2026-02-28 Iran War - Israel and USA strikes Iran - "Preemptive Strike"

[Grape Ape]

We recently threatened the destruction of a civilisation

If you're going to use "we", please spell in American.

But regardless, 

Bolded the important part in case you don't want to read it all.

Well,
@ShawnRyan762
, I know my comparing you to
@maddow
 seems like a joke to some, but I can assure you that it is not.

As a former SEAL that has sat in briefing rooms in theater, run ops against jihadist networks, and built a platform interviewing many sharp people in both operations and intelligence, you of all people should understand how strategic warfare actually works.

Despite all of that, you are sitting here and pushing posts like a cable news commentator with rimmed glasses on a communist news network, framing decisive pressure against the world's leading state sponsor of militant jihadist terrorism as "chaos" and "loss."

Let's cut through this selective timeline you laid out:

Trump issued a brutal, unmistakable warning over the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint Iran's regime was weaponizing to strangle global energy and fund its proxies.

That wasn't just some bluster for fun, it was quite literally combatant messaging 101 in asymmetric conflict against an enemy that only respects raw and credible power.

Jihadist Islamists like the IRGC, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, and their ilk don't negotiate in good faith or respond to polite diplomacy, and you absolutely know this.

They only respond to negotiations from positions of strength.

If you do not negotiate that way, they will probe weaknesses, exploit hesitation, and interpret restraint as invitations to push attacks.

History from the Beirut barracks to the USS Cole to Benghazi and to decades of proxy attacks has proven that.

You've had guests that have spoken about these things, yet you act ignorant of them now?

This apocalyptic rhetoric is the only language these people understand, and you know it.

Iran blinked because of that rhetoric, floated a ceasefire tied to reopening the strait, and the administration secured a pause to lock in gains. That is not "lighting the world on fire then calling the fire department," you two bit propagandist, that is literally the way war has always worked.

It is coercion through strength: downgrade the enemy's capacity, signal willingness to escalate decisively, then offer the off ramp on your terms.

It's wild that you are ignorant about this.

And then you cry about Israel hitting Beirut like the soft lefty you have turned into... Beirut is in Lebanon, mind you, which is a completely different country than Iran.

Perhaps you need a geography lesson as well as a lesson on strategic level warfare?

So yeah, that is not Trump chaos, that is Israel finishing the job against an Iranian proxy that has quite literally fired thousands of rockets and embedded itself among civilians in Lebanon for decades.

And Lebanon was explicitly carved out of the US and Iran ceasefire for a reason, so even bringing it up here is silly and meant to distract.

Also, Iran quickly "closed" the Strait back up because they are purveyors of taqiyya style negotiations, just like jihadists always are.

[LurkerNoMore]

The countries that have nukes and can reach us are not fundies who don't value human life.  They have not openly called for the complete destruction of America.

But to think a nuclear Iran wouldn't have an effect on us is naive.   Economic variability/shockwaves, potential for attacks, pain to our allies, etc all would hurt us.

It's also naive to think they wouldn't continue to develop missles with longer ranges.

They've done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt.

If we could go pure isolationist and not suffer for it, I'd say have at it.  It's just not reality.

Many other countries don't value human life either.  Look at 9/11.  Who invaded us?  Who did we attack?  Who is/was offering the orange buffoon a jet last year?

We are not the Middle East.  We are not affected by their squabbles.  Especially if your Dear Leader said it was set back 30 years ago after last year's bombing.

Again, why does the US have to have the enriched uranium.

[Coach is Back!]

That takes a minute at most to read for the average person - you can't argue for shit in one or two sentences. Your kind of post is basically "You're a liberal/democrat, I WIN!" You declare victory all the time but absolutely no one seems to agree, everyone here thinks you are an intellectual midget. I want to be clear and say I know I only have average intelligence and I frequently express doubt and willingness to change if I learn new things, while at the same time admitting how hard change is, especially at my age. Someone here actually dissed me for saying, "I'm not an expert on the subject, but here's what it seems like to me at this point."

I'm hyper aware I'm being propagandized all the time and should stay vigilant LOL. You're actually proud of only reading MSM sources and swallowing whatever crap that it feeds you, the classic "boomer republican."

No it's definitely not about Trump per se through some visceral dislike of his personality. He can be funny and likable too in some ways as I say all the time. Like for many the dislike has come about from Trump doing stupid shit and not keeping to his campaign promises, many of which have been good. As someone said above, Trump tapped into what a large segment of Americans longed for, then he just didn't do it. I felt zero affinity for Biden at any point, a contemptible person. I'm not a "democrat" or liberal as you keep claiming. I feel a mild affinity for fascism, illiberalism, white nationalism and things along those lines. And don't forget Trump's support for democrats LOL. He still loves the Clintons. Don't forget Trump's support for Muslim terrorists and him allowing himself to be bribed by Muslim Gulf family dictatorships.

We could discuss the relationship between Islam and pedophilia and homosexuality but you never actually discuss or argue your point. When I attempt to you say "wall of text means you don't know shit you should be banned or at least shut up about your conspiracy theories!"

Hands down you are the #1 conspiracy theorist in this thread and as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago within this thread (somewhere) that the ones that attacked me to the point trying of trying to  hack my social media, going to my social media and lifting my content to post on here (for whatever reason because all it did was make them look stupid) were proven wrong....ESPECIALLY YOU and there were even a few than agreed I was proved right. I didn't need endless walls of text and articles from other conspiracy theorists who call themselves "journalists" to prove myself.

As for the highlighted...no, you couldn't and I don't the time nor patience to hear more of your conspiracy bullshit. You have no concept of any common sense. Now, go ahead post up conspiracy theory #9468

[Grape Ape]

Many other countries don't value human life either.  Look at 9/11.  Who invaded us?  Who did we attack?  Who is/was offering the orange buffoon a jet last year?

We are not the Middle East.  We are not affected by their squabbles.  Especially if your Dear Leader said it was set back 30 years ago after last year's bombing.

Again, why does the US have to have the enriched uranium.

We are the ones handling the situation, so we'll take it.

Where do you think it should go?

[illuminati]

Many other countries don't value human life either.  Look at 9/11.  Who invaded us?  Who did we attack?  Who is/was offering the orange buffoon a jet last year?

We are not the Middle East.  We are not affected by their squabbles.  Especially if your Dear Leader said it was set back 30 years ago after last year's bombing.

Again, why does the US have to have the enriched uranium.

How many countries did obummer bomb & why ? 
Did you cry / bitch / moan about him doing so ?
or is it just a Donald thing.

[Necrosis]

How many countries did obummer bomb & why ? 
Did you cry / bitch / moan about him doing so ?
or is it just a Donald thing.

This is a war, not a bombing.

[Necrosis]

We are the ones handling the situation, so we'll take it.

Where do you think it should go?

Didn't you guys set them back decades just only last year? How do you make sense of that?

[Grape Ape]

Didn't you guys set them back decades just only last year? How do you make sense of that?

Like this:

It's perfectly plausible it didn't stop what they thought.  I don't care - it's where we're at now.

Please try and keep up.

[Necrosis]

Like this:

Please try and keep up.

Ok so how to you square that with trump saying
it was a

 "spectacular military success"

And

"Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,"

and that they set the program back "decades".

To they are weeks away from a bomb less than a year later?

Is the US military completely incompetent? seems like a huge gap there or was trump just lying as per normal?

I am sure Iran has weapons of mass destruction of course, I wouldn't question king trumps motivations.

[herne]

[Grape Ape]

Ok so how to you square that with trump saying
it was a

 "spectacular military success"

And

"Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,"

and that they set the program back "decades".

To they are weeks away from a bomb less than a year later?

Is the US military completely incompetent? seems like a huge gap there or was trump just lying as per normal?

I am sure Iran has weapons of mass destruction of course, I wouldn't question king trumps motivations.

I don't care what he said.  I'll let you guys get hung up on the bluster and hyperbole.

The reality is Iran has enriched uranium to 60% and I don't want them to have it.

No, our military is not incompetant, and could wipe yours out without a sweat.

But believe what you want.

[Van_Bilderass]

Hands down you are the #1 conspiracy theorist in this thread and as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago within this thread (somewhere) that the ones that attacked me to the point trying of trying to  hack my social media, going to my social media and lifting my content to post on here (for whatever reason because all it did was make them look stupid) were proven wrong....ESPECIALLY YOU and there were even a few than agreed I was proved right. I didn't need endless walls of text and articles from other conspiracy theorists who call themselves "journalists" to prove myself.

As for the highlighted...no, you couldn't and I don't the time nor patience to hear more of your conspiracy bullshit. You have no concept of any common sense. Now, go ahead post up conspiracy theory #9468

I posted an article from The Atlantic, neocon city. It's also mainstream media. Robert Kagan is not a journalist. He is literally the architect of several middle east wars. He has also been one of the biggest proponents of starting a war with Iran.

Calling someone a conspiracy theorist is no argument. You haven't "proven" anything because you don't argue over anything, all you do is call me names. You know who else has been called a conspiracy theorist? Your daddy Trump. Trump is actually a conspiracy theorist and peddler of things he knows are lies, but the point is that it's easy to dismiss anything as a conspiracy theory, then you don't have to argue your stance.

I will never hack anyone over forum shit, in case you might think I have somehow been involved. It's despicable and weak.

[chaos]

We are the ones handling the situation, so we'll take it.

Where do you think it should go?

Right? All those other countries tucked their tails and cowered, why would they get any enriched uranium?

[Van_Bilderass]

The countries that have nukes and can reach us are not fundies who don't value human life.  They have not openly called for the complete destruction of America.

But to think a nuclear Iran wouldn't have an effect on us is naive.   Economic variability/shockwaves, potential for attacks, pain to our allies, etc all would hurt us.

It's also naive to think they wouldn't continue to develop missles with longer ranges.

They've done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt.

If we could go pure isolationist and not suffer for it, I'd say have at it.  It's just not reality.

I don't agree obviously. Do you know Iranian culture, have you like looked into it? Do you know some of the differences between Shia and Sunni? Iran isn't the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, what they do is threaten Israel over the Palestine question, that's the whole problem. The US is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. I mean even Trump said Obama created ISIS. Look at the links between Israel and Hamas, the US and Al Qaeda. Look at how Trump praises Al Jolani, an Al Qaeda guy involved in killing Americans in Iraq. The US spent a very long time and tons of money to fund terrorist groups to topple Assad. Have you seen Tucker's 9/11 documentary? He doesn't claim much for certain but asks some very pertinent questions as to who was involved.

As the MIT professor missile expert Ted Postol says, Iran has had the capability to make nukes for a long time. He argues that Iranians aren't irrational crazed actors. Among other things, Iran hasn't wanted nukes because of the guaranteed result if they do: other states will immediately get them too, like Saudi and Turkey. That would threaten Iran too. Now Iran really has an incentive to go for a bomb and Postol speculates they could likely do it right now if they wanted to. But it's extremely risky for Iran for several reasons. If they were simple fundies who wanted to suicide themselves just so they could destroy Israel and the US they would do it. Why not?

What do you suggest Israel and the US do about the nuclear capability? Conventional weapons can't touch the deep underground facilities. Even bunker buster nukes might not do it. Even Trump says it, the US has to snatch it or otherwise force them to surrender the material. Like I say all the time, US and Israel might resort to nukes to "break" Iran. The other is building up a force for a couple of years to invade Iran. It takes time to set up logistics and the US probably doesn't even have the manpower as some suggest like a half million troops required. Robert Kagan hints at being for it, he doesn't say it directly.

I Spent Two Decades Securing Nuclear Materials. Getting at Iran’s Would Not Be Easy. NYT article:

https://archive.is/g10xC

[chaos]

I don't agree obviously. Do you know Iranian culture, have you like looked into it? Do you know some of the differences between Shia and Sunni? Iran isn't the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, what they do is threaten Israel over the Palestine question, that's the whole problem. The US is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. I mean even Trump said Obama created ISIS. Look at the links between Israel and Hamas, the US and Al Qaeda. Look at how Trump praises Al Jolani, an Al Qaeda guy involved in killing Americans in Iraq. The US spent a very long time and tons of money to fund terrorist groups to topple Assad. Have you seen Tucker's 9/11 documentary? He doesn't claim much for certain but asks some very pertinent questions as to who was involved.

As the MIT professor missile expert Ted Postol says, Iran has had the capability to make nukes for a long time. He argues that Iranians aren't irrational crazed actors. Among other things, Iran hasn't wanted nukes because of the guaranteed result if they do: other states will immediately get them too, like Saudi and Turkey. That would threaten Iran too. Now Iran really has an incentive to go for a bomb and Postol speculates they could likely do it right now if they wanted to. But it's extremely risky for Iran for several reasons. If they were simple fundies who wanted to suicide themselves just so they could destroy Israel and the US they would do it. Why not?

What do you suggest Israel and the US do about the nuclear capability? Conventional weapons can't touch the deep underground facilities. Even bunker buster nukes might not do it. Even Trump says it, the US has to snatch it or otherwise force them to surrender the material. Like I say all the time, US and Israel might resort to nukes to "break" Iran. The other is building up a force for a couple of years to invade Iran. It takes time to set up logistics and the US probably doesn't even have the manpower as some suggest like a half million troops required. Robert Kagan hints at being for it, he doesn't say it directly.

I Spent Two Decades Securing Nuclear Materials. Getting at Iran’s Would Not Be Easy. NYT article:

https://archive.is/g10xC

You put a lot of effort into posts that nobody is going to read.

[Van_Bilderass]

You put a lot of effort into posts that nobody is going to read.

Haha I know. Though I think there might be a couple who skim my posts. One very smart fella here said not to change my style. I don't know why people claim it takes such huge effort, probably today many are only used to a video format and never read anything. I could probably change to attempting to insult people like Coach does. I did for a bit in this thread and I wouldn't be surprised if mods got some complaints over my horrible antisemitism

[Irongrip400]

I did.  I asked you if blowing it all up meant killing all citizens and infrastructure, but never saw a response.

Is that what you're advocating?

I’m not advocating for it, I’m saying we should have left them alone and handled our business here before looking half way across the planet.

But, if we were going to do anything to them militarily, we need to/should have gone full bore and took out the whole regime. It’s like the Israeli Palestine thing for me. Had the Jewish people expelled them all back in 1948 it would be over and we wouldn’t be hearing about this crap still. Just like the Germans that were kicked out of their lands in Eastern Europe 1946-1951. You hear nothing about that now because they “took the hand off” quickly and never looked back.

I am not for large scale bombing and shit like that, I just don’t believe in half assing the shit so we have to deal with it forever.

[loco]

You put a lot of effort into posts that nobody is going to read.

 

[chaos]

Haha I know. Though I think there might be a couple who skim my posts. One very smart fella here said not to change my style. I don't know why people claim it takes such huge effort, probably today many are only used to a video format and never read anything. I could probably change to attempting to insult people like Coach does. I did for a bit in this thread and I wouldn't be surprised if mods got some complaints over my horrible antisemitism

I might scan them sometimes but I'm not interested in reading your meltdowns word for word. Could you put a little cliff notes on the bottom?

[Grape Ape]

I might scan them sometimes but I'm not interested in reading your meltdowns word for word. Could you put a little cliff notes on the bottom?

Cliff's Notes:

Americans should ignore the US State Departments Annual Country Reports on Terrorism because, well, because Iran only threatens Israel and never did nuthin' wrong to nobody else.

US are the real terrorists

Takes an MIT professor's word as that Iran could have always made nukes, but chose not to, since they're not crazy and if they get them, more of their neighbors will (this contradicts Necrosis' theory that Obama's Iran deal would have kept them from making nukes, but I digress)

Would be difficult to get the uranium (true).

[Van_Bilderass]

I might scan them sometimes but I'm not interested in reading your meltdowns word for word. Could you put a little cliff notes on the bottom?

Sure, I can put a TLDR at the bottom with cliffs. It's just hard to make a point in a very few words.

Cliff's Notes:

Americans should ignore the US State Departments Annual Country Reports on Terrorism because, well, because Iran only threatens Israel and never did nuthin' wrong to nobody else.

US are the real terrorists

Takes an MIT professor's word as that Iran could have always made nukes, but chose not to, since they're not crazy and if they get them, more of their neighbors will (this contradicts Necrosis' theory that Obama's Iran deal would have kept them from making nukes, but I digress)

Would be difficult to get the uranium (true).

Sure, something like that. Though I never said Iran never did anything wrong. They have been involved in Syria for example where tons of people died. But so did the US which resulted in lots of Christians and other minorities being killed after Assad was toppled. The US had to beg the new regime to stop it.

I've seen many experts say the JCPOA was pretty effective. Recall that no lesser person than Tulsi Gabbard said the US intelligence community consensus was that Iran didn't have an active nuke program since 2003. Trump said he didn't care what  Tulsi said, he preferred Bibi's version. Some reports claim JD Vance was pissed at Bibi for getting Trump into a huge mess by promising it would be a 4 day affair; the regime would surely topple by then after decapitating the regime. What you have now is hardened leadership who all fought in the Iran-Iraq war and a population who predictably rallied around the flag. Now Israel says they don't want peace in Iran and that it's not over and reports say they are afraid Trump might withdraw now sine the military options and goals are extremely difficult to achieve. Iran seems to think it has the upper hand now and in a position of strength since they are offering maximalist demands which Trump just called "totally unacceptable." I think further military action is likely; Trump can't walk away in shame.

TLDR;

Q U A G M I RE

[LurkerNoMore]

We are the ones handling the situation, so we'll take it.

Where do you think it should go?

The same way we just took Venzzy's oil too?  Because we "handled" that?

Why not spread out among other NATO allies?  Oh wait... they don't even think we are in the right with this war either.

[LurkerNoMore]

How many countries did obummer bomb & why ? 
Did you cry / bitch / moan about him doing so ?
or is it just a Donald thing.

How many did he do without Congressional approval or valid reasons?

[LurkerNoMore]

I don't care what he said.  I'll let you guys get hung up on the bluster and hyperbole.

The reality is Iran has enriched uranium to 60% and I don't want them to have it.

No, our military is not incompetant, and could wipe yours out without a sweat.

But believe what you want.

Of course you don't.  Because doing so would cause that little passive neutrality facade to crumble under the weight of simple logic.

[Rambone]

Did we win this thing yet or struggling mightily? The public perception by most that aren’t brainwashed MAGA cultist is that Israel dragged a former reality show host into a war that he seems very uncomfortable with dealing with. America will most likely walk away from this thing looking weaker than when they entered.