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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

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I'm pretty sure that the reputational harms of using nuclear weapons on a country of 70M is going to be pretty severe. Surely you understand how starting a war with a country without sufficient cause and then using nuclear weapons on them might result in significant and very long lasting consequences?

Because all the american assets in countries around iran will be "glassed" too, like american bases are already. And then special forces deep in US will start "glassing" US infrastructure, power, water, logistics, etc. (It's not terrorism if you're in war, it's just special units behind enemy lines). Looking at eg. texas, it doesn't take a lot to bring the whole power grid down, especially if properly planned. If you bomb water supply facilities in eg. new york, how many people will you have to evacuate? How hard would it be for those special forces to start forest fires in california? Or poison food supply for the army? Or just bomb a random school in retaliation for the one you guys bombed in iran?

> Why is attacking one's enemies suddenly controversial?

Flying half the planet away to attack someone who in no way endangers you is controversial... it took a few years of vietnam war for americans to figure it out and a few decades to forget it all again and now you're repeating it against a stronger adversary. It's no wonder most of the world hates americans.

edit: looking at his comment history, commenter above me seems to be from israel, not US, but same applies to them too, with the exception of having to ask trump (and the brits and others) for help when iran fights back.

> Because all the american assets in countries around iran will be "glassed" too, like american bases are already. And then special forces deep in US will start "glassing" US infrastructure, power, water, logistics, etc.

I would like to hijack your comment to point out a small detail. I was attacked in other threads for asking why glassing Iran is not an option. Either this comment supports my assertion that the term glassing does not clearly refer to nuclear weapons, or this comment makes it clear that Iran is a nuclear threat to the United States. Either way, thank you.

  > Or just bomb a random school in retaliation for the one you guys bombed in iran?

Yes, Iran likely has assets in the US who would attack US civilian targets. There is a big difference between deliberately attacking civilians and accepting that some civilians may be unintentional casualties.

  > Flying half the planet away to attack someone who in no way endangers you is controversial...

You could either argue that Iranian assets in the US could attack American civilians, or you could argue that Iran does not endanger the US. But not both.

I'll remind you that Iran's whole problem with Israel is due to Israel being allied with the US - not the other way around. They call you The Big Satan and chant for your death regularly, while developing long range missiles, nuclear weapons, and arming proxy armies that the regularly engage in armed conflict with the US and other Western assets. By no reasonable measure are they "not a threat" to the US.

Luxembourg has assets in US that could endanger the US, but Luxembourg as a country is not endangering US. But if US attacked Luxembourg, all those people seeing their family being killed by the US might behave differently.

> I'll remind you that Iran's whole problem with Israel is due to Israel being allied with the US - not the other way around. They call you The Big Satan and chant for your death regularly, while developing long range missiles, nuclear weapons, and arming proxy armies that the regularly engage in armed conflict with the US and other Western assets. By no reasonable measure are they "not a threat" to the US.

Yes, what used to be my country (yugoslavia), did the same during the first half of the 1940s, including what the germans called terrorist attacks, attacks on infrastructure, "death to fascism" chants, mining roads, etc. Once the germans were pushed back to germany and taught a lesson, and when the bad guys in charge dealth with, we stopped.

And yes, looking at all the attacks against Iran, of course they need a nuke, they wouldn't be attacked now if they had one, they'd be safe. Since they don't have one, they've been attacked one way or another for the last 70+ years. That's what US and israel are afraid of, they want to attack iran again and not get nuked.

  > Once the germans were pushed back to germany and taught a lesson, and when the bad guys in charge dealth with, we stopped.

Yes, that's the problem with Israel. While we are under attack, the world is silent. But as soon as we gain the upper hand in any conflict, the world bodies start pressure for a ceasefire. We are never allowed to "push back and teach a lesson" as you put it. The middle east conflict could have been over in the 1970s and the Palestinians could already have a state.

  > And yes, looking at all the attacks against Iran, of course they need a nuke, they wouldn't be attacked now if they had one, they'd be safe. Since they don't have one, they've been attacked one way or another for the last 70+ years. That's what US and israel are afraid of, they want to attack iran again and not get nuked.

Lots of countries are attacked, both those with nukes (Israel is heavily suspected of having nukes) and those without. The difference with Iran is that they regularly call for the destruction of several other peoples, and they also arm and fund regular terrorist attacks. I personally have lost friends and coworkers in Iranian-sponsored terrorism. And I personally have been injured in an Iranian missile attack. This is not some theory and news for us. For my family it is reality.

> Then why is "glass the entire country" not an option?

It is an option, but civilians bear most of the cost of it. That being said, I do think more could have been done militarily. The U.S. should have continued combat operations for at least a few more weeks and taken what is left of ballistic missiles, drones and arms facilities, etc. Striking dual-use infrastructure such as bridges and railroads is also fair game.

The US kept hitting civilian targets and blasting about it, so they already did that.

When Arab hit civilian targets, it's terrorism, when the US does, it's freedom. I personally fail to understand the difference, but I'm an europoor

The difference is that Arab doctrine is to deliberately target civilians, whereas Western doctrine attack military targets but accept that there may be unintended civilian casualties along the way.

Schools, hospitals, desalination plants, museums and churches, those well know dual use infrastructure. So sad they were unlucky civilians there.

It is extremely sad that the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for Palestine Liberation, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committee, the Mujahideen Brigades, the Huthis, and Hezbollah see fit to use these structures to launch attacks against Israel. I highly suggest taking your complaints to them.

Attacking civilians has always been "controversial". As a civilian myself, I would be pretty worried if this changed.

I never advocated attacking civilians. If you are suggesting that the Iranian military uses civilian human shields, then maybe you should reconsider which side you support.

If you will remember from a few months ago, many of our actions was apparrently to cause a revolution from within. That didn't happen.

We can't just change our strategy to "nvrmd: kill 'em all" and think we'll have any allies after this. Iran would once again not just attack us, but practically every country near it, causing even more causalities and infrastructure damage.

And this doesn't get into the problem that this would eventually require a land invasion, which would be impossible. We couldn't even get an actual war ship close to Iran.

There is a "Sunk Cost Fallacy" that someone in our Administration should listen to. Times up with this complete disaster.

  > There is a "Sunk Cost Fallacy"

There is also the future cost of demonstrating that the US will not carry out on her threats. That is a higher cost than actually finishing the job - the whole purpose of the US having a huge navy is to project power. If the navy is deliberately powerless, than all the money put into that navy was wasted.

I can't but agree. Either the Gerald Ford was not in shape for a conflict, or it was taken out. Our navy kept a good distance from the conflict and it seems pretty obvious why: these ships are expensive and the drones that could come in en-mass are cheap. Iran never showed the medium range ballistic missiles that were one of the given excuses to start a war.

I would point the finger at the head of the DOD, who does not seem to be qualified for the job. After his massive gathering of the top brass and the messaging shared therein, I'm seeing a dissonance of action promised and action shown. Piss Poor Planning.

I am under the opinion that this war should never have started, just to be clear. This is a mis-use of all our military resources, and insulting to our service men and women.

It would triggering an apocalyptic conflagration deter a bunch of religious fanatics that are actively trying to bring about a prophesied apocalyptic conflagration?

I feel like they made a movie with Matthew Broderick explaining why this policy was bad...

It's attacking civilians that's controversial.

I never advocated attacking civilians. If you are suggesting that the Iranian military uses civilian human shields, then maybe you should reconsider which side you support.

> why is "glass the entire country" not an option?

> I never advocated attacking civilians.

I did not realize that "glass the entire country" means to use nuclear weapons. Maybe I don't watch enough movies. I'm all for attacking Iranian military assets across Iran, but obviously not the civilians if that can be avoided.

I'm not sure how anyone can take that assertion in good faith. It's like saying that you want to bomb a country back to the stone age and then saying that you didn't realize that it meant attacking civilian infrastructure.

> I did not realize that "glass the entire country" means to use nuclear weapons.

what the...? where did you think the term comes from? o.0

Donald, is that you?

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