The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why | Hacker News Reader

The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why

aljazeera.com

24 pointsevo_949 comments

Sure, starting a prolonged war, having the Strait of Hormuz closed and its military bases destroyed while having the largest aircraft carrier forced to retreat, is all part of a larger plan. Everything going as predicted.

If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars (which had much more buildup), the military strategy so far is going better than history would have indicated and is probably way ahead of what was planned.

GWB’s Gulf “war”, one of the biggest modern blunders this country has made, being a measuring stick for the new foray in killing civilians in the Middle East, is not a great starting point for any “actually we’re doing well” narratives.

None of that changes that militarily the start of that war was considered extremely militarily successful, and this one is off to an even more successful start.

Which has nothing, at all, to do with what I responded to. But thanks for doubling down on it.

And your original response to me had nothing, at all, to do with what I originally wrote, hence me expanding on what I wrote that you responded to, not your new tangent.

Military/tactical success does not mean strategic victory, but understanding the current reality of both is worthwhile. There is plenty of other discussion here on strategic victory for you to comment on/add your insight.

So I guess we are both just talking past each other.

My man, you said "If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars ... " - I responded directly to that, saying it was a stupid measuring stick.

If you wanted to say different things, you should have said them. What you said was bizarre and silly. Come on, now.

What is "far better"?

What has been done other than killing people so far?

I'm not sure how you measure this weeks into a conflict in any direction?

It's pretty easy to measure, you compare the two.

During the first 2 weeks of the Gulf War we lost 12 aircraft to enemy fire. 8 to Iraqi SAMs, 3 Iraqi AAA, and 1 lost in air combat (an F/A-18C Hornet shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25). Losses resulted in 19 deaths and 10 POWs. We had a 70% interception rate on Iraq's ballistic missiles versus 90% on Iran's. We were not able to find/stop Iraq's launchers during the entire war, meanwhile we have footage of eliminating some of Iran's.

We now have drones allowing us to do lots of recon without risk to our planes. Last I know we've lost 14 drones. In Iraq that would have been 14 piloted jets. This allows us to do more/more risky recon, and at a higher operational tempo as they can be in the air longer, don't have pilot fatigue, etc.

We have removed the top government officials, and continue to remove high value targets. Today Ali Larijani, one of the orchestrators for the mass killing of Iranian protestors, was killed along with Basij cheif Gholamreza Soleimani who bragged about personally beating protestors and whose forces use rape against women routinely, along with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Militarily we have been extremely successful in our objectives. How that translates politically in Iran is unknown. But militarily it can't be denied. The start of the Iraq war is unilaterally considered militarily successful, and this war so far is wildly more successful than that was.

That really didn’t answer my question. It reads like trying to find misc metrics to prove success.

And WMDs, you think those were real?

Kinda fits the government’s shifting explanations for the war anyway, but that’s incoherence not success.

WMDs have nothing to do with military success.

You are talking about political success, and we won't know how that goes until the final outcome, but if we are successful we may never know (if we stopped a nuclear program that would have happened, how do we know we did?).

Currently we can look at military success, and it's pretty easy to see militarily we are meeting our goals.

Yeah like I said it reads like trying to make up a measurement to fit a story, these conflicts aren’t even comparable for obvious reasons.

It reads like military analysis of a military action. Strategic and tactical/military success are not the same thing, but both are worthwhile discussions to understand events. You seem to want to comingle the two but it'd probably be more productive for you to discuss your proffered topic of strategic success in one of the many threads here related to that.

They've got rid of a lot of military assets too.

Spent a lot of resources for sure.

How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.

Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources. This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect. Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles. It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran.

What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery.

So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities.

This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority. If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.

“Tehran was less than two weeks away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb, according to US intelligence assessments.”

https://youtu.be/Vc_NanZ-Jos?si=HmZQyGZTG1VgqYaP

We’ve been hearing similar things for decades.

And the US, Israel, and EU member states have been pushing back to prevent that from happening for decades.

Stuxnet, the assassination of nuclear physicists [0], and the expansion of the DGSE's presence in Tehran [1] and various other actions that haven't been publicized or can't be announced have been going on for a reason.

[0] - https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/dec/02/part-5-assassin...

[1] - https://www.intelligenceonline.fr/europe-russie/2023/11/24/a...

If only there was like treaty or something we could have had.

None of the players in the JCPOA negotiated in good faith.

Iran's continued support for Assad, the Houthis, Hezbollah (especially after their massacre of Syrian Sunnis in 2013 which lead to Jabhat Al-Nusra), and their backing of Nouri Al-Maliki's sectarian government leading to Iraq collapsing into civil war again showed Iran was negotiating with the Obama administration in bad faith.

Similarly, Russia and China's continued support for Iran's ballistics missiles program and other dual use technologies showed that Russia+China as guarunteers wouldn't end well.

There's a reason why the French - one of the guarunteers of the JCPOA - expanded their own offensive intelligence capacity in Tehran, unless you think the DGSE are American (ha)

We would have been in the same position today if Harris was president as well.

True... DECADES and nothing.

The US even destroyed its nuclear installations last year. lol

This is worse than a TV series.

In June, Hegseth claimed those capabilities were “completely obliterated”, and yet they somehow came back in 8 months?

And that’s aside from the fact that US intelligence is historically anything but, when it comes to WMD claims.

If it's working, it's working slowly and in a very, very bad way.

>China, Tehran’s largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude while the strait is shut.

We have literally had like 5 headlines from major news agencies over the past few days confirming that Iran is exporting its own oil with what looks like close to 0 problems.

Iran does have an oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/5/31/iran-opens-new-oil-e... but it doesn't have infinite capacity, so that doesn't mean there are zero problems.

Yeah, right. No wonder - it's an article by the Qatari Al Jazeera.

The message matters waaaaay less than the messenger.

Qatar used to be pro-Iran until Iran started striking them 2 weeks ago.

Back when the entire Gulf blockaded Qatar from 2017-21, Qatar depended on Iran [0] for food. Qatar and Iran also had a gentleman's agreement to collaborate with each other to export LNG [1]. Both Qatar and Iran also collaborated with each other to support Hamas [2] and the Houthis [3].

The fact that a Qatari national employed by a think tank that is patronized by the Qatari royal family [4] has published this piece in Qatar's state-owned media is a massive about face and signals how livid Qatari policymakers are.

Heck, Qatar's interior ministry has begun arresting Iranian sympathizers [5], forced Hamas to denounce Iran [6], and taken control of Qatar's subreddit: "You might be anonymous but we aren’t, the mod team is known to the authorities and we’re trying our best to cooperate with them and comply with all the guidelines." [7].

Qatar was Iran's last friend in the Gulf.

[0] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/6/25/iran-hassan-rouhani...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pars/North_Dome_Gas-Cond...

[2] - https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-hamas/a-57537872

[3] - https://sites.bu.edu/pardeeatlas/research-and-policy/back2sc...

[4] - https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/About/Pages/default.aspx

[5] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/qatar-announces-arre...

[6] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3xk6xgyzo

[7] - https://www.reddit.com/r/qatar/comments/1rt2fth/timeout/

The kind of pro-Iran state that has hosted the biggest US military base in the Middle East for decades.

International politics are messy, as there are too many actors with their own agendas. You try to avoid taking sides and to stay out of trouble, but sometimes you end up in trouble anyway due to the choices others made.

> The kind of pro-Iran state that has hosted the biggest US military base in the Middle East for decades...

Al Udeid and Exxon's stake in QatarEnergy is Qatar's tribute to the US to not be added onto sanctions lists for conducting business with Iran.

Al Udeid Airbase was only established in 1996 after Iran and Qatar began collaborating on LNG extraction in the early 1990s and after Iran helped put down a coup attempt in Qatar in 1996 [0].

Qatar's Energy Minister - who is also CEO of QatarEnergy - is also a member of Banu Ka'b, an Arab clan that still has blood ties in Ahvaz today.

> International politics are messy

I know. I used to work in the policy space. People really overestimate the history of the US presence in West Asia.

The only states we had deep continuous ties with in the region were Turkiye (their military junta was always pro-American and a core part of Operation Gladio) and Iran until the Shah was deposed.

Israel's primary defense benefactor until the 1990s was France, Saudi's primary defense benefactor until the 1980s was France (it was French special forces that put down al-Otaybi in 1979), and the Gulf+Jordan's was the UK then France.

The US on really entered the region in earnest after the 1973 oil crisis but pulled back after the Iran Embassy Crisis and the Beirut bombings which led the Reagan admin to decide to let the French and their allies+defense partners the Israelis and Turks manage that headache (but we'd gladly bankroll any anti-Soviet activities in the region), and we didn't return to the region until the Gulf War.

[0] - https://www.danielpipes.org/6317/hamad-bin-jasim-bin-jabr-al...

> Israel's primary defense benefactor until the 1990s was France

1960s, and that's the time imo the US became heavily involved in the region

It’s remarkable how incompetent Iranian security system has been. This has been going on for over a decade. They just can’t fix their intelligence failures.

Who on earth uses consumer phones at this level (which was the case among their elites till last year)?

Why do they walk in open streets and reside in residential buildings now, and all gather in single location?

Disregarding the fact that the author has an interest in hyping US-Israel achievements in the war (as he admits he is associated with the US Department of State and intelligence agencies) it is objectively true that Iran's military leadership and infrastructure has been definitely degraded. If you factor in the assassination of Iran's leaders, Iran has also lost substantial experiential knowledge that is a setback and something its new political and military leaders will have to struggle with and re-acquire over time. Perhaps we are already seeing evidence of that with the hubris of the new Iranian leadership refusing the possibilities of a diplomatic engagement and / or a ceasefire (to provide some kind of exit ramp for a politically hassled Trump + Netanyahu, which could de-escalate the violence). (We see this kind of politically inexperienced narrow vision with Zelensky too, in Ukraine, who still unrealistically believes that his country can militarily force a nuclear armed, militarily superior opponent to end the hostilities on his terms).

While the Global South currently sympathises with Iran, prolonged warfare will disrupt the economies of many a country (due to the high energy prices), and sympathies and value-based politics will invariably be tossed in favour of increasing pressure on the weaker party - Iran - to end the conflict (possibly on politically unfavourable terms). Its neighbours will also become increasingly hostile and less tolerable to attacks on their soil. Moreover, prolonged warfare is also likely to degrade Iran's economic and military infrastructure further.

True that despite facing a militarily superior force, Iran has the ability to hurt its opponents, and has displayed great resilience in bearing hurts to itself too. However, such "scorched earth" policy needs to be matched with wise political pragmatism to not become a self-defeatist policy - after all, the strength of the genocidal regime of Netanyahu and the imperialist administration of Trump is their wanton disregard for international laws, human lives, human rights and the ability to feed of these kind of warfare and destruction to build-up their political reputation. A politically hassled Netanyahu and Trump are both also desperate politicians trying to avoid possible loss of power and jail time with this war, which means that they may increasingly resort to bombing of civilians and civilians infrastructure too to spin it as as a "win" against "muslim terrorists".

All that said, prolonged warfare against Iran will also hurt both the US and Israel.

The Americans needs to be mindful of their history with Iran - it is their political meddling in Iran that turned Iran hostile towards them and Trump isn't the first US president to try and salvage his presidency by attacking Iran. Jimmy Carter's Operation Eagle Claw (a military operation to rescue Americans captured by Iranian revolutionaries) was a failure that cost Carter his Presidency. Ronald Reagan, who replaced him, also initiated a military operation against Iran, through Iraq - the Iraq-Iran-Contra affair became Reagan's largest political scandal and severely damaged his reputation. The US invasion of Iraq strengthened Iranian influence in the region, and weakened the policy of dual containment of both Iran and Iraq. Any goal of militarily "defeating" Iran will have to keep the post-war Iraq scenario in mind. Iran is a highly educated society with women even outnumbering men in colleges. During the Bangladesh Liberation wars, one of the reasons the indian military was able to subdue the Pakistani army there so quickly was due to the educated Bangladeshi youths who formed the guerilla force of the resistance. Indian Generals observed that these educated youngsters were quick learners and thus easier to militarily train for intelligence gathering, resistance and saboteuring. Iran has a population of around 90 million. If Iran is "defeated" (occupied or not), even if 1% of their population turn to "terrorism" to defend themselves and continue the fight, we are talking about nearly 1 million highly-educated "terrorists" in the middle-east region.

For Israel too, the stakes are high. Nentahyahu's attack on his own country's democracy to become a Jewish Ayatollah -like dictator, and his genocidal warfare in Gaza has caused great damage to Israel's reputation internationally. Historic support for Israel amongst Americans is the lowest. The Iran war is not popular in the US - the more the American military gets involved and prolongs the Iran war and the more American soldiers die, Israel's reputation in America will suffer. Gallup notes that sympathy for Israel amongst the Democrats has dropped drastically, so much so that more Democrats (65%) support Palestinians than Israel today (Israelis No Longer Ahead in Americans' Middle East Sympathies - https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead... ). While support for Israel amongst Republicans remain high, Republicans youths are increasingly distrusting and less sympathetic of Israel and more sympathetic towards Palestinians today (National Poll: Younger Republicans Are Diverging From Party Leadership On Israel - https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/polls/gop-israel-2025 ). So there is a real danger of Israel losing support amongst the Republicans too, thus curbing Israel's political influence in American politics. Without American political and military support, Israel will never be able to effectively defend itself. Everyone (including Trump), blames Israel for this war. Nobody in the world wants a prolonged war that will make oil and gas costlier and hurt their economy. Considering all this, seeking a military defeat of Iran may offer short-term gains but could be strategically short-sighted in the long run for Israel.

A prolonged war thus benefits no one. The war now hinges on the political egos of Trump, Netanyahu and Khamenie.

Poetic justice how Qatar's propaganda wire of Al Jazeera switches so easily from anti-Israel to pro-Israel.

All it took is two weeks of reality of what happens when you support the most extreme elements in the area, it all comes back hitting you in the face.

This is an opinion piece from a writer who has only 1 other contribution to Al Jazeera. The writer, as stated in the piece, is a former US state department employee, so the pro-Israel stance is not surprising.

In a publication like Al Jazeera that is managed by an authoritarian state, nothing gets published by accident.

You also have to willfully ignore what's going on to not notice the relation to Iran attacking Qatar for two weeks

Do you have other interests or is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News? From your comment history you seem to be quite dedicated to the topic.

I wish there was a browser extension to tag such obvious sockpuppet accounts.

> is your day job only posting comments about Iran/Israel on Hacker News

It very well may be - state of Israel has employed people to control online narrative for around 20 years.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/internet-users-paid-s...

there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors

> there are no people that think differently than me, only paid actors

As much as I wish that were the case wrt Palestine, I’m sadly aware that it isn’t true.

E.g.

“ Nearly half (47 percent) of (Israeli) respondents agreed that "when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua's command – killing all its inhabitants."

https://archive.is/QvrVu

I could discuss the issues with this poll which I cannot find anywhere, (Why are Arabs not polled? last time I checked they were people too, hacking a result much?)

But I will ask you this, how is that related in any way to what I said or the thread itself?

It’s related because you claimed I am naive to how many people actually support Israel and its conduct.

The median Israeli appears to support genocide, so it’s not at all surprising to me to interact with real people online who hold a pro-Israeli stance, even given the documented deployment of paid influencers (Hasbara).

I have to admit that I am having difficulty tracking your logic.

However, in this somewhat unrelated post, it seems you are referring to the semantic shift that has occurred in the word "genocide", to mean "an act of war I do not support" rather than "an attempt at systematic extermination of an entire ethnicity".

In that new meaning echoed here you'd have a problem finding Israelis that are against a war fought against Hamas, a rape gang that brought disaster upon themselves and their palestinian electorate, even if relabeled with a misappropriated word.

> it seems you are referring to the semantic shift that has occurred in the word "genocide", to mean "an act of war I do not support" rather than "an attempt at systematic extermination of an entire ethnicity".

Genocide is “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”

https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

In this thread I am referring to this:

https://archive.is/QvrVu

To rehash my argument since you claim to have trouble following:

Israel occasionally pays influence to online discussion in a way that mimics organic discourse (Hasbara). However, Israeli public opinions are fairly remote from western liberal norms thus I’m unsurprised to interact with repugnant opinions from those who genuinely hold them, as opposed to paid commentators.

“A rape gang” Personally I believe rapists should be given capital punishment. Unfortunately that isn’t the norm in Israe either it seems:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-21/ty-article-ma...

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2026-0...

https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-war-palestinians-pris...

In the last instance the rapists have been celebrated by politicians and tv shows.

I do, however forgive me as I am interested in the conflict as me and my extended family are currently being bombed.

That on contrast with many in this site that are obsessed with the conflict with little knowledge apart from a sports-like team cheering

Generally hacker news as a site due to moderation choices is quite the political site with disproportionate interest in Jews in the Middle East and their problems, with a few of the AI slop blog posts thrown in.

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