SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him] @ SeventyTwoTrillion @hexbear.net

"Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be

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There's been a lot of phrases that I've seen over the last week that are just gonna hit so hard in the future book on this conflict. I can just imagine the words on the page:

"While America's initial attempt to destroy the Iranian nuclear program met with failure after dropping six GBU-57s on the already-evacuated Fordow facility, the Nimitz was concurrently expedited to the Middle East in preparation for the war to come. It was due to be decommissioned only a year after the conflict began. It would face its end much sooner."

and

"American media was initially jubilant, hardly waiting for the news from the Fordow facility to proclaim its demise. Bret Stephens of the New York Times wrote "Iran’s hopes of acquiring a nuclear weapon have probably been seriously degraded." These reports were, of course, false. If anything, such a strike galvanized the Iranian leadership towards accelerating towards its first nuclear test on [date], and..."

it's very funny how a few hours after it was hit, the media was unanimously like "Fordow has been obliterated. Annihilated. Wiped off the map. A curse will befall anybody who comes within a mile of it, the destruction is so great. We have salted the earth. The entire Iranian nuclear program was localized entirely inside Fordow and also all their nuclear scientists. Now every single one is dead." and now it's just like "yeah okay nvm turns out we can't destroy it, ah well, ggwp"

And, I wonder, will Iranian missiles overwhelm the Israeli anti-missile missiles

They already are and have been for days now, there have been daily hits on Israeli military, intelligence, and economic areas (such as C4I, military headquarters, and Haifa oil and electrical facilities)

I think any decision to close Hormuz, while the right of Iran, would be premature to take within at least the next day or so.

I actually agree with you here, which would surprise myself from a few days ago. Or at least I don't think it's automatically the right move to make - even assuming that Russia and China and other key allies don't get too pissy at them, which they might. I can't imagine China is super enthused about it but I don't know what the discussion between them and Iran is behind closed doors.

But anyway, assuming that it would cause no allies to abandon them, I think it basically hinges on whether the US is going to attack again or if this single attack does genuinely represent a desire to do a propaganda spectacle and then get out. If it's the former, then you might as well attack now; nobody would blame you for it outside of the West because there is no sane definition by which it would be an aggression rather than a response. If it's the latter, then I think opting for a smaller escalation might be smarter. Now, the problem is that the US's word cannot be trusted. And we say that a lot, but it is uniquely true in this war, where the US has deliberately lied in order to deceive (or try to deceive) Iran and make their attacks more potent by catching them off-guard. Usually US diplomacy is passive deceit and half-truths, but the last two times it was akin to a guy shouting "I'm not going to stab you! I'm your friend! I won't hurt you!" while actively charging at you with a knife.

But I also can't see a world where the US stays out for any substantial amount of time while Israel is getting hit by missiles daily, even if Trump and his team may or may not (depending on if the stated intention to not wanting to start a new forever war is also a lie), so Iran might as well cut off Hormuz anyway? I don't know, ultimately I think Iran will make the right decision and I imagine they've wargamed this scenario out.

Israel and US aren't as politically united as we see in the media

This is something that's very hard to pin down; like, every time a US official and an Israeli official has disagreed, it was either quickly paved over and more missiles and money sent, kayfabe for the media, or theater to try and deceive the Resistance. I think the chances of driving a real wedge between Israel and the US that would result in the US saying "No, we will not keep supplying you, you have gone too far" is essentially zero. I don't think even Israel dropping nukes would make that divide happen.

Iran didn't believe that the US wasn't about to strike them, there was no "deception." If us shmucks on Hexbear and twitter could see all the military movements and know that a US strike was imminent (certainly sooner than two weeks) then Iran, with an order of magnitude more information and forewarning than we did, absolutely knew that a strike on Fordow was about to happen. You literally spent a week repeatedly talking about Fordow, how it could be bombed, if it could be bombed, how deep it is, and how deep bunker busters could reach. You really fooled those gullible Iranians by publically talking about the attack you were about to do, the aircraft that would do it, and the bomb that would be used. A real headscratcher of an operation. For generations they'll be wondering how you pulled off such an expertly coordinated strategy with no signs of preparation. This is just total Zionist idiocy.

"I cleverly deceived you by going to the bathroom and shitting my own pants instead of doing it in the toilet, and now I smell like shit and you've been owned because you have to endure the smell."

The issue with the statements you've made in this comment thread is that it implies an eternal system of imperialism (there can be no opposition because the US is too powerful, if they win they make profit, if they lose they make profit, that plus the dollar system means they will always enough money, if that's the case then guerrilla wars won't work, conventional wars won't work, nuclear wars end humanity so those don't work, etc) and if that's the case then Mao is wrong, Stalin is wrong, Lenin is wrong, Marx is wrong, and many other figures are wrong, but those figures created successful models of economics and society that have worked well up to this point so it would be strange if in 2025 we crossed some magical event horizon at which the theories broke down.

It's like solving an equation and at every step you think you're making valid assumptions and then like, your soccer ball weighs 292 tons and travels 3000 mph, and you're like, oh shit, this is the wrong answer, I made a mistake somewhere.

We don't know yet, we're currently in a bit of a free-fall moment and we haven't hit the ground yet.

Firing 30 cruise missiles at the other two facilities is basically entirely for propaganda purposes, given that Israel has already tried that and not achieved much. We don't know how much damage Fordow has taken; sending only 6 of the bunker busters at it feels like it's more symbolic than wanting to guarantee that the facility is crippled, but the GBU-57 has been basically mythologized at this point by the media so who even fucking knows what it can actually do. It can penetrate [random number between 1-80] meters of rock, [random number between 1-80] meters of reinforced concrete, and [random number between 1-80] meters of the hardest reinforced concrete. If the speculation continued for a few more days, they'd start claiming that they've been enchanted by powerful warlocks or perhaps sorcerers to automatically home in on evil. I have no idea.

The big joke of all this is that Fordow was already evacuated days if not months in advance of enriched uranium and other important things because the US didn't stop fucking talking about bombing it for a week straight so the Iranians had time to make preparations.

The interesting thing from this point on will be what Trump does now. The US media basically seems to be in triumphalist victory mode, which for the reasons I've given above is nonsensical and senior US and Israeli figures know that it's nonsensical and that Iran is still perfectly capable of making nuclear weapons, but if they are nonetheless going to try and sell it as a war-ending victory then that indicates that they know that further US involvement would be a disaster.

As in, if you're saying on television "We did it, we saved the day, we dropped the GBU-57 into Mount Doom and hit Fordo and Dark Lord Khamenei's plan to make nukes has been terminated from now until the end of time!" then it doesn't really make sense to then, 24 hours later, go "You know, this Iranian nuclear threat is really serious. We need to act now to stop it and/or overthrow the Iranian government." Like, that's a blatant contradiction, because that would mean the strike on Fordo failed and you can't stop the Iranian nuclear program in a tidy set of strikes. So we'll see what the government tells the media to do after this.

Anyway, conventionally, I don't think anything has really changed, Iran keeps striking Israel and did so hours ago with a yet higher tier of missile. Iran may or may not strike US bases, I don't really know. I think it's more likely than not, but a response is not certain, especially if damage on Fordo is indeed very limited, because then what's really the point of a big strike other than to uphold deterrence that you may not even be able to establish with the US in the first place? I have immense doubts that Iran would strike the US and then Trump would go "Ah, fair enough, we hit you so you hit us. It's a fair deal folks, I wrote about this in my excellent book, best-seller by the way."

Fordo is an anagram of Frodo, it all makes sense now

I really strongly dislike people who act as if they're these massively clever, savvy, polymath geniuses and are just the most predictable dullards and dopes on the face of the earth. And usually it doesn't affect me all that much because a lot of those people don't have real power - even if they're hypothetically in a position of influence, the realpolitik situation is different. But in this sort of situation, where it was blindingly obvious what they were about to do and they still act as if it was this masterful chess gambit and give him applause for "outsmarting" a country that outsmarted this exact move months ago, it's just... man. Man. I've had a deep-seated hatred of 99% of western journalists even before the Ukraine War began, but there are moments where that hatred is visceral, and this past week has been one of those moments.

This also seems implausible, no? Unless the implication is that they're trying to justify further strikes by themselves or the US?

The Cradle: Tehran vows ‘everlasting consequences’ after US strikes Iranian nuclear facilities

Iran’s foreign minister said on 22 June that the US bombardment of the country’s nuclear facilities will have “everlasting consequences,” reserving the right to respond.

some condemnations, etc etc, then:

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released its own statement stressing that “Now the war has begun for us.”

Iranian state media reported that all enriched uranium had been removed from nuclear facilities, including the heavily fortified Fordow facility, in advance, adding that there is no risk of radiation leakage due to Washington’s strikes.

Only “part” of the Fordow facility was attacked, Fars news agency reported. “Despite the lies of America’s deceitful president, critical infrastructure remains intact. What was hit was mostly on the ground and fully restorable,” said Manan Raeisi, a lawmaker in the Iranian parliament. “Trump’s bluff about destroying Fordow is laughable. We view this strike as a direct American entry into war. Iran now decides how and when to retaliate,” he added.

Trump boasts about what a great job his big beautiful bombers did, then:

According to Amwaj Media, Iran “received prior notice along with a private communication from the US that it does not seek a broader conflict.” Iran’s ambassador to the UN warned in Geneva on 18 June that Tehran will “respond seriously and strongly” and act “without restraint” if Washington entered the war. Tehran had previously warned that all US bases in the region were within its reach, and would be targeted if Washington launched an attack against the Islamic Republic.

As the news of Washington’s attacks broke early on Sunday, Iranian ballistic missiles rained down on Haifa and Tel Aviv, causing significant destruction and dozens of injuries.

He and/or his intelligence sources assumed a rapid Hamas collapse a few weeks into the war due to Israeli airstrikes and basically assumed that the war would be over in months

Hersh can only be relied on up to a point, he was notoriously inaccurate during the early phases of Al Aqsa Flood for example, to the point where many of us including myself have been actively wondering if his intelligence sources have been compromised or if he's receiving outright false information. He's a window into what US intelligence believes will happen, which means they generally know what the US and its allies will do or at least try to do, but struggle more much with wild assumptions and miscalculations when it comes to predicting what other countries will do.

if Iranian media is huffing copium then the US media is in those Dune spice vats where they hover suspended in pure copium, and instead of allowing them to navigate starships, it empowers their journalists to write the worst articles ever

Though I agree that we'll need more time to determine the damage, it's just that the "victory" framing is so phoned in and clearly consent manufacturing before there's even a chance for an assessment of damage. It actually gives me a little hope because if they're assuming that it's destroyed right off the bat, then maybe they really don't want to get involved further and this really was just a limited strike, as opposed to a more cautious wait-and-see approach that would indicate a high level of seriousness about wanting to take out Iran's nuclear program.

Well, if you're only gonna drop 6 of the things on Fordow then it's not really a serious strike. Not that it matters, because the place was already evacuated of enriched uranium, but early reports are, apparently, that only the entrances have been bombed anyway? Hilariously pointless. Don't warn your enemy about what you're going to strike days in advance, maybe? I feel both weirdly disappointed that they didn't actually try and crack Fordow open with a massive strike, relieved that they didn't, and nervous for what Iran and Yemen are about to do in response.

I agree that at a certain level it has to be psychological. It certainly can't be based on an intellectual critique of "campism" because these people don't read books. Like, you read through Lenin's Imperialism once and it's just like, oh, when I accused fucking Iran or Cuba or Hamas or that scary-looking person on the street of being imperialist colonizers, I was using the liberal definition of imperialism, which is just the moral condemnation of "evil" as defined under the eldritch moral system of US empire

And even if Israel and the US could just magically bomb Iran's nuclear facilities out of existence, then that merely leaves the status quo, and that status quo is a country with thousands of perfectly good conventional missiles and drones that is firing them at Israel through their air defense and causing major societal and economic disruption. Even compared to Iraq, the propaganda buildup to this war is just so ridiculous on so many levels. It's this fantastical fever dream where there's so many contradictions and "the enemy is strong and weak" claims flying around and ruses and stalling that trying to be informed in this conflict is exceedingly difficult.

In regards to the Fordow thing, I've seen so many different opinions from various people who seem like they have some degree of military knowledge and know what they're talking about generally. Like, here's a list of the claims I've seen:

• Fordow is 80m underground.
• Fordow is 100m underground.
• Fordow is even deeper than that according to people who have actually visited the site.
• The bunker buster can penetrate 60m of reinforced concrete.
• The bunker buster can penetrate 3m of reinforced concrete.
• The bunker buster would have to land on the exact same spot each time to "tunnel" its way down to the facility.
• Repeated strikes by the bunker buster in the general vicinity could gradually weaken the facility regardless.
• Even if the bunker buster reached the facility it wouldn't necessary be destroyed.
• Even if the bunker buster reached the facility it wouldn't matter because Iran has a bunch of other nuclear sites.
• Actually, the bunker buster doesn't need to reach the facility because it can hit the entrances.
• Actually, it doesn't really matter if it hits the entrances because those can be cleared relatively quickly.
• The B2s would have no trouble delivering the bunker busters because Israel has total air domination.
• Actually, Israel doesn't have total air domination, but the B2s would still reach the facility.
• Actually, Iran has sufficient air defense to shoot down at least one or two B2s and the Americans have only tested this sort of thing in situations where they have total air superiority so in practice, they would make mistakes or their equipment would have errors and fail.

At this point I'm just waiting for the Americans to try the goddamn bombing run. It'll either work or it won't, but as I said above, while it's obviously not irrelevant if the US can take out Fordow (e.g. it has implications for the Iranian underground missile cities), it in and of itself is just a single aspect of a wider war being currently fought with conventional weapons regardless.

I keep up with some socdem places (because I just love torturing myself or something) and it always makes me chuckle when I see people who are like "Well, sure, the US has done some bad things, even imperialism, but tankies never focus on the imperialism of the Russians or Chinese or Iranians. Why don't we have a universal critique of these actions instead of inordinately focussing on what America does? In fact, focussing on America is racist because it implies that other countries and people of other races are perfect beings who can do no wrong, which is infantilizing" and internally I'm just like: okay, we just need to do an entire ideological factory reset, because you have like stuxnet-tier brainworms or something

At a certain point I just block those people. Not immediately of course, I do value different perspectives and am fine seeing people challenge the military commentators I check up on like Simplicius, but I have even less patience for people who deliver analysis that turns out to be incorrect or misleading than I do for people who are just venting their frustrations. I've seen way too many confidently wrong "serious analysts", particularly in the West, who rely on a shaky foundation and set of facts that, if not outright incorrect, are only correct in very specific contexts and those contexts don't apply. And at this point, over three years into the Ukraine War and nearly two years into Al Aqsa Flood, I'm deathly tired of it all.

Like, imagine if you had to reconstruct the story of the Ukraine War using information SOLELY from the Ukrainian side. Even if you were trying to be objective or even Russia-friendly, the available data would force you to conclude that Russia has lost like ten million soldiers while Ukraine has lost like, 5 dudes and a couple tanks. That's what trying to reconstruct the story of this war using information mostly gleaned from Zionist-leaning accounts would be like.

thankfully my blocklist is pretty short and occasionally at zero people because I check every few months to see if they're still around and it turns out they got bored and left

can't forget the copy of Mein Kampf