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Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately this is more interesting than a failed Diego Garcia attack — the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out. By using IRBMs in this fashion, it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction..

Which is notable since it’s about the same distance from Southern Iran to Diego Garcia (3,800km) as it is from Northern Iran to London.

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They had a religious ruling on the range, and they also had a religious ruling on "not creating an atomic bomb."

The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas is still standing, as these rulings can apparently be changed or bypassed.

> The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas

I don't think much of the world has processed that Iran's ostensible lack of nuclear weapons is purely a matter of will and not capability.

Maybe don't murder the religious leader that made the rulings.

Can anyone blame them for considering developing nuclear weapons for real now? I can't.

After being caught developing nuclear weapons for real numerous times, now it is really for real?

Were they caught by the same people who found WMDs in Iraq by any chance?

the IAEA, presumably you trust UN agencies?

in any case, these are the mythical WMDs found in Iraq:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee...

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have...

From your source:

> "These weapons were not part of an active arsenal. They were remnants from Iraq’s arms program in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war."

These are not the "WMD" that led to or had any involvement with 2003, it's dishonest to suggest so

These were chemical weapons found in Iraq, the reason the new york times was interested in the story was the fact that ISIS has somehow developed chemical weapons using Iraq's existing infrastructure.

This means there were active facilities, materials and know how even after the war

We have Joe Kent on mic saying Iran was not building nukes and posed no threat to the US.

The only people saying Iran was just about to get nukes are the Israelis, who've been saying that every 5 years for the last 40 years, and the only people who fell for it are magatards

I don't understand how people fall for this shit after the Iraq war scam, which was essentially the exact same propaganda

Well, maybe you have a plausible explanation for why Iran needed 60%-grade enriched uranium -- now that we've firmly established that it clearly was not for building nukes.

Do you have a plausible explanation why Saddam had anthrax ? Oh wait he didn't? Hmmm it really makes you think

Are you talking about the stuff he used to gas 100,000 Iranians in about 1984, or the stuff he used to gas 100,000 of his own citizens in 1988? Oh wait he didn't, it's all propaganda and war scam I guess.

I don't know but I can certainly blame them for oppressing and murdering their own citizens.

There are lots of countries doing just the same but the West does not give a flying fuck about it. Most of the human rights violations they care about somehow related to countries that happened to have oil.

And if you tell me that US /Israel are bombing Iran to protect rights of oppressed then I have that wonderful bridge.

But that has nothing to do with this war. Like, nothing at all. Israel doing genocode in gaza and what seems like ethnical cleansing of lebanon does not have anyyhing with that either. USA threatening Greenland is also not a factor in this war.

Donald Trump does not care about protesters in Iran. His idea of regime change is "keep the regime and change head for someone who will pay me personally".

And Hegseth does not care either. He is proving his manhood.

And Israel have completely different goals, so.

It is not like Saudi were democrats. They have cut that journalist into pieces. They are violent dictatorship on their own right.

Everyone does, the problem is that every time the US came to deliver democracy to the Middle East they left the place in a much worse shape than it was... Also I don't believe for a second Trump or Israel give a single fuck about Iranian citizens

That’s the thing that annoys me the most about that post-hoc rationale - we’re supposed to pretend that Donald Trump cares at all about Muslim protesters on the other side of the world?

> Maybe don't murder the religious leader that made the rulings.

Are you saying that politicians should be immune if they also serve a religious role?

I am saying it is bad to murder people. Period.

Don't start wars. Don't assassinate neither political nor religious leaders.

This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example).

More importantly, it's pretty clear that the geopolitical rulings are, well, geopolitical in nature. Iran is a nuclear threshold state; its strategy is to come as close to the breakout line as it can and extract concessions for not crossing it. The supposed nuclear fatwa is just public relations strategy. At the point Iran decided the cost/benefit/risk/reward of crossing the threshold made sense, it would be updated.

Your in-depth knowledge of completely random things never ceases to amaze me.

I'm Catholic and Twelver Shiism is the closest thing Islam has to Catholicism. It's a really neat system.

> But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?)

Wikipedia has romanized: [singular] marji'; plural marāji'.

Maraaji' is the pluralized version in Arabic, but nothing wrong with saying marjas. Marji would be most wrong though.

I agree with you, mostly. My read is that Twelver Shi’ism is not a unified hierarchy, and a marja’s fatwa normally binds that marja’s own followers rather than all Shi’a, so your institutional point is broadly right.[1][2] It is too strong, though, to say the anti-nuclear position was simply “invented for PR”: Khamenei did publicly describe it as a real fatwa.[3] At the same time, Iran’s enrichment posture _does_ fit the description of a threshold state, with large stocks of uranium enriched to 60%, so it is fair to say the ruling also had strategic and diplomatic value.[4]

The parts I would soften are the specific claim about Sistani having a significant following inside the IRGC, which MIGHT be true but is much harder to substantiate publicly (although, maybe you have some behind-the-scenes knowledge?), and the certainty of motive. Still, your last sentence is basically right: these rulings are not _immutable_. After Ali Khamenei’s death, Iran’s foreign minister said (quoting the Reuters article), “fatwas depend on the Islamic jurist issuing them,” and added he was “not yet in a position to judge the jurisprudential or political views of Mojtaba Khamenei…” This reinforces the point that doctrine can shift if the leadership chooses.[5]

[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Twelver Shi’ah.”

[2] Al-Islam.org, “Question 49: Difference between hukm and fatwa.” [3] Leader.ir, “Ayatollah Khamenei in the Eid al-Fitr congregational prayers” and “Leader’s remarks on anti-Iran sanctions and Yemen aggressions by Saudi Arabia.”

[4] Arms Control Association, “The Status of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” and ACA analysis citing the IAEA’s 440.9 kg figure.

[5] Reuters, “Iran says nuclear doctrine unlikely to change, Hormuz Strait needs new protocol” (March 18, 2026).

Excellent point. Maybe it's the goal of this attack to demonstrate this capability.

> the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out.

Can you elaborate on what kind of strikes the Ayatollah was carrying out within the old range limit?

The IRGC directly was mostly targeting US troops in Iraq (eg the 2020 Al Asad ballistic missile attack) and frequently responded to ‘Imperial Aggression’ with missile attacks on Israel - which peaked at 2,000km... They’d also been surprisingly consistent with limiting their proxies to SRBMs so that you wouldn’t get a random Hamas or Hezbolah missile into Central Europe.

Im really hoping they enforced those limits by not sending them IRBMs rather than sending them and ‘not letting’ them use the full range because I’m getting the sense their proxies would rather land some flashy strikes on soft targets instead of having everything swatted down over Israel.

I'd add that it's also a free opportunity to test IRBM targeting at much longer ranges.

The war of choice is really the US's Teutoburg Forest moment.

Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km. Certainly, I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that there was no such limitation (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia).

Now this may be a demonstration and veiled threat, on the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened, so...

You didn't have to take their word for it. It was self-evident from the fact they never did anything like this before, and now they are.

Notably, the previous guy issued a religious decree against the development of nuclear weapons. Despite American's favorite propaganda tool for manufacturing consent, "but the WMDs", we have no reason to believe that was ever actually being violated. But you'd better believe it will be now if they think they can pull it off.

There is a difference between not doing something and being unable to do something. Clearly there were able but only showed it now and their previous claim was BS (again, assuming those missiles did fly "far").

No-one believes that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, either... or that they wouldn't if they had developed the capability.

Ayatollah Khomeini admitted that he had lied about plans to make Iran democratic.

This practice is known as taqqiya. It’s ok to lie if you’re deceiving the enemy.

Did he also released a religious decree stating as much?

Because otherwise you're comparing apples to mushrooms. Not even themselves kingdom.

Do the missiles Iran has been raining down on other countries for decades not count as WMDs?

No. There’s a definition from the UN here if you’re interested:

https://unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/view/UNHQ/9626F6CEB2A92C9B8...

No.

“ A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people”

https://www.dhs.gov/topics/weapons-mass-destruction.

As many like to say, quantity has a quality of its own.

Orwellian semantic games…Iran didn’t have a WMD, so now we will modify the definition of WMD.

AFAICT, not by any commonly accepted definition of WMD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Def...

Oh, that would be quite a spin. We can probably see it in the Faux News soon.

> On the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened

Iran have been attacking uninvolved NATO member Turkey for a while now and nothing happens. The USA is already fully engaged into this war while Europe can hardly deal together with Russia, it is doubtful they'd do anything even if it rained down on their territory

Attacking as in a couple of rockets heading US bases which were intercepted. Of course nothing would happen, why would Turkey (or other European countries) join this pointless war?

This is an attack on Turkish territory regardless if there's a US base, and Iranian missiles usually miss the bases anyway.

Turkey is led by a strongman leader and these are very sensitive to acts of public humiliation. So that's unwise when thinking about any negligible strategic advantage they may gain from these attacks

Iran is Turkey's neighbor and had relatively good relations for very long time, even with the strongman it doesn't make a shred of sense to change this. Especially for USA which has a tendency to back stab Turkey in any occasion (They could not get away from the time when Turkey did not allow them to invade Iraq from north, the previous BS war)

Hence my point that Iran's "strategy" is very questionable

It should be noted that Iran has publicly stated that the attacks on Turkey were false-flag attacks launched by Israel.

It should be noted that Iran has claimed to have sunk the USS Lincoln and to have captured several US soldiers, among other creative interpretations of reality

To take the claims at face value, local governments that has an interest to shift blame on Israel, do not believe Iran, due to their own radar data

It should be noted that, contrary to your, erm, creative interpretation of reality, that Iran has claimed to have struck the USS Lincoln, not sank it.

And where is the radar data that proves missiles were launched towards Diego Garcia, let alone from Iran? Iran BTW say this wasn't them - and as they say in advance where they'll strike, I'm more inclined to believe them than the deranged Trump, Netanyahu et al.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.A2JQ2G3

I was mistaken, sinking it was a claim by IRGC influence networks, not official statement. However official Iranian statements have claimed to have hit the USS Lincoln with 4 ballistic missiles, which is also an amazing lie considering these missiles accuracy and the state of the Lincoln.

Other nonsense claims apart from the "captured" US soldiers by Iranian officials is the claim of 100 dead US troops (https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603051892)

My point still stands, the Iranian regime has a different standard of truth than most people. Its lies are wild and non-subtle, I wouldn't put a lot of faith on any of those.

Regarding radar data, these is the evidence countries have when approaching such a situation. You can safely assume that a country like Qatar or Turkey for example that finance Hamas, have no vested interest to believe Israel over Iran. The problem is even they have some limit to being spit on and calling it rain

What incentive would Iran have to lie? Their entire security model revolves around believable deterrence—apparently far more believable than either Israel or the US understood.

Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.

I wrote "flatten", not "invade".

flatten with what?

Like what is happening now, completely decimating their army, navy, and air force. If that isn't enough, destroy their only source of revenue (oil fields), or go even further and destroy their electrical grid and send the country back to the stone age.

Finally, if the regime does not surrender after all this, a nuke could still be used.

> destroy their only source of revenue (oil fields)

That’s the worlds source or revenue.

You don't use nuke on the regime, you use it on the civilians, FFS.

Genocidal freaks. As if Hiroshima didn't teach you anything.

Lmao, from "we're here to bring democracy" to "let's destroy their civilian infrastructure" to "let's nuke them" real quick

If that's the US way, why are Russians the bad guy again?

Think about what you're saying. That causes hundreds of thousands of deaths of innocent civilians. Suffering of millions. Weren't you supposed to help the Iranian people? This is the opposite.

We all know he doesn't care about civilians he just want Muslims to be killed in masses and that's it, and Israel/US are carrying his dream and 50% of Americans dream to annihilate the faith of people who don't like.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia but only slightly less well-known is never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Inconceivable!

Idk, I don’t think Europe has the capacity to do anything except launch their nukes. If missiles started falling on London they’d run to the UN and start writing letters. It would take months for NATO to start having planning meetings to figure out how to plan the response. I feel like the only military capability is maybe the SAS and nukes. There’s nothing in between.

That's ridiculous, but Europe has no reason to intervene in this craze. If attacked, things would change. Europe has participated in previous wars like Irak or Afghanistan, why wouldn't we be able to act now?

> it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction..

Wait a minute... Are you implying the dude who just got his dad, wife, brother, son and many other relatives killed by their arch enemies is not bending the knee?

Who could have predicted that?

That guy is dead or dying. He’s not in control of anything. There’s been no audio or video of him since the opening strike.

Whoever is in charge doesn't matter, I can guarantee you they're not in a more favorable mood than 4 weeks ago. They also killed one of only rational diplomatic Iranian officials, during active negociations, if you want to make it clear negociating with the US is useless that's exactly what you'd do

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