1 hour ago, Pooter said:

I’m not getting the alarmism from the media.. it’s from your post:

“It is completely conceivable they would strike us, Israel or Europe first with a nuclear weapon in an unattributable manner.“

No it’s actually not. Why do you just take that as a given? North Korea has nukes now, why haven’t they funneled one to a terror organization and blown up Seoul or Tokyo or NYC? Because it would be obviously attributable.. you think if a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv and because the terrorists that hypothetically did it weren’t draped in Iranian flags it’s some giant mystery where they got it from? Did they get it from France? Of course it’s attributable. These regimes want the nukes as a deterrent and tool to ensure their own survival. You think they’d spend all that time and energy to make one and then give it away to some 3rd party who may or may not even set it off properly? You guys act like all these countries are lunatic isis-style suicidal head choppers but they actually spend most of their time acting in their own rational self interest.

And the whole point is moot because our own intel community assessed they weren’t building a bomb but clearly we’re gonna keep ignoring that..

This hypothetical nuke situation is all just another GWOT WMD pretext for war and maybe you don’t watch Fox News but somehow the Mark Levin boomer talking points have filtered down to you through the algorithm. Netanyahu has been saying Iran is weeks/months from a nuke since the 1990s. You can find the compilations on YouTube.

The regime you reference is a rabidly atheist communist cult of personality regime that has negative 10,000% in common with a fanatical Islamic dictatorship, they wouldn’t give an Islamic terror group or regime nuclear weapons or the knowledge to build them because on a good day they are frenemies who barely tolerate the other, only thru their shared extreme enmity to us are they not decrying the other.

Just to cover this, Pakistan is in reality a mildly Islamic mainly military dictatorship that runs a country of varying Islamic adherence. They have their own security risks with Islamic terrorism and subversion, they have no interest in arming a group willing to attack with a nuclear weapon.

Two things can be true at once, the Iranian regime wants nukes to both assure regime survival and to use against the infidels one day. Russia, China know this and that is but one reason why they want an Iran strong enough to threaten us but not one that is nuclear capable to threaten them.

As to your point on WMD and false / flimsy reasons for OIF, yes there were not vast stockpiles of WMD but there were some

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/10/15/356360949/pentagon-reportedly-hushed-up-chemical-weapons-finds-in-iraq

Is that enough to justify the invasion, decapitation and ensuing occupation? Not by itself but it was but one reason to get rid of the problem, the Baathist regime, rather than let it live and naively hope it changes for the better.

The public assessment of the IC I’ll leave it be but methinks The Onion had it right back in 2014

The Onion

Iranian Team Openly Working On Bomb In Negotiating Room

VIENNA—Asserting the Middle Eastern nation’s right to a safe, peaceful energy program, members of the Iranian diplomatic team attempted to seek more favorable terms of a deal with the P5+1 global powe

Every negotiation, every agreement, every summit, every engagement is/was a delaying tactic to just get to a bomb.

Edited yesterday at 06:48 PM1 day by Clark Griswold

Always find stats interesting and this just dropped from one of the better folks out today (I think). Haven't read it yet, no opinion on my part, just wanted to share -

Iran War support: Latest Polls | Silver Bulletin

The intelligence community doesn't have a great track record of knowing when a country is close to getting nuclear weapons:

At 1:21:00 Coleman covers the many failures, but the whole debate is good. Literally no country has ever refined uranium to 60% and not been working on getting nuclear weapons.

@Lord Ratner it’s a fun non-argument from Coleman but please tell me what Russia and China developing nukes slightly ahead is schedule 70 years ago has to do with a DNI report on Iran from 2025.

Netanyahu has been saying Iran is weeks from a bomb for 30 years, so which is it? Are they ahead of schedule or behind schedule? Silly me I guess I just read the current intel reports from the current people doing the job.

But to your second bigger point, there are numerous other countries that have enriched uranium and set up infrastructure to have what is referred to as a “latent nuclear deterrent.” Germany, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, and a few others are all considered to have the volume of enriched material and technology to rush to a bomb if they need to. Iran may very well have been in this category too but by all available intel they were not pursuing a weapon. These countries do this as a bargaining chip and insurance policy—basically “don’t fuck with us because we could rush to a bomb if we wanted to.”

By any rational analysis this is what Iran was doing. They want regime survival and not to be fucked with. They aren’t irrational head choppers who are going to fire a nuke the first second they get their hands on one because they know Israel has nukes too and would be headed right back their way. A latent nuclear deterrent is the middle ground they were shooting for where they don’t have to have the risk of having a bomb on paper but have some the bargaining power of the ability to make one.

I guess if you think launching a war to deny them that bargaining power is a good thing.. fair enough. But it’ll be hard to prevent it forever.

I have zero desire for the Iranian regime having any bargaining power WRT nukes, or anything military related for that matter. That goes for any other regime that executes the atrocities that Iran does. Believe it or not I signed up specifically to do what we're doing right now.

1 hour ago, Pooter said:

By any rational analysis this is what Iran was doing. They want regime survival and not to be fucked with. They aren’t irrational head choppers who are going to fire a nuke the first second they get their hands on one because they know Israel has nukes too and would be headed right back their way. A latent nuclear deterrent is the middle ground they were shooting for where they don’t have to have the risk of having a bomb on paper but have some the bargaining power of the ability to make one.

Yeah, this is exactly the point. Except your contention that they aren't a bunch of irrational head choppers is mostly unsupported. They have repeatedly and continually acted in a way that is only rational if you truly believe the United States was never going to respond. As demonstrated over the past few weeks, they are powerless against us. And yet for decades they have targeted and slaughtered Americans whenever they could. In fact if you listen to the entire podcast Coleman covers a multitude of attacks that are clearly insane for the Iranians to have attempted. And yet they did. So yes, the evidence suggests that they are in fact irrational head choppers.

And those irrational head choppers can never have a nuclear deterrent. So long as they are irrational head choppers, we must retain the ability to stomp them whenever their antics exceed our patience. Enriching uranium to 60% obviously indicates the desire for nuclear weapons. We need not wait any longer than that to act against those goals. We certainly don't need to wait until they are at some arbitrary point much closer to a nuclear capability.

There is not another country on planet Earth that regularly conducts government proceedings after proclaiming "Death to America" loudly and publicly. Why people keep pretending that Iran is just like our other adversaries is a mystery to me.

Edited 14 hours ago14 hr by Lord Ratner

I am VERY surprised folks are operating this low over Iran. Odd angle endgame, looks like a strafe run... perhaps chasing a drone?

Whoever he/she is they need to play the lottery after that near miss.

Depends on the priorities and risk assessment - sometimes it makes sense.

1 minute ago, brabus said:

Depends on the priorities and risk assessment - sometimes it makes sense.

I was SCREAMED at on SATCOM by the JFAC himself (Moseley), for going below 10K in 2002 to get below weather and support a TIC.

1 minute ago, ClearedHot said:

I was SCREAMED at on SATCOM by the JFAC himself (Moseley), for going below 10K in 2002 to get below weather and support a TIC.

This ain’t that war, not even close.

1 minute ago, brabus said:

This ain’t that war, not even close.

I know, all the more puzzling why they are down that low.

3 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

I know, all the more puzzling why they are down that low.

ROE, risk tolerance, intent…all different than anything we’ve seen since the 90s. So that’s why you end up seeing something like this come out on the internet.

3 hours ago, brabus said:

ROE, risk tolerance, intent…all different than anything we’ve seen since the 90s. So that’s why you end up seeing something like this come out on the internet.

Ummm I certainly understand ROE and such. I just don't see the current situation (Air Superiority bordering on Air Supremacy), calling for high risk tactics. This is not BANZAI to the merge because the Iranian hordes are going to bust through. Unless a CIA team was in extremis or a TBM with CBRNE was about to fire, it is tough to justify being at 2K doing a strafe run in country right now.

Can you explain why you assess borderline air supremacy based on continued drone attacks (to say nothing of TBMs)?

Also, if killing any boat capable of laying a mine drives ALR plaid from the government then I can easily see allowing the strafing of targets once Remington.