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Comment by drivebyhooting | Hacker News Reader

The civilian price will be terrible. But this could be one way: Destroy all power plants and desalination plants. Rations will be given out by “peace keepers” on the condition that IRGC members surrender and are taken prisoner. Missiles and drones can be exchanged for rations as well.

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Assuming that USA would succeed to do such a destruction, their "peace keepers" would never have enough rations to feed so many people as they are in Iran.

The only way for USA to succeed would be to attempt to kill most of the Iranians, which would only make even more clear that USA are not the "good guys" and they have lost long ago the moral authority to demand anything from others in international relationships.

This. The damage to the agricultural supply chain is already done. Fuel & fertilizer isn't staged where it needs to be for planting, which means the entire capacity to generate harvest is now offset & going to be prohibitively expensive, resulting in domestic food insecurity, which will make offering rations (read weaponized famine), politically untenable. As far as I'm concerned, the man just added war criminal to his list of accomplishments. Smfh.

Hitting desalination plant will mostly (and almost only) hurt the population outside of IRGC power circle, exactly the population the USA incited to rebel for a few years, with pakistani help. Basically South Alborz. Iran did have a water crisis, but it was agricultural water that made them have to import more food, not an issue of drinking water. The only way to truly start a global Iranian famine (what a terrible weapon tbh, i can't help but to think less of people who think about using it, it's impossible for me to stay neutral,it is an inhumane stance, and i would be ashamed of having it) is to block Iran northern trading routes to Russia/Kazakhstan/Azerbaijan, which, to be clear, is impossible.

re: Blocking the trading routes

Couldn’t you significantly degrade transportation via air campaign?

The problem, I think, is that these radical governments will refuse to abdicate even in the face of complete destruction. Look at what happened to Gaza.

Maybe, but you would have to hit them from Turkey, it is the limit of the f35 range from anywhere else. And bombing ships with b52 is expensive and dumb.

> The problem, I think, is that these radical governments will refuse to abdicate even in the face of complete destruction

Last time a government did this for a few years, we did get the 'keep calm and carry on' posters, so...

https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/kheft0...

Ah yes the true and tried strategy of civilian bombing, worked so well for: the nazis bombing campaign against the UK.

Same goes with Russia against Ukraine.

It worked in Japan.

Could work in cooling the belligerence of Israel too, especially if we can manage to decommission all their nukes in the strike. Don't look at me, you're the one who brought up nuking.

With precision guided munition and air superiority there is no need for indiscriminate nuclear bombs.

But Japan does go to show that: 1. Leadership change is not voluntary, even when faced with obvious military dominance.

2. requires horrific destruction

3. Can be good for the long term of the country.

Let’s not forget IRGC has a long list of atrocities and oppression to their name. Yes… yes… you might say the same of USA, but it is categorically different.

It isn't different. Much of Iran's conflicts can at least be seen as reactive. The USA and Israel love invading countries unprovoked and on naked lies. Their kill count in illegal and immoral wars far exceeds anyone else. If we want to go that route, just don't, because by that token the entirety of South America must nuke the USA several hundred times.

Israel in any case isn't much better. Random Mileikowskis and Androvich's claiming ancient levantine connections and killing and stealing land over this nonsense.

Iran depends on desalination for around 3% of its drinking water, and has said that any such attacks on its infrastructure will see the same to any country that has support the USA/Israel military actions.

USA allies in the region will be largely uninhabitable, since they depend on power and desalination for their existence.

Still, maybe that is what Trump, the crazy bastard, wants.

Yeah, the amount of magical thinking about this conflict in the USA is disturbing. Iran is dry, but it's not just desert. The military will have backup generators and priority access to any generator infrastructure or repair capability. The ones that will suffer are the civilians, and the fanatics will just see that as martyrdom.

You can't defeat religious fanatics that welcome pain just by inflicting pain, especially by inflicting it mainly on other people.

Martyrdom is more like they are prepared to die for the cause, as long as they are remembered for their sacrifice, which is not fundamentally differen US or the religious fanatics that are Israeli troops

They don't welcome pain any more than Buddha did when he sacrificed himself so the tigress could feed and raise her cubs.

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