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Comment by pazimzadeh | Hacker News Reader

trump did literally everything backwards. he should have started with the blockade and increased the pressure over time, with decapitation strikes at the end if needed. also..help arm the people of iran before doing anything else. that would have made iran look like the aggressor when they eventually bombed their region.

instead the islamic republic's "strategic patience" fully paid off and now most rational people sees them as victims.

what trump's doing is like trying to cure multi-drug resistant bacterial infection with whatever random antibiotics are on hand - the very thing that created resistance.

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If we are on the topic of what he should have done, I think the first on that list is not go to war with Iran at all.

sure, I'm just talking pure strategy e.g. if you were going to war with iran, what's would be the ideal play?

If the goal is to overthrow the regime by force, you need boots on the ground. The basic approach might be something like the Iraq war but bigger, and with an actual plan for the aftermath. And it might end up being the biggest (or at least the most intense) war the US has fought since WW2.

Air strikes are effective at killing people and destroying property, but their impact on the situation on the ground is limited. Even if you manage to destroy the regime, there needs to be an alternative with sufficient legitimacy and institutional support to replace it. But authoritarian regimes are pretty good at keeping the opposition weak and fragmented, making such alternatives unlikely to emerge. So you either need occupying forces to provide the institutional support, or the likely outcome is a civil war.

> If the goal is to overthrow the regime by force, you need boots on the ground.

You have the Artesh in Iran, their standard military which is bigger than the IRGC and aren't under Islamist rule and they are loyal more to the democratically elected government than the Islamist one.

> But authoritarian regimes are pretty good at keeping the opposition weak and fragmented, making such alternatives unlikely to emerge.

They never destroyed the Artesh, that army has been the same since before the 1979 revolution, so your analysis is wrong for Iran since they do have those power structures in place. If you destroy IRGC the rest of Iran would run just fine. They have elections, they have a democratically elected government of reformists who want to move away from Islamist rule, those elected politicians however don't have the power to do that currently but if you shift the power enough it could happen.

Destroying the regime is much easier than destroying the IRGC. The former requires killing enough key people and destroying enough key infrastructure to make the regime unable to govern and take initiative. The latter requires killing most of the people with the weapons and ideological commitment to continue fighting. If you do the latter, the country will not be in a state where it can hold democratic elections.

The Gaza war is a good example. Israel quickly reduced Hamas to a mostly reactive resistance force. But it was unable to destroy Hamas as a relevant force.

As for the standard military, authoritarian regimes are also keenly aware of the threat posed by the military. That's why they have large internal security forces, such as the IRGC. Common practices to mitigate the threat include promoting harmless unambitious people to leadership positions and trying to keep the ranks free of people with strong ideological commitments. While the standard military outnumbers the internal security forces, it tends to consist of people willing to serve the regime and choose the status quo over a civil war.

> Destroying the regime is much easier than destroying the IRGC.

IRGC is an oil money empire, they aren't ideological warriors they are mercenaries that fight for money, remove the oil and the empire crumbles. Its like removing ad revenue from Google, it would destroy the company and what is left would be a small husk of its former self.

So blocking the oil will massively weaken IRGC and keep Artesh the same, since Artesh is made up of people who actually want to fight for the country.

Sure they have some nice statements about ideology and saving the world etc on top, but the main driver is the money.

Ideological commitment and personal beliefs are orthogonal, much in the same way as religion and personal faith are orthogonal. IRGC members are ideologically committed, because they have chosen to serve the regime. They are committed, because if the regime ever fails, things will be bad to them personally.

Authoritarian regimes also understand that they need to keep their core supporters happy. If oil money dries up, everyone else will suffer before the IRGC. See North Korea for an example.

> If oil money dries up, everyone else will suffer before the IRGC. See North Korea for an example.

90% of IRGC funding comes directly from their own oil empire, without oil they barely have any funding. They can't make the other parts suffer before themselves here since they get it directly from owning the oil exports, it doesn't go via the government.

If they start trying to take money from the military then they would start the civil war themselves, they can't do that.

90% of revenue, not funding. Most of it is revenue from the businesses they run, and most of that goes to ordinary business expenses.

In any case, it's just an arrangement that has worked for the IRGC so far. If it stops working, the regime can make other arrangements. Such as extracting more money from the 90% of the population that are not particularly relevant to the continued existence of the regime.

Assuming the goal is 'Advance American interests'... Not tearing up the nuclear deal. Instead, soft and hard power should have been used to leverage compliance with it.

Instead, of course, he tore it up in exchange for... Nothing.

Well, not nothing, Israel likes to have an excuse to bomb Iran whenever Bibi needs an excuse to stay out of prison.

That option came off the table when the IRGC went through killing thousands of their own civilians and turned off the Internet.

And how exactly is that the responsibility of the United States? And why just in Iran? There are so many other conflicts in the world. Sorry, but this argument has never made sense.

No, it didn't. USA is not the world police. Trump literally ran on this, "USA first" and all that.

Yes, the Iranian government brutally murdered thousand of civilians in January.

Are Iranians safe now?

The US put the Shah in power which directly resulted in torture and killing of Iranians, and led to the Islamic Revolution.

The US removed Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrors specifically so that Saddam could bomb Iran, including with chemical weapons.

You sound like you’ve never heard the major arguments against your position.

Yes, US sponsored chemical weapons attacks on Iran claimed 30 to 50 thousand Iranian lives that is still grieved like an open would today. To say nothing of downed civillian passenger jet by the Americans and the coup to oust Mossadegh.

Notably, Iran did not retaliate in kind to the US sponsored Iraqi attack with chemical weapons, now considered weapons of mass destruction. This might be related to the notion that WMDs are un-Islamic, which got formalized as Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons.

Iran also has a doomsday clock ticking down saying Israel will get destroyed by 2040, only reasonable way that can happen is a nuclear weapon. If they really didn't want a nuclear weapon they wouldn't be so against bans on them enriching uranium.

Edit: Since some people don't seem to believe me:

> The clock was programmed to count down from 8,411 days, corresponding to a 2015 statement by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who predicted that "Israel won't exist in 25 years".[1][2][3] He claimed in his statement that there will be nothing left of the Jewish state by 2040.

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

Oh no, not a clock!

But seriously, why do you think a nuclear bomb is required for Israel not to exist in 25 years?

Haven't Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Soviet Union all ceased to exist in the last 50 years?

Trump’s reason for going to war with Iran had nothing to do with Iranian civilians lives or internet access privileges. The optimists say it was because of Iran’s nuclear weapons, slight optimists say it was over oil, cynics say it was a distraction from his role in the Epstein files. Literally no one thinks he actually had Iranian civilian best interests in mind.

> it was a distraction from his role in the Epstein files

I would love to know who chose the name "Epic Fury" (other than some kid in a COD lobby). Epic Fury. E.F. Epstein Files.

There is another option - he was completely played by Netanyahu, possibly using some of those points.

The NYT article on it is interesting (and possibly paywalled). https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa...

It was very obvious from the beginning that this was the case, and now more and more information is coming out to support that this happened.

The USA is not responsible for Iranians' safety.

That's weird, I thought we were there to bring democracy to the people of Iran?

Well, that was the reason last Tuesday, or was it the Friday before that? I forget, since there's been so many.

The primary reason was always to eliminate the threat of Iran, if democracy could come out of it and so on that's secondary reasons.

What changed last month?

This situation is in large part due to bad decisions by American leaders, with this one being an absolute stand out.

The thread isn’t eliminated and America looks weaker.

> The thread isn’t eliminated and America looks weaker.

The threat is eliminated, Iran will not be a threat again after this. If USA pulls out Israel will finish the job for sure since Iran isn't in a position to stop Israel bombing their powerplants, and without power they can't do anything.

So the question now is what state we can get after the threat is eliminated, not if the elimination was successful.

> The threat is eliminated, Iran will not be a threat again after this.

I guess we will see. They have worked out how to control the straits quite effectively and made the US look very foolish. It’s weakened a load of US relationships and damaged a load of economies.

For a regime that’s eliminated, it’s sure proving hard to wrap things up, and the oil is not flowing.

It’s going to be interesting to see what any peace settlement looks like as the longer it goes on the worse it hurts everyone. Will Iran be the first to cave?

Is this what America winning looks like?

The USA doesn't have the power to eliminate the Iranian regime that the Israeli far-right doesn't like. Most of its military assets are deeply entrenched in the mountains.

Israel, on the other hand, has been manipulating the US president into entering an unwinable war, bombs its neighbors, including UN blue helmets soldiers, and now invades Lebanon and Syria. Its officials have publicly stated to agree with the "great Israel" plan.

Why aren't the USA considering that Israel is a threat and bombing it as a result (since it's the only available tool, apparently?).

Quite the contrary, the “genius” decapitation strike sold by Netanyahu only led to the coming of a new leadership with much more hardline views. While there was no threat to the US to start with, the current regime is much more entrenched, and its military still seems quite potent.

Iran is not a threat for the USA.

That option was completely on the table.

By that rationale, should America bomb China? Russia?

there is no rationale to pure nonsense

If this has been a simple humanitarian mission, then why hasn't the US got involved in other recent situations?

and we give a hoot exactly why? america first, yes? why aren’t we in sudan, a lot more dire situation. give us a break with this nonsense

It takes two too tango, so Iran would stop its proxxy warring on the us if the us stopped responding? How did that work out under biden and obama?

> It takes two too tango

Wot? Will this apply if goes after Greenland too like he has threatened?

Of course, Denmark is doing the fandango by not simply handing over the territory.

Same as the Ukrainian had the audacity to act as a sovereign nation and seek membership of alliances that benefited themselves.

Let me be more precise. One is enough to start a war and iran is a imperial local power that is constantly attacking its surrounding region with proxxies. The idea that only the mighty and resourceful can start wars is ridiculous. germany was an underdog in a jonny come lately situation compared to the french and British empire and started two wars. Same is happening here. Asymetric agressor can still be an agressor.

You are aware who started this war?

Iran by shooting on ships in the red sea and on israel wih hezbullah?

> also..help arm the people of iran before doing anything else

What exactly would that be supposed to achieve? American belief that guns to random people solve everything is beyond absurd.

I used to think that, but tell it to Shinzo Abe.

Basiji are just regular kids with guns. It would make a huge difference.

More important than guns though is probably the ability to coordinate (satellite connectivity, p2p networking, etc..)

They are not regular kids with guns. They are full on organized paramilitary force.

There's a spectrum. A whole lot of them are kids with guns.

Its incredible how a living US president, in the 21 century, managed to transform the US into nothing more than a second rate regional power.

I know the inventory size of US military forces...spare me that argument. A superpower is defined by what it can make happen, not what it owns. Russia owns nukes and can't take Kyiv. The US owns eleven carrier groups and needs Pakistan to pass notes to Tehran. Inventory is not power. Outcomes are.

You’re just making the mirror image error of the current American regime. It’s not that the US could bomb Iran into submission if only it were more powerful; the strategy is flawed, it cannot work even in principle, because the IRGC prefers being bombed to sacrificing their nuclear capability and regional proxies.

exactly this... this has been strategic disaster from US perspective. a blockade plus covert ops could have split IRGC leadership - instead public decapitation caused rally round the flag effect and gave immediate legitimacy to khamenei heir. completely idiotic

But Trump literally did those things in that order :

- Ripped up the JCPOA in 2016, freezing Iranian assets while imposing maximum-pressure sanctions; not even lifting them during Covid, blocking medicines and essential supplies which causing untold number of avoidable deaths. Biden also kept most of these sanctions in place during his term.

- Initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" in December of last year ( which immediately followed Netanyahu's sixth visit to the White House and in which Netanyahu secured Trump's go-ahead). The US Treasury secretary boasted : "We created a dollar shortage in the country. The Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded”

- On cue, the CIA , Mossad coordinated and armed the "peaceful protestors" with Mossad openly tweeting in farsi : "Go out together into the streets. The time has come... We are with you in the field." Also Mike Pompeo : "Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.". As the USS Gerald Ford was making its way over to the Middle-east from murder and kidnapping operations in the Caribbean, Trump truth-socialled to iranians to "KEEP PROTESTING -TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!" and "HELP IS ON ITS WAY,"

- Trump recently also admitted to Fox New that they sent lots of weapons to Iranians via the Iraqi Kurds : "We sent a lot of guns to the Iranian protesters, we sent guns through the Kurds, I think the Kurds kept them."

All of this was on top of decades-worth of covert operations, assassinations, sabotage operations, and (let's be honest for once) terrorist attacks via various proxies. All garnished with agitprop laundered through the mainstream media, "independent media" , NGOs, think-tanks, human-rights and activists groups. Pretty much anything we hear about Irani s filtered through this states-funded, intelligence-directed machinery.

It is when these combined efforts failed that Trump finally resorted to threatening to destroy their civilization (which regardless of the means employed or who was in charge was always the endgame because that was the only outcome satisfactory to the Israelis)

If i had to guess where they failed, it would be doing all this on the back of the Genocidal war in Gaza and Israel's general invasion of the middle-east, plus the 12-day war and the countless live-streamed war-crimes not to mention the countless failed wars and "interventions" in the middle-east; There has been a mass-awakening about Israel's true nature and ambitions and how it has been the driving force for all these wars and behind the foreign policy of the US and its allies w.r.t. Iran. Also alienating, bullying and betraying your allies whether the Europeans, or the Kurds or anyone else, probably didn't help.

Not only did Trump admit to failing to arm the Kurds (which is because they betrayed the Kurds one too many times, as you mentioned) but I wasn’t talking about arming the Kurds. The Kurds want to carve out a piece of Iran, not regime change in Iran.

The sanctions never worked against the regime, they just brought Iran closer to Russia and China. Russia and Iran have not always been best friends (even recently).

Yes, the US/Israel initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" but they did it at the wrong time, the whole game is knowing when the situation is ripe and they screwed it up.

I would argue that the 2025 12-day war was also a huge mistake, you only get the element of surprise once. The 12-day war and the 2026 operations should have been combined.

They took away from the 2025 strikes that Iran was weak and wouldn’t respond beyond symbolic strikes…and that was wrong.

The whole thing feels rushed and it’s probably because of the midterm elections coming up, Trump thought he could get it done and that the news cycle would move on by November.

I think that’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but it seems to me that if the Iranians actually claimed they were 11 days away from a nuclear bomb during the prewar negotiations, it’s likely that the blockade first would not have been the right leading move.

Plus I believe that if you took the “11 days away” claim off the table I don’t think you accurately say that a blockade without the military campaign first would have been successful. Seems like we are in a “what came first the chicken or the egg” moment.

There is no doubt in my mind that a blockade with an intact Iranian navy would not necessarily look like this one.

> if the Iranians actually claimed they were 11 days away from a nuclear bomb during the prewar negotiations

Do you want to cite a good source for this? I think you're confusing having enough 60% enriched uranium for "11 bombs" with "11 days." If Iran was 11 days away then what was the point of the 12-day war last year? The first step would be not blatantly lying to the public

There's way more evidence that iran wasn't building a nuke than that they were:

Gabbard Says Iran Did Not Rebuild Nuclear Program After 2025 Strikes, Contradicting Trump (March 19, 2026)

From the then U.S. Director of National Intelligence https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nucle...

Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say (March 11 2026)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iran-was-nowhere-...

Like i said, that is what the administration (Witkoff) communicated. You can believe it or not, dispute it all you want, but the only opinion of any importance here is if they (either Iran, the administration, and frankly also Israel) believed it. In that case, it would be a dangerous thing for the US and Israel to ignore. Some would suggest impossible to ignore.

In my opinion if it’s not true and Iran communicated it…that would be a huge miscalculation by Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACqWRsde4Ys

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5751330-witkoff-ira...

The administration stated many times their nuclear stockpiles were already obliterated.

Ok…but that is irrelevant to my point.

How could they be 11 days away when we for sure obliterated it many months ago? It seems pretty central to the overall point.

Are you suggesting there can be no difference between public rhetoric, the truth, and what might be said behind the closed doors of a diplomatic negotiation between adversaries? Especially with Trump?

I'm pointing out you can't trust anything these people say. They were either lying before, they're lying now, or both.

Which, again, has zero to do with my initial post. Again, the point was that we cant assume a blockade without the initial military operation would have been successful. And it’s a moot point anyway because only one of those three parties needed to believe that Iran was that close to having a nuclear device for a military operation to have taken place. Your opinion (or anyone else’s) of the trustworthiness of the Trump administration has zero bearing on whether or not they could or would launch a military operation. They obviously did.

But you're basing your information off of the things people who are known to lie to you are saying. You're building your house of logic on quicksand.

I'm arguing you can't trust what they say about what was said at these meetings, because they've shown they can't be trusted to tell the truth at any time. Bessent says they said that, but you can't trust him. He's a liar. This is the problem when you have an administration that lies all the time even about little things. You can't even begin to actually trust the big things.

I get it, you don't trust them. I am skeptical of the motives of all governments regardless of who sits in power. Frankly, none are truly benevolent or honest as far as I am concerned.

But that is a whole separate topic from speaking to the hypothetical “we should have tried a blockade first”. Whether you believe the justification or not there is a honesty to the timing, immediacy, and level of violence of the action here. When you couple that with some indisputable facts here—we know that for nearly five decades Iran has advocated genocide on Israel and the US as a matter of their state policy. We know that they have repeatedly acted when they could to this end. We know they were seeking nuclear weapons. We know that active diplomacy was going on and then it turned on a dime suddenly to military action.

It seems to me that the level of military violence inflicted on Iran with such a short switch from diplomatic talks was consistent with the belief by someone that they were danger close to having a nuclear weapon. You can be dishonest and corrupt, but still see and act on immediate threats.

So, I will go out of my way to guess none of the mentioned parties believed it. Not Israel, not Iran and not even administration.

Also, per reports, it was looking like they will have a deal and Iran was making concessions. In both cases, they got bombed as they were making them

Witkoff is an untrustworthy idiot, negotiator unable to make deals.

But what evidence do you have that none believed it? Sounds more like a subjective opinion rather than an objective one.

While I am not big on trust either, I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst— especially this close to midterms. This action was not politically helpful to Trump, was risky with his base, yet he did it anyway.

> I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst

It can make a lot of sense when you understand the people involved are deeply incompetent, aggressively overconfident, and are surrounded by religious extremists saying this needs to be done for Jesus to come back.

I mean, after all, we bombed them months ago and nothing happened. We just nabbed another head of state with zero issues. Nothing bad is going to happen, we've got this! We'll just breeze in and crush them in a few days. Which we did, mission success, that's why we're all finished already, right?

> It can make a lot of sense when you understand the people involved are deeply incompetent, aggressively overconfident, and are surrounded by religious extremists saying this needs to be done for Jesus to come back.

It was literally only until the last 5 words that I realized you were not talking about Iran. Funny how you ignore their part in all this.

However, I do want to take issue with the idea of “deeply incompetent”. That doesn't fit. They are either extremely competent at implementing their political agenda, or extremely lucky. Additionally this whole situation is contrary to the Trump administration’s normal playbook. If anything is consistent about Trump is that he panders to his base. This was the exact opposite. Why the change?

Thats the problem with assuming that this is Trump business as usual, its not…which is why I feel that there is a catalyst to go off their normal playbook.

> They are either extremely competent at implementing their political agenda, or extremely lucky

Or extremely corrupt and down to take hundreds of millions (billions?) by foreign puppet masters who help them win elections. Maybe competent at exerting their will over people with less power than them and playing up people's hatreds for influence, but other than that I don't really see competence.

How does Witkoff have so much money again? Oh that's right, he's bought and paid for by Qataris.

Under what credentials was Witkoff selected for his role? Clearly he's someone with a deep history of geopolitics right? Maybe some war tactician? Someone with history studying how non-proliferation treaties work, or really any kind of understanding about how uranium enrichment works? If not any of that does he at least speak the language or understand the cultures of the Iranians? Oh that's right, he's just buddy-buddy with the President through running in the same real-estate circles. Sure seems like the competent choice for leading such negotiations.

Even Trump's selection of who to lead negotiations is an obvious example of the extreme incompetence and flagrant corruption of which this whole thing has been executed.

> If anything is consistent about Trump is that he panders to his base

Just like how he's released the Epstein files as promised or built the wall and had Mexico pay for it right? He does whatever he wants and his base just retcons and goes with it.

If you’re just gonna regurgitate all the same overused critiques that have been said about literally every Trump administration member and their suitability for their jobs since his first term we can just end this here. I prefer serious critical thinking in discussions, not having to read tired talking points that I have seen a thousand times on here and elsewhere.

I’m not a Trump supporter but I am exhausted watching other people who don’t support him provide such lazy arguments.

Imagine having such extreme and blatant in your face corruption taking place and yet people see it as just blasé talking points not worth discussing.

It's useful continuing to point out the extreme corruption taking place right in front of us, especially when the topic is if they're competent or not. You're saying they're clearly competent, and yet the people involved hold zero credentials to do the job they're there for.

What about any of this has shown competence to you?

> such lazy arguments.

It's sad to see so many fellow citizens just not care about the extreme corruption and just excuse it. Wake up.

The arguments only seem lazy because they're obvious truths. There's nothing left to debate, they just are. The only question is, do you care about the extreme corruption leading to this absolute shitshow or do you just continue to excuse it?

Witkoff and Kushner are by far extremely poor choices to choose if you want competent people in there. There are probably thousands of people far more qualified to be there. Why do you think they were chosen, if not corruption and nepotism?

> overused critiques that have been said about literally every Trump administration member

They are and were true about literally every Trump administration member. Trump does not tolerate competent people well, he requires loyalty and puts people through loyalty tests. Trump also prefers corrupt people - they are like him and understand each other. All of that appeals to sizable portion of electorate. They also enjoy watching the cruelty, as a bonus.

Trump is good at bullying. You do not need to be competent negotiator or understand nuclear issues to be rich. Especially in an environment Witkoff and Kushner are from - all you need there is bullying and money. (But also, Trump inherited his money and proceeded to fail his business ventures literally whole his life.).

> But what evidence do you have that none believed it? Sounds more like a subjective opinion rather than an objective one.

Both their subsequent behavior and their other statements.

> I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst

America and Israel wanted that war regardless of outcome of the negotiations. Iranians making concessions was going against actual goals of these two countries. Israel is actively sabotaging ceasefires and trying to enlarge their territory. American administration simply finds wars cool.

Also, by all reports, Witkoff and Kushner dont know much about nuclear. They are, basically, incompetent. They did not understood the things being give up. And before you call that false accusation, Russia complained about them not understanding their position too - and that is despite Witkoff and Kushner being on Russia side. They are able to bully their way to get some stuff they want - that works with some targets (Venezuela) and did not worked here nor in Ukraine.

> especially this close to midterms. This action was not politically helpful to Trump, was risky with his base, yet he did it anyway.

Majority of republicans support this war. And no one else matter to Trump. Hegseth, Trump and company were proud of starting this war. In their minds, it made them feel and look powerful, manly and strong. Republicans also think it makes them strong and manly.

Trump already made Venezuela into vassal dictatorship, threatened Greenland, threatened Canada, plans to attack Cuba is bombing fisherman boats and murdering sailors, builds concentration camps, supports Russian invasion, supported Orban ... it is all perfectly consistent.

Edit: And if you read or listen conservative analysists from defense background, their idea of ceasefire was "oh, well, we will continue bombing every few months". The war and bombing as something normal other countries are just assumed to accept as just a no big deal thing America does is fairly common ideology among them.

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