Israel–United States relations and associated politics

[Victoria Raverna]

In the end, nothing was fixed and the world was worse.

I'd argue not having another mass terrorist attack on US soil in the last 23 years was a pretty big fix.

Was there another mass terrorist attack 23 years before the 9/11 attack?

I think it is far more important to stop the gun violence problem in US. Every year, more people killed than 9/11 attack.

[Blackhawk]

Were mass terrorist attacks on US soil really that common prior?

[YellowKing]

They were not, but do you think if we had done nothing, and the terrorists got away with it, that there would not be subsequent attacks? And we did have a WTC bombing prior to 9/11 that could have been worse than 9/11 had it not failed. We failed to adequately respond to that attack, and we got 9/11 8 years later.

I think it is far more important to stop the gun violence problem in US. Every year, more people killed than 9/11 attack.

That has nothing to do with anything. Nobody's saying we shouldn't stop the gun violence problem in the US. That has nothing to do with how we responded to 9/11.

For the record, I'm not defending everything we did in the post-9/11 world. I'm just disputing the idea that "nothing" resulted from our response. Our response kept the war on terror overseas instead of on our shores. People can argue whether or not that was worth it or not. I'm not going to argue either way, as we may have no way of knowing.

[gbasden]

They were not, but do you think if we had done nothing, and the terrorists got away with it, that there would not be subsequent attacks? And we did have a WTC bombing prior to 9/11 that could have been worse than 9/11 had it not failed. We failed to adequately respond to that attack, and we got 9/11 8 years later.

For the record, I'm not defending everything we did in the post-9/11 world. I'm just disputing the idea that "nothing" resulted from our response. Our response kept the war on terror overseas instead of on our shores. People can argue whether or not that was worth it or not. I'm not going to argue either way, as we may have no way of knowing.

I mean, sure. I *think* we could have gotten the same results from more precisely targeted strikes on Al Queda without all of the money, bloodshed and suffering of invading two countries.

[Max Peck]

I believe that the invasion of Afghanistan was justifiable. Air strikes alone had been tried before, after the embassy attacks in Africa IIRC, and didn't accomplish much of anything. They certainly didn't prevent the 9/11 attacks. Boots on the ground were required to root out Al Qaeda and to remove the Taliban from power (which I feel was also justified, but YMMV). It was the failed nation-building afterwards that led the resurgence of the Taliban.

The invasion of Iraq was a whole other kettle of fish, and didn't really have much of anything to do with Al Qaeda that I can recall.

[Holman]

In the end, nothing was fixed and the world was worse.

I'd argue not having another mass terrorist attack on US soil in the last 23 years was a pretty big fix.

It's by no means certain that this was prevented by boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq rather than by robust intelligence activity.

And it's pretty clear that those boots created more anti-American feeling (and fighters) than we eliminated.

[YellowKing]

It's by no means certain that it wasn't. We can talk in circles all day, nobody really knows. It's pure speculation as to whether we could have achieved the same success without an invasion. All we have as hard proof is that we haven't had an attack. Is that due to the creation of the department of homeland security? Due to the invasion? Due to a heightened sense of awareness in the intelligence community? Who knows?

[hepcat]

I honestly felt like destroying the Taliban completely and utterly would have been better for the world. The vast number of atrocities they commit on a daily basis puts them on par with the most evil of historical empires.

[Isgrimnur]

It's been 80 years and we still have nazis.

[LawBeefaroni]

Were mass terrorist attacks on US soil really that common prior?

9/11 was the second attempt to bring town the WTC.

We later learned from Yousef that his Trade Center plot was far more sinister. He wanted the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing debris knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11; with the help of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda would later return to realize Yousef’s nightmarish vision.

[Pyperkub]

Were mass terrorist attacks on US soil really that common prior?

9/11 was the second attempt to bring town the WTC.

We later learned from Yousef that his Trade Center plot was far more sinister. He wanted the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing debris knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11; with the help of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda would later return to realize Yousef’s nightmarish vision.

I'd hazard a guess that there were other plots to do so which were foiled and/or aborted. It was definitely a target for a long time prior to 9/11, as the '93 attempt indicates.

[Pyperkub]

In the end, nothing was fixed and the world was worse.

I'd argue not having another mass terrorist attack on US soil in the last 23 years was a pretty big fix.

It's by no means certain that this was prevented by boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq

do not conflate these 2 operations. Afghanistan definitely impacted terrorist operations. Iraq? Not so much, and Iraq was actually detrimental to the success of the operation in Afghanistan. Afghanistan went directly to the root attacks for 9/11. Iraq was the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld fantasy that it was Hussein and not AQ behind 9/11.

[Anonymous Bosch]

How the Death of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah Brings a Renewed Opportunity for Mideast Peace

Just when the prospect of peace in the Middle East seemed further away than ever, the dramatic death of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah significantly alters the balance of power and offers a renewed opportunity for peace.

It is hard to overstate the significance of removing Nasrallah from the scene. He was a singular leader possessing a unique portfolio of charisma and strategic skills—in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “He was not another terrorist, he was the terrorist.” His impact is a reminder that in an era where self-directed work teams, group leadership, and collective action are all the buzz, significant individuals can still have a profound impact on history. Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle said: “The history of the world is but the biography of great men." It’s clear that by "great," that would mean both virtuous and wicked.

When Nasrallah assumed leadership of Hezbollah in 1992, at age 32, taking over from assassinated co-founder Abbas al-Musawi, Hezbollah was still largely relegated to the fringes of Lebanese society. Over the next thirty years, Nasrallah and his acolytes systemically dismantled and subsumed the sovereign Lebanese government, with even no President since 2022, and wrought havoc on the Lebanese people with little support from the population. As noted by President Biden in calling Nasrallah’s death “a measure of justice,” Nasrallah was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Lebanese, Israelis, Americans, and Syrians during his bloody rule, and enjoyed little support from Arab neighbors, with the Arab League joining the U.S. and the E.U. in designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization under his watch.

Under Hezbollah rule, Lebanon has arguably turned from prosperity into a failed state, but with Nasrallah and much of the leadership of Hezbollah now gone, there is an opportunity for what is left of the Lebanese government and military to reassert control and rebuild a functioning state, for the benefit of the people of Lebanon rather than Iran.

But the broader opportunity comes from what has accompanied Nasrallah’s death—the systematic degradation of Hezbollah’s capabilities over the last month.

Recent history shows that criminal and terrorist movements rarely collapse with the removal of the top leader alone. The resurgence of Boko Haram has continued despite the killing of its leader Abubakar Shekau in 2021. Similarly, the resilience of Al-Shabaab after the U.S. killed one of its top commanders Maalim Ayman last year, and the flourishing of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel despite the imprisonment of leader El Chapo and his son, show that taking down one key figure does not always have a grave impact.

But what is far more effective is when the top leader’s removal is paired with the systemic hollowing out of a movement’s organizational capacity. Examples include the collapse of Al-Qaeda, culminating in the deaths of heads Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the collapse of Russia’s Wagner Group after its forced integration with the Russian military culminating in the deaths of head Yevgeny Prigozhin and his top deputies, and the collapse of ISIS after years of military defeats culminating in the death of its already weakened leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

And that is what has happened in Lebanon over the last month. Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded, making communications among Hezbollah operatives suspect. Strikes have eliminated Nasrallah’s presumptive heirs and leadership cohort, and with Hezbollah fighters focused on their own survival, they have been less capable of launching their missiles at Israel in numbers we were seeing previously. Israel has been under attack from what they estimate to be anywhere from 8,000 to 11,000 missiles fired by Hezbollah since Oct. 8, 2023.

The sudden, unanticipated degradation of Hezbollah has shattered tired, old assumptions that Iran’s most vaunted proxy was untouchable, catching the U.S.—and many others—by surprise, right as the global community was calling for a cease-fire. But even more importantly, it has exposed Iran and its proxies as paper tigers, tilting the regional power balance the furthest away from Iran and its allies in recent memory. One thing that is for sure: You can bet that Arab leaders will now be less fearful of Iran and its coercive abilities and will evaluate their options accordingly.

Of course, escalation remains possible, but Iran has always been wary of getting into a direct war with the U.S. Consider the reaction of Iran to the killing of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and the strike on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year. The former produced a very limited retaliatory response, the latter still nothing. Deprived of its strongest proxy, the dramatically overestimated Hezbollah, Iran’s bluff has been called. Iran is left in deeper isolation in the Middle East, leaving the Ayatollah’s regime increasingly reliant on patronage from Russia and China. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remains a danger that requires Iran’s leaders to understand that they could risk its entire nuclear infrastructure if it continues. But the Iranian economy remains very weak and is being propped up by windfall oil production.

What does all this mean for the prospect of regional peace? Netanyahu needs to be able to translate Israel’s military achievements into political outcomes. He cannot let nationalists in his coalition define what is possible in Gaza and the West Bank. But now, given Israel’s actions against Hezbollah, Iran-backed proxy groups will no doubt be worrying about their own security, or lack thereof, with the myth of Iran’s protective shield irrevocably punctured. Israeli security insistences which may have previously seemed indigestible may not be as intolerable when measured against the humiliation inflicted upon Hezbollah, and by extension, Iran.

The last few years have been marked by roads to peace not taken, and while the opportunity for peace looms large, whether that opportunity is realized will largely come down to the regional participants themselves. After so many missed opportunities, it is hard to be hopeful. However, even without any official accord, the removal of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, paired with the complete degradation of Hezbollah, promises a new day ahead for the Middle East.

September 27th is the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough.

I have spent countless hours studying Hezbollah and there is not an expert on earth who thought that what Israel has done to decapitate and degrade them was possible.

This is significant because Iran is now fully exposed. The reason why their nuclear facilities have not been destroyed, despite weak air defense systems, is because Hezbollah has been a loaded gun pointed at Israel. Iran spent the last forty years building this capability as its deterrent.

President Trump would often say, “Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation.” The Islamic Republic’s regime is much tougher when risking Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian and Houthi lives than when risking their own. Their foolish efforts to assassinate President Trump and hack his campaign reek of desperation and are hardening a large coalition against them.

Iranian leadership is stuck in the old Middle East, while their neighbors in the GCC are sprinting toward the future by investing in their populations and infrastructure. They are becoming dynamic magnets for talent and investment while Iran falls further behind. As the Iranian proxies and threats dissipate, regional security and prosperity will rise for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike.

Israel now finds itself with the threat from Gaza mostly neutralized and the opportunity to neutralize Hezbollah in the north. It’s unfortunate how we got here but maybe there can be a silver lining in the end.

Anyone who has been calling for a ceasefire in the North is wrong. There is no going back for Israel. They cannot afford now to not finish the job and completely dismantle the arsenal that has been aimed at them. They will never get another chance.

After the brilliant, rapid-fire tactical successes of the pagers, radios, and targeting of leadership, Hezbollah’s massive weapon cache is unguarded and unmanned. Most of Hezbollah fighters are hiding in their tunnels. Anyone still around was not important enough to carry a pager or be invited to a leadership meeting. Iran is reeling, as well, insecure and unsure how deeply its own intelligence has been penetrated. Failing to take full advantage of this opportunity to neutralize the threat is irresponsible.

I have been hearing some amazing stories about how Israel has been collecting intelligence over the past 10 months with some brilliant technology and crowdsourcing initiatives.

But today, with the confirmed killing of Nasrallah and at least 16 top commanders eliminated in just nine days, was the first day I started thinking about a Middle East without Iran’s fully loaded arsenal aimed at Israel. So many more positive outcomes are possible.

This is a moment to stand behind the peace-seeking nation of Israel and the large portion of the Lebanese who have been plagued by Hezbollah and who want to return to the times when their country was thriving, and Beirut a cosmopolitan city. The main issue between Lebanon and Israel is Iran; otherwise there is a lot of benefit for the people of both countries from working together.

The right move now for America would be to tell Israel to finish the job. It’s long overdue. And it’s not only Israel’s fight.

More than 40 years ago, Hezbollah killed 241 US military personnel, including 220 Marines. That remains the single deadliest day for the U.S. Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima. Later that same day, Hezbollah killed 58 French paratroopers.

And now, over the past six weeks or so, Israel has eliminated as many terrorists on the US list of wanted terrorists as the US has done in the last 20 years. Including Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization who masterminded the 1983 killing of those Marines.

The philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote on X, “I keep reading everywhere that Lebanon is 'on the brink of collapse.' No. It is on the brink of relief and deliverance.”

Moments like this come once in a generation, if they even come at all.

The Middle East is too often a solid where little changes. Today, it is a liquid and the ability to reshape is unlimited. Do not squander this moment.

Let’s all pray for success, for peace and for the good judgement of our leaders.

[El Guapo]

Here comes that point where we learn if taking the head off this creature makes a new one form (or two) that's worse or actually hurts the creature enough to win the fight.

Where would you put your money?


That aside, and to be clear - I'm happy they got their man here.

I've seen it pointed out that 23 years ago the USA was hit by a terrorist attack that killed a few thousand people, and we responded by launching two wars that killed scores of thousands and wounded hundreds of thousands. In the end, nothing was fixed and the world was worse.

Now Israel is doing exactly the same thing, and we're expected to celebrate it.

It's not the same situation. It's more like 9/11 if we also had Al Qaeda militia on the northern border and an ISIS army on the southern border, firing rockets into U.S. cities. We have (and had) the option of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan and relying on the oceans to protect us in a way that Israel doesn't.

Ultimately we'll see how this all turns out. I'll say that the world is better off with Nasrallah gone and Hezbollah's leadership decimated, but if Israel is drawn back into a quagmire in Lebanon we may ultimately say that this all wasn't worth it. But reactive measures aren't as viable for Israel as they were for us.

[El Guapo]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

[Blackhawk]

Were mass terrorist attacks on US soil really that common prior?

9/11 was the second attempt to bring town the WTC.

We later learned from Yousef that his Trade Center plot was far more sinister. He wanted the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing debris knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11; with the help of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda would later return to realize Yousef’s nightmarish vision.

I recall.

My point wasn't that they didn't happen, it was that mass-scale foreign terrorist attacks on US soil have always been extremely rare. The fact that there haven't been any since 9/11 doesn't strike me as terribly significant. And it's impossible to point to a cause of that lack of attacks when vast numbers of changes were implemented. We invaded, and set the Taliban back a bit. We cranked up domestic security. We established the DHS. We changed our approach to intelligence gathering. The internet became a thing, which changed terrorist organization and planning, and created new avenues of intelligence (likewise modern mobile phones.) We did dozens of other similar (although often smaller) things. And every one of them had a cost - in money, in lives, in rights, in society, in politics. See: The Patriot Act.

I think it is overly simplistic to point to one of them (the invasion) and say, "That's what did it." And even the invasion was a speedbump for the Taliban, who have risen back to prominence.

I'm not going to sit here and say that we shouldn't have acted, or point to individual actions and say, "This one helped, this one was useless, this one was right, this one was wrong." That's a thousand-page study, not a forum post (and I'm not qualified to write it.) We obviously had to do something, but we did a lot of things, and all had some impact, one way or another, on the result.

[Isgrimnur]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

peace-seeking nation of Israel

Is it peace if you've killed your external enemies? Or is it just permission to go after the internal 'enemies'?

I'd say fuck Jared Kushner, but that might result in more Kushners.

[$iljanus]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

Hours, eh? I've heard of people who have spent...years studying Hezbollah.

But by Jared's metric this forum is like the Brookings Institution.

[El Guapo]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

peace-seeking nation of Israel

Is it peace if you've killed your external enemies? Or is it just permission to go after the internal 'enemies'?

I'd say fuck Jared Kushner, but that might result in more Kushners.

Well, I would say that Israel is peace-seeking. It doesn't have any territorial claims or desire to make war on its neighbors, and would happily leave its neighbors alone if they left Israel alone.

Of course, the thorny part is getting to a Palestinian state.

[$iljanus]

Little Jared does have a point about an opportunity though. I hope some gov think tanks and analysts are making presentations on how to bring about a post-Hezbollah world. Lebanon does have an actual government that's not affiliated with Hezbollah.

[Isgrimnur]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

peace-seeking nation of Israel

Is it peace if you've killed your external enemies? Or is it just permission to go after the internal 'enemies'?

I'd say fuck Jared Kushner, but that might result in more Kushners.

Well, I would say that Israel is peace-seeking. It doesn't have any territorial claims or desire to make war on its neighbors, and would happily leave its neighbors alone if they left Israel alone.

Of course, the thorny part is getting to a Palestinian state.

Something something 'internal'.

[Max Peck]

Well, I would say that Israel is peace-seeking. It doesn't have any territorial claims or desire to make war on its neighbors, and would happily leave its neighbors alone if they left Israel alone.

Of course, the thorny part is getting to a Palestinian state.

Well, no territorial claims aside from Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps.

[El Guapo]

Well, I would say that Israel is peace-seeking. It doesn't have any territorial claims or desire to make war on its neighbors, and would happily leave its neighbors alone if they left Israel alone.

Of course, the thorny part is getting to a Palestinian state.

Well, no territorial claims aside from Gaza and the West Bank, perhaps.

Well yes, like I said that's the thorny part (mainly the West Bank - only a few extremists in Israel care about holding onto Gaza long-term), largely because the Palestinians are living under Israeli sovereignty and aren't really neighbors. But even in the West Bank there was the whole Oslo peace process that was trying to achieve a peaceful resolution, and almost did before Arafat decided to launch the second intifada instead of accepting a deal that would have given almost all of the West Bank for a Palestinian state.

There are absolutely a non-trivial number of Israelis who want to hold onto substantially all of the West Bank forever full stop. But I think there is a majority of Israelis who would be willing to give it up in a deal if they could be reasonably confident that the West Bank (like Gaza before it) wouldn't promptly become a new launching point for missiles into Israel.

[Isgrimnur]

Keir Starmer made a gaffe during his speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, calling for the "return of the sausages" instead of hostages from Gaza

[El Guapo]

Little Jared does have a point about an opportunity though. I hope some gov think tanks and analysts are making presentations on how to bring about a post-Hezbollah world. Lebanon does have an actual government that's not affiliated with Hezbollah.

Yeah, I mean the argument itself (Nasrallah was bad, let's try to take advantage of the decimation of Hezbollah leadership to make things better) is a little general but otherwise not really all that controversial. My reaction is more "ok...but like I'm not looking for your input specifically".

One thing to bear in mind with Hezbollah is that, in addition to firing missiles into Israel, they've also been effectively occupying Lebanon on behalf of Syria and Lebanon (and also helped Assad stay in power in Syria). The dream scenario is for Hezbollah's decimation to open room for Lebanese to retake control of Lebanon. That's not an easy thing even if Hezbollah is crippled, but it would be great for everyone.

[El Guapo]

Keir Starmer made a gaffe during his speech at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, calling for the "return of the sausages" instead of hostages from Gaza

They had better not be pork, though.

[Holman]

In the end, nothing was fixed and the world was worse.

I'd argue not having another mass terrorist attack on US soil in the last 23 years was a pretty big fix.

It's by no means certain that this was prevented by boots on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq

do not conflate these 2 operations. Afghanistan definitely impacted terrorist operations. Iraq? Not so much, and Iraq was actually detrimental to the success of the operation in Afghanistan. Afghanistan went directly to the root attacks for 9/11. Iraq was the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld fantasy that it was Hussein and not AQ behind 9/11.

I don't want to push back too hard on this, and I do understand that the Afghanistan campaign was justified in ways that Iraq wasn't.

But the fact is that fighting and suppressing the Taliban for as long as we did wouldn't by itself have prevented AQ from further operations. Bin Laden spent most of his time across the border in Pakistan, and AQ operations weren't limited by the borders of Afghanistan. You'll recall that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. AQ was/is highly distributed, and US military engagement in what jihadists consider their Holy Land only produced more jihadists.

[Victoria Raverna]

Were mass terrorist attacks on US soil really that common prior?

9/11 was the second attempt to bring town the WTC.

We later learned from Yousef that his Trade Center plot was far more sinister. He wanted the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing debris knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11; with the help of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda would later return to realize Yousef’s nightmarish vision.

And was there any plot that failed in the 23 years after 9/11?

[Victoria Raverna]

It's a little funny to read about Jared Kushner having spent "countless hours studying Hezbollah". Not that he's wrong necessarily, just saying...maybe not my go to expert.

peace-seeking nation of Israel

Is it peace if you've killed your external enemies? Or is it just permission to go after the internal 'enemies'?

I'd say fuck Jared Kushner, but that might result in more Kushners.

Well, I would say that Israel is peace-seeking. It doesn't have any territorial claims or desire to make war on its neighbors, and would happily leave its neighbors alone if they left Israel alone.

Of course, the thorny part is getting to a Palestinian state.

Palestinians are their neighbors, right? How much Palestinian's lands that they claimed and took? How many Palestinian villages that they destroyed to free up the lands?

[Blackhawk]

And was there any plot that failed in the 23 years after 9/11?

I don't think that's knowable. There are likely any number of attacks in various stages of planning/implementation that have failed both before and after. They're not reported to the public, beyond the occasional "...a terrorist plot was foiled" sound bite.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I only know of two or three (and and a very general level) based on some meetings/classes I'd attended in the years that followed 9/11. There were absolutely much smaller-scale domestic attempts made and at least one of them involved ricin targeting a government official; all (that were shared) were stopped.

I can only imagine all the ones we don't know a thing about and how close some of them might have been.

[LawBeefaroni]

There have been several that are public knowledge. The FBI releases an annual report. Though lately it's more domestic terrorists.

I met one of the agents who was central to stopping the printer bomb plot. It was a pretty close thing.

[YellowKing]

I looked it up and one study from 2021 found around 270 terrorist plots that had been thwarted by or in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security since its inception. Of course that doesn't mean all of those plots were massive in scale or were even foreign actors, but it does show that the safeguards put in place post-9/11 were not all for naught.

[El Guapo]

Israel is sending ground forces into Lebanon.

They're describing it as a "limited, targeted" operation, for what that's worth. I hope so. Seems risky to me, but I'll hope for the best.

[Blackhawk]

Iran preparing imminent missile attack on Israel

JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran is preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack on Israel, according to a senior U.S. administration official, who warned Tuesday of “severe consequences” should it take place.

The region is going up in flames, literally and figuratively.

[Isgrimnur]

As is tradition.

[LawBeefaroni]

Well, the Evangelical bring-on-Revelation types are getting hard-ons right about now.

[El Guapo]

We'll see how it goes. The last one from Iran was a big dud. Unless this is a "we really mean it this time" attack.

[Kurth]

I think it’s entirely possible that Israel strikes Tehran with n the next 24 hours.

If Iran launches a significant attack against Israel shortly, as is now being predicted by U.S. and Israeli intelligence, I think Israel hits back hard.

[Kurth]

We'll see how it goes. The last one from Iran was a big dud. Unless this is a "we really mean it this time" attack.

I think there’s a lot of uncertainty, but some are suggesting that Iran is feeling like it has to answer all the calls about “Iran’s tepid response” to Israel’s aggressive moves to disable Iran’s proxy forces.

One big question is whether Iran actually has the means. I hope not.