Iran attacks RAF base in Cyprus, an EU country | Hacker News Reader

Iran attacks RAF base in Cyprus, an EU country

telegraph.co.uk

31 pointsbreppp78 comments

These attacks feel like a last gasp of air before death. There is no strategy except to use the last remaining resources to inflict damage to wherever possible but obviously this is not a strategy that will lead to survival.

Turning the entire Middle East against Israel and the US seems like a pretty good strategy actually. Iran has been incredibly successful in this war so far.

Is it working, though? You have to hold an incredibly low opinion of the intelligence of the leadership of the rest of Middle East to think they won't realize it's not exactly what it is. The few indicators I've seen suggest they're not falling for it. They might not like the US or Israel, but Iran was nobody's favorite country either.

Edit: for instance: https://x.com/kuwaittimesnews/status/2028445060556095866 They seem to be putting the blame in the right place.

It's not about intelligence, it's about strategy. Iran is bombing US assets in these countries and now that the US defenses are running thin, they're pulling back to Israel and leaving these countries out to dry. So not only is Iran effectively destroying the Israel/US defensive line and early warning systems, they're leaving the other Middle Eastern countries without defense and at the mercy of Iran. This seems to be pretty effective so far.

Iran's communication specifically calls these bases foreign soil. and "reassures" the host countries that the attacks are not against them. In this case it would be UK soil.

How does Iran communication describe the attacking of Saudi ARAMCO oil facilities and hotels in Bahrain and Dubai?

>hotels in Bahrain and Dubai

IRGC claims they are being used to house US troops that left their base (in the case of Bahrain) and/or intelligence ops.

I guess the US marines are also operating the Saudi oil facility and French base on their time off

Their actual current explanation is that they can't control their armed forces

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-888422

I was talking about the explanation for hotels only.

The general strategy makes a lot of sense for a desperate regime: Instead of striking Israel(densest AA network in the world, long flight path so lots of time to intercept) they will force US to expend AA material all over theater and make US allies question credibility of defense. It's not like only hitting Israel or US will improve their reputation.

> The general strategy makes a lot of sense for a desperate regime

The issue is that they are also attacking their closest friends in the region, as opposed to the other gulf nations which were merely pressuring the US not to attack due to fear.

They have thrown the stone in the metaphorical glass house towards the oil facilities very early in the conflict.

I think this is more an issue of mismanagement rather than strategy. They probably do have a very acute command and control issue due to the strikes.

It's also a good preview of how Iran with nuclear weapons would play out

How do you combat Trump? Cause gas prices in the US to go up.

Israel was behind the Saudi oil facility attack. Saudi has confirmed it was not an Iranian attack.

that's false

These countries are not sovereign states. They are western puppets with western armies on their territory. It makes these attacks only legitimate.

You are flatly wrong. These countries are internationally recognized sovereign nations and members of the UN. They have independent, often conflicting interests and foreign policies. Meanwhile the US bases are held under formal leases, not through force.

If they didn't allow these US bases it's pretty likely US and Israel would be bombing those countries as well.

Pure speculation. May I suggest Arabs are not the subhuman beasts that your press and universities claim to be?

Only suggesting that american imperialism will turn them into subjects or enemies.

I am not privy to the inner workings of sociopaths' brains but it might be because they are supplying fuel to the US bases, or the word "American" in the company name, or maybe they are mad that Saudi Arabia got Bill Burr cancelled.

Iran attacked US and Israel military targets in Bahrain and Dubai. Iran says Israel attacked ARAMCO in a false flag and the Saudis have indeed said that Iran was not behind the bombing.

Akrotiri and Dhekelia are, in fact, UK soil. That's why they're called Sovereign Base Areas.

Ehh, Iran funds Hezbollah which routinely threatened Cyprus with war if it didn't concede maritime boundaries with reserves of natural gas.

This comes after attacking US, French bases and civilian infrastructure in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE as well as their close friends and mediators in Qatar and Oman

They're really determined to prove that they're the bad guys after all, huh?

LOL they were attacked first. The bad guys in this story are Israel and their puppets the USA.

Maybe if we don't count the tens of thousands of Iranian rockets, missiles and drones that they had their proxies launch.

And the proxies? Either directly created or supported at inception by Israel. Or emerged as a response to Israel aggression.

I would love to know which Iranian proxy Israel "directly created". You might be confusing Hamas with Ahmed Yassin's previous charity, which ran schools, mosques and clubs. Even that charity was not "directly created" by Israel, Israel merely allowed them to operate.

Because AFAIK details are murky and debated - that’s why I said “created or supported”.

Just like current Iran situation is due to UK and USA “playing country building” 50-70 years ago.

At Israel, clearly demonstrating that they are the good guys.

After all? As if funding proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq that undermine the state government’s sovereignty was not enough

Well yeah, but they still had a chance to play the victim after the US/Israel strikes (especially if some of the reports about how the negotiations went down are true). Lots of people are still primed to listen to it. But they're not interested in making it easy for their apologists, I guess.

Ok thanks, I agree

Hard to compete with bombing female elementary schools.

Last I checked this was never confirmed to have actually happened.

https://xcancel.com/araghchi/status/2027732295629873332

Again, this information only comes from Iran's state owned media. This is NOT confirmed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/missile...

that link confirms nothing and reiterates the point that an investigation is ongoing.

Assuming that happened, I guarantee it was a targeting error. The US and Israel have no actual reason to target children, seeing how they have plenty of useful military targets and want (or at least need) the Iranian people's support for regime change.

For what it's worth, Iran has claimed their strikes on Oman were mistake, and I believe that too, since Oman seems to have genuinely been trying to help them. Just Oman though. They apparently feel fine about all the other strikes on bystander nations.

Israel makes a point of bombing schools. They always have.

Israel regularly bombs schools and murders children, it was their signature operation in Gaza.

> Cyprus, an EU country

RAF base is on "sovereign British land", A vestige of colonialism. Technically not EU.

That's not how the EU views it,

https://x.com/vonderleyen/status/2028357886355570992

I think it is, seeing as she says 'While the Republic of Cyprus was not the target'

>While the Republic of Cyprus was not the target, let me be clear: we stand collectively, firmly and unequivocally with our Member States in the face of any threat.

This is correct.

> the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (SBA), is a British Overseas Territory that consists of two separate areas on the island of Cyprus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrotiri_and_Dhekelia

I see the headline's now been changed to "RAF base in Cyprus hit by drone strike"

The Telegraph is, of course, strongly anti-EU, so the original headline might well have been a form of shit-stirring - "look how weak the EU are being by not retaliating!", or something along those lines.

Iran has the right to defend itself.

From who? Did the UK attack Iran?

The UK supports the attacks by giving logistical support to the US through the use of UK airbases.

It seems this was not the case, but this has all changed now for sure

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj98egkl7l1o https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/20/what-are-chago...

Those articles are both out of date.

Yes, they both show the UK had an interest in not participating or reducing their participation.

This is probably military strategy 101 not to push your enemies together when they are having a rift

Well, actually yes they did contribute to the attack on the Republic. See[1].

[1] : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20l1v0ldqzo

Your link actually says they were contributing to the defense not the attack

> The US-Israeli strikes were launched after negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear programme ended without a deal. The UK did not participate.

Yes that is true. The UK contributes to the defense operations of the imperial aggressors against the Republic.

What's your view on the Republic's imperial aggression against Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen?

Which Republic are we talking about? The Islamic Republic or the western "republics"?

I am talking about the Islamic Republic setting up local mercenary forces in order to extract resources from the local government in Iraq and Lebanon.

That's called Imperialism and was common among european powers in the 19th century

Good thing they stopped with that, eh?

> in order to extract resources from the local government in Iraq and Lebanon.

How evil of them to do that. They should have known only the United States of America has the divine right to invade countries and extract their resources. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4grxzxjjd8o

> That's called Imperialism and was common among european powers in the 19th century

Fortunately, the USA does not want to revive such practices, as they indicated in this speech: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/marco-rubio-munich-t...

> How evil of them to do that. They should have known only the United States of America has the divine right to invade countries and extract their resources

Yes, OP was already saying Iran is free to act because the US is an imperial power. I was merely stating that he is conveniently ignoring Iran's imperialist behavior

Equating Iran's struggle against a genocide in Palestine with Imperialism is misinformed at best, criminal at worst. Either way, only a zionist could say that, which makes this conversation completely useless.

Can't say how taking over Iraq for economic reasons helps the Palestinians but sure

> The US-Israeli strikes were launched after negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear programme ended without a deal. The UK did not participate.

The negotiations didn't end without a deal, they were ongoing but not finalized. The next session of the negotiations was scheduled for Monday. And then, Israel and US simply attacked on Saturday.

It is very important to use precise language so as to not downplay the illegal aggression against Iran.

Take the language issue with the BBC, which is hardly for this war

In any case a contrarian opinion might be that Iran promised to yield on negotiations following the previous war as mentioned here:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-asks-gulf-ara...

And Iran instead opted for their years old tactic of stalling the negotiations

Yes, they did.

From a coalition of which the UK is a part.

Hideous double-speak in this article.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/01/uk-to-allow...

We're already seen those "defensive strikes" wipe out a school. This is an unprovoked, reckless, criminal attack, the perpetrators of which should be sent to the Hague.

This is North Korean logic.

Who is Iran?

The tiny minority of people with guns to everyone's heads?

The entity acting right now is a small ruling clique presenting themselves as 'Iran'.

A regime loses legitimacy to act when they don't have internal legitimacy - or does not act with legitimacy either.

Iran is supporting massive conflicts in Yemen, and is building non-defensive weapons capabilities.

That does not make US or Israel automatically 'the good guys' as they have their own lack of legitimacy problems.

US president started a war without Congressional approval, against wishes of allies. Unclear objectives, zero popular support.

Israel illegally colonizes West Bank, kills civilians etc.

It's all shades of grey, but there are lighter and darker shades.

And to make more complicated, lighter and darker given context as well.

> The tiny minority of people with guns to everyone's heads?

Yes, I am sure the patients in this hospital were holding guns to Trump's head. https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/3/2/baby-and-p...

And while we're speaking of people that hold guns to everyone's heads, there is one country that is waging war all over the world. It's govt also executed people in broad daylight for the crimes of taking their kid to school and helping a person beaten up by the administration's goons. Would you entertain the idea of similar airstrikes against the head of that country?

> Iran is supporting massive conflicts in Yemen, and is building non-defensive weapons capabilities.

You know who else is supporting that massive conflict in Yemen? The United States of America. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/04/yemen-us-strikes-on-port...

> It's all shades of grey, but there are lighter and darker shades.

I'm guessing they correlate 100% with the shade of the skin of the people involved.

None of THIS rhetoric even responded to the quotes you highlighted.

You'll have to do better than calling people racist for no apparent reason.

If there is one tiny, little barely a sliver of a silver-lining out of all of this Trump insanity, is that we don't hear a lot of people getting called racist for being disagreeable anymore, there are real issues to deal with.

>And while we're speaking of people that hold guns to everyone's heads, there is one country that is waging war all over the world. It's govt also executed people in broad daylight

Isn't that Iran? Remember the mass killings of the protestors? 36000 intentional deaths (Iran) vs 50 possibly accidental deaths (USA) [0]. Even if the deaths in the US were mediated by a burning hatred with the fire of a thousand suns that could still only amount to a few thousand death equivalents in a country where more than three hundred million people live (USA) vs 93 million in Iran.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detentio...

Yes, proportionality tends to tip us over.

We see ICE being evil in front of us, we don't see the actions of the Iranian regime, our 'daily ire' is reserved for the Orange Menace, so it badly distorts our rhetoric.

I don't think anyone should care about the Iranian regime - other than it might get worse, or unstable, or create a regional conflict that will just create more problems for everyone.

A sovereign state has been attacked, in the middle of negotiations. Their leader has been assassinated, civilians murdered. What should they do?

They have every right to resist this criminal assault.

I really don't see where North Korea comes into it. My initial post was actually echoing what we hear in the UK every time Israel assaults its neighbours.

It's North Korea talk because they are the extreme example of illegitimacy.

"A sovereign state"

Sovereign by who's terms?

A gang of people hold another group of people hostage, we have to respect their supposed sovereignty?

And the sovereignty of the majority of the people who reject the regime and who are murdered, tortured?

We're just going to respect a group of thugs claim to control national sovereignty?

The point being - the regimes lack of legitimacy aggravates their claim to 'sovereignty'.

"They have every right to resist this criminal assault."

They probably don't (lack of legitimacy) - and - this really isn't a situation of 'rights' anyhow, this is a break down in order, it's just about power.

And of course - 'rights' - the rights of their citizens murdered and tortured, how do that integrate into this question?

There are international laws here, but there is also legitimacy.

If we could be certain (and we almost could) that literally the vast majority of people in Iran, do not believe in the legitimacy of their own government ...

... then it's ridiculous to talk about 'a sovereign state' or 'a leader' has been killed.

There is a 'Theocratic Feudal Clan' holding power in the country, and they were attacked.

Israel is a very odd state, but with similar lack of legitimacy - except that Iran has made directly claims to the total destruction of the state, and Israel's internal crimes notwithstanding, they have a practical right to defend themselves.

The assault was ordered by a semi-Feudal Lord of 'House Trump' - as US citizens don't support this war, neither was the Executive given consent by Congress.

'Sovereignty' is mostly rhetorical term in a context were legitimacy is not applied.

This is a war being fought where none of the citizens approve of any of it, the claims on all sides are aggrandized.

This conflict is probably best understood like those in Europe before Napoleon and national armies etc..

You know who's really illegitimate, those pesky americaners. If they hadn't given a big and ILLEGAL, big bad in terms of international law, declaration to King George. Then the whole world wouldn't have spent the last 80 years with a gun to their heads while the US runs roughshod over every country on earth creating endless instability and wars.

It's like a boss in a bullet hell game, shooting missiles in every direction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com