also not especially devout religiously, it might make Iran a more stable state if it had democratic governance. Might be hopeful though.

https://archive.ph/Zz5RR

As US and Israeli bombs fell on Iran this weekend, bettors on Polymarket — where $529 million was traded on contracts tied to the timing of the strikes — were cashing in. Almost immediately, blockchain sleuths began hunting for unusual patterns in recent bets.

Six accounts on Polymarket made around $1 million in profit by betting on the US to strike Iran by Feb. 28, according to analytics firm Bubblemaps SA. The accounts were all freshly created in February and had only ever placed bets on when US strikes might occur. Some of their shares were purchased, in some cases at roughly a dime apiece, hours before the first explosions were reported in Tehran.

These are the hallmarks that blockchain analysts associate with insider trading in prediction markets, an industry without widespread oversight and no agreed-upon methodology for distinguishing luck from leaks — and they’re far from conclusive on their own. Similar patterns suggested that an insider made a big profit betting on the ouster of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in January, and have also been used to identify several other cases of alleged insider trading.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Damien

As I understand, Iran is largely Shia and also not especially devout religiously, it might make Iran a more stable state if it had democratic governance. Might be hopeful though.

If Iraq and Libya are anything go by, it'll make it more unstable. The US are good at bombing, but not the 'what next' bit.