Iranians, broadly speaking, may not shed tears over the head of intelligence, the Supreme Leader, or their ilk, but that does not mean they suddenly like the U.S.A., Israel, or the Shah, in case externally forced regime change is on the table.
Regime change in iran would be absolutely catastrophic and im not sure what the point of taking out Khamenei would be if that isn’t the end goal.
I find it pretty surprising Netanyahu would share that idea with trump, or listen to whatever trump might say in response.
Netanyahu said on an interview (I think with Fox, but I saw it on i24) that he didn’t ask Trump about that because it wasn’t part of his plan; Trump didn’t say anything about not doing it; Israel will do what ever needs to be done; and Trump considers American interests.
I think the implication was pretty clear: he denied the rumors and hinted that Israel made the decision not to target the Supreme Leader for its own reasons, and that if it changes its mind it will not need Trump’s permission to act accordingly.
I would certainly prefer that Netanyahu’s version be the truthful one.
Catastrophic for whom?
Given a choice between war with Iran or instigating an Iranian civil war, I think they’d choose the latter.
Ideally, the Iranian opposition takes out the Iranian leadership and takes credit for it. IOW, Israel really rattled Iran’s cage, but the Iranian factions launched their own civil war fair & square.
Israel will still be accused of complicity by the usual spoilers, but the more far-fetched that seems to cooler observers, the better for everyone. Even the poor long-suffering Iranians.
What’ll get ugly is if Iran starts descending into failed state chaos a la Syria or Libya and now all of Iran’s neighbors are considering territorial expansion “to quell the chaos next door.”
That could get real exciting. Lebanon is bad enough. Imagine an Iran-sized Lebanon, complete w a couple of foreign-backed Hezbollah-like entities. 16x the people on 150x the land area. Lotta room for mischief.
Backed by who? I mean this honestly. Iran would be, by definition, spent by then. Russia is a consumer of ME munitions at this point, not a supplier. China, maybe?
Plenty of Iraqi troublemakers would love to open a fresh front in Iran. The Saudis & the Gulf states have their own interests in keeping Iran broken, but not too broken.
Meantime the Americans, Russians, and Chinese will each be vying to rebuild (read “own”) the oil production infrastructure.
Of course in addition to state-on-state geo-politics we have the never ending Sunni-Shia schism. Lotta Sunnis want to gut the Shia stronghold once and for all.
Okay, I can see this, but the US is an isolationist country for the next 3 years, Russia is no longer a world power (other than nukes which they are NOT going to give to Iran), and China has interests, but could soon be facing its own challenges although they’re the most likely. I discount any Middle Eastern state since they buy all their serious munitions from the US, Russia, or China. They have lots of money, but no domestic capacity. Trump or China might be willing to sell, but it is not in either country’s best interest to have a major disruption in oil supply.
I don’t think that’s accurate. I think the only reason for the Sunni-Shia divide in the first place is the international politics. Persia and Babylon have been going at it since before the dawn of recorded history; Sunni vs. Shia is just the latest justification for it.
…with American money, weapons, and, somehow, unquestioned loyalty to Israeli interests over our own.
There is no one else in the Middle East whose interests align with the US as much as Israel’s does. Not even really close.
In what way?
With our government’s geopolitical priorities.
Nevermind
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Israel does not have the resources to tame all of Iran and whatever fallout spills into other countries by itself. Any notion that it does is a fantasy. Take it from an American who was alive in the 2000s: overthrowing the regime and neutralizing their military’s fighting capacity in a conventional war is the easy part.
Israel struck Iran to ensure that we would come in and do the bunker-busting work and commit more of our resources to ending Iran’s nuke program and its current regime. Israel did this as we were in negotiations with Iran, which does wonders for US credibility going forward, but it’s not like this administration had much to begin with, so I guess that’s not all on Israel.
It was a relatively calm night so far, but there’s just been launches from Iran that are on their way now.
Looks like a really big barrage.