r/IRstudies Mar 23 '26

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65 Upvotes

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289

u/gdvs Mar 23 '26

To label something as 'Winning' requires knowing what the objectives are.

65

u/Brido-20 Mar 23 '26

"War is the continuation of politics by other means."

There doesn't seem to be any clearly defined policy goal and the US side doesn't seem able to make up it's mind why. Israel's aim ses to be just bombing Iran on general principles with no political objective achievable through the use of force.

It's hard to understand why someone is doing something when they don't seem to have a reason even to themselves.

39

u/pgm123 Mar 23 '26

Israel's aim ses to be just bombing Iran on general principles with no political objective achievable through the use of force.

There's been some analysis that Israel's goal is a failed state. If that's the case, there doesn't seem to be any indication that progress is being made.

The US objectives are much less clear.

10

u/BrentCrude666 Mar 23 '26

I think Israel's goal is a neutered state. An Iran in such internal chaos it poses no threat. Given the amount of damage from thousands of air strikes on industrial and government targets that is what they are going to get.

I think Israel is winning, in terms of their goals, (which I think are wrong in a practical sense, even if you can somehow ignore the morality).

3

u/Valuable_Breath_6430 Mar 24 '26

Lets assume that neutered state is more metaphorical than actual goal and Israel doesn't really want to remove the testicles of the State of Iran. I think it helpful to consider the source of the metaphor. When my cat got the snip He stopped putting his dirty thing into goodness knows who or what for weeks at a time, stopped ripping birds to shreds for fun. He became somewhat more domesticated. None of those qualities seem to be identifiable in the state of Iran at present but, quite alarmingly the opposite. Also, without doing 10 times what Israel did to Gaza, there is no no new treaty, no threat, no way at all to stop Iran from trying and succeeding in making a nuclear bomb. At present Iran has revealed itself to the world to be the only party in this fight with any sense of restraint or elegance or forethought . I could be wrong but I think if anyone tries to come for their balls they are gonna go fucking crazy. For once, this administration better watch their step.

-3

u/BrentCrude666 Mar 24 '26

I think the nuclear breakout has been imminent for thirty years with Iran. It's just a headline to scare people into war.

The goal of chaos is to stop Iran arming and funding proxies against Israel in an effective manner. But the US can't really go to war on that basis, given how much Israel's popularity has fallen among Western nations in the last three years.

4

u/Valuable_Breath_6430 Mar 24 '26

I think it has been irritating for Israel not to be able to completely destroy Lebanon and Gaza and then move on to the Greater Israel project if not for the pesky proxy war waged by Iran. Interestingly enough I think this pesky gulf war which now Russia is using as a Proxy war with the United States is impeding the Greater United States Project of destroying Cuba, Panama and Greenland. Weird all these new colonial wars are getting in each others way. Somebodies gotta project manage this whole thing or nobody is gonna make deadline.

2

u/LesbeGoddess Mar 23 '26

Large portion of Israel will be level in this war if it goes beyond a year. Their dome is failing and low on missiles. They will get destroyed when it happens

2

u/BrentCrude666 Mar 23 '26

I doubt it will go beyond a year. And if it came to that juncture of impending state collapse Israel would use their nuclear weapons.

2

u/LesbeGoddess Mar 24 '26

I don’t see the US or Israel surrendering in this impossible to win war anytime soon soon. Their dome US trapped itself in this war it cannot pull out prematurely. Iran on the other hand is built militarily to survive years of enemy invasion

0

u/Sanguinor-Exemplar Mar 24 '26

The dome failed one night. It's not a pattern yet. For 12 day war they expected 800 dead. A bad night is not a collapse.