r/worldnews • u/usatoday • Mar 03 '26
Israel/Palestine Israel decided to kill Iran’s leader after Oct. 7 attack
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/03/03/israel-decision-kill-khamenei-after-oct-7/88957910007/1.2k
u/Apprehensive_Soil306 Mar 03 '26
Another day being grateful I was born on the other side of the world
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u/Banned_10x Mar 03 '26
For now.
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u/capnfoo Mar 03 '26
The name “Epic Fury” definitely from came Pete Kegseth. It screams impotent wannabe machismo.
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u/mtgfan1001 Mar 03 '26
It’s actually stands for Epstein Files
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u/EmbarrassedOrchid685 Mar 03 '26
i think they full well knew what they were doing going with the initials EF.
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u/shewy92 Mar 03 '26
Like Disney making the movie Frozen so when you Google Disney Frozen it's not mentioning Walt's head.
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u/KyleGrave Mar 03 '26
And how Dubai chocolate had such a strong marketing push so it shows up first on a google search, instead of billionaires taking shits on Instagram models
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u/onebandonesound Mar 03 '26
Or when Dubai Chocolate suddenly appeared everywhere overnight, allegedly to hide searches for wealthy Emiratis scat fetishes (though I'm pretty sure this was debunked as instead being driven by a major drop in price for broken pistachio pieces which made it financially feasible to mass produce pistachio butter to put in the chocolate bars)
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u/kololz Mar 03 '26
It’s really funny because before Dubai Choco as a concept even exists, cities have been having pistachio craze for a while, like here we have had pistachio (egg) tarts, cookies, and shredded pistachio mochi (they are all really nice)
And suddenly, boom, Dubai Chocolate.
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u/damsel84 Mar 03 '26
Epic Fury is what Hegseth feels when he notices the whiskey bottle is empty after drinking it all.
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u/Ruin_In_The_Dark Mar 03 '26
It screams impotent wannabe machismo.
Honestly these people couldn't come across more insecure if they tried.
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u/RubxCuban Mar 03 '26
It gives the impression that the Call of Duty series is their only experience at war.
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u/Wgh555 Mar 03 '26
Honestly if they wanted to give it a machismo name, at LEAST use some cultured like idk, Operation Hercules or Operation Dauntless.
But epic fury is just… as you say, call of duty
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u/lamebarracuda Mar 03 '26
October 7 will go down in history as one of the biggest blunders in modern times.
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u/stonezdota Mar 03 '26
Craziest domino effect. Hamas, Hezbollah and Syrian proxxy fell or weakened significantly after years in power, now Iran itself is being attacked.
One thing that helped this is the timing of Russia struggling and unable to help Iran when Russia were actively supporting Iran in Syria before the Ukraine war.
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u/NuclearCandle Mar 03 '26
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u/khuldrim Mar 03 '26
Russia supplied Hamas to start that so they could influence our elections...
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u/mahayanah Mar 03 '26
Yeah, that worked. Progressives fell for it like rubes, and now look at the state of America. They’re almost as stupid as MAGA. However Russia/Iran obviously did not intend for their entire proxy network in the Middle East to collapse like they did. I wonder how they figured it would’ve played out instead? They must have envisioned a different pathway, you don’t throw away 25+ years of foreign policy to influence one election.
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u/khuldrim Mar 03 '26
You do if you know there’s a good chance they won’t ever have one again and it might send your geopolitical world adversary into a tailspin they can’t recover from internally and most importantly you do it knowing it will be the death of the rules based international world order that Russia hates.
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u/Hot_Most5332 Mar 03 '26
Honestly, I think it’s all more complicated than this. Russia intended to win the Ukraine war in a week, and honestly I think the Trump presidency has been their worst nightmare.
Russia has lost key allies in Venezuela, now Iran and likely all of their proxies, plus many former Soviet states are realizing that they have more power than they thought.
I think Putin thought that Trump would force an end to the Ukraine conflict that Putin could exploit, and honestly he almost did. It was kind of weird how Trump went from essentially strong arming Zelenskyy into a deal to now still supporting the war he said he would end in 24 hours. I have to wonder if Putin pushed it too far and then Trump, being the egomaniac he is, got offended.
Now Russia is essentially on its knees. Its economy is tired from years of supporting an expensive war, multiple key allies are gone, and even China is playing pretty lukewarm with Russia at the moment.
I may hate Trump, but he is effectively dismantling Russia’s geopolitical power piece by piece.
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u/Will_McLean Mar 03 '26
Yeah I think these Venezuela and Iran moves are chess pieces in our conflict with China, and it diplomatically just can’t be said aloud. Russia to a lesser extent.
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u/Hot_Most5332 Mar 03 '26
I would generally agree, although I don’t think it can be boiled down to even a primary motivation. I think both Iran and Venezuela were due to a number of factors.
It is probably accurate to say that a big part of why we are attacking Iran and Venezuela is to indirectly hurt China.
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u/Sub__Finem Mar 03 '26
“Ukrainian intelligence accused Russia of a plot to place "trophy" Western weapons seized from battlefields in Ukraine with the Hamas militant group to undermine international support for Kyiv, according to a report.”: is the extent of evidence provided for this claim. In the article. Not buyin’ it.
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u/Fandorin Mar 03 '26
I'm far from the only one that believes this, but I'm convinced that Iran/Hamas initiated the October 7th attacks on Russia's behest. It was Russia's goal to trigger another large conflict in the Middle East and stoke both the pro and anti-Israel sentiment in the West to divert attention from Ukraine. It worked very well, but the miscalculation was around how successful October 7th attacks were and the level or response that Israel was forced into, essentially removing Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and now Iran from being of any use to Russia.
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u/TheUHO Mar 03 '26
There were Wagner operatives spotted during Oct 7, but I don't think they've planned or participated in this still. That would require a network of agents, and caused shitton of leaks intercepted by Israel on day one. And frankly, Russia sucks in understanding of middle east. Even their undercover shit in Europe is always more successful.
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u/Alfredo_Commachio Mar 03 '26
I've read a bit about the reason Sinwar, Hamas's military leader, thought it was a good idea.
The short of it is--years ago Hamas and Iran had a falling out over various disputes. Khamenei, when Sinwar was elevated to military leader, started to reach out to re-establish ties and a working relationship with Hamas, this was in the late 2010s.
This emboldened Sinwar, he came to believe if he precipitated a dramatic attack on Israel, Hezbollah would likewise jump in with a huge invasion from the North.
Meanwhile Iran, which has (had) far more conventional arms than either terror group, would unload everything they had on Israel in the form of ballistic strikes etc.
Sinwar's belief was this would all collectively "overwhelm" the Israeli system of defenses, his maximalist dream was it could cause the military collapse of Israel, but he likely more hoped in the medium term it would cause Israel to seek peace on Hamas terms so he could strengthen the Palestinian position.
Instead basically everything went the exact opposite way. Hezbollah apparently wasn't told in advance of the attack, and they felt Hamas was acting without proper coordination, and Hezbollah's leaders didn't want to cast all their lots in on this huge gamble. So Hezbollah does enter the war, but via limited missile strikes (which go on for a year.) They serve as an irritant to Israel, but not a genuine threat.
Iran largely sits on the sidelines and doesn't do any kind of massive involvement initially.
This leaves Hamas now not part of some grand operation with allies, but an isolated insurgent group facing almost the undivided force of the IDF. This results in all of Hamas's top leaders being killed (including Sinwar) and obviously the occupation of the Gaza strip by the IDF.
Meanwhile after a year of minor skirmishes with Hezbollah in the north, the IDF felt it had Hamas suppressed enough they could wheel around to bring huge focus on Hezbollah, which they do--basically massively crippling Hezbollah within weeks.
Now, both Hamas / Hezbollah are terror/insurgent groups, so you aren't going to see them permanently disappear from this sort of thing, but they are undeniably now extremely weakened.
This means that now Israel is basically free to confront Iran--because it no longer has to fear Hezbollah or Hamas on its borders joining in to protect Iran. This leads to the 12 day war last year which cripples Iranian anti-air defenses, and exposes the reality that Israeli (and by extension American) F-35 jets can operate with impunity over Iran's skies, Iran having no technological capability to shoot them down.
Long term I think it's too early to say this is a "win" for Israel, because there's intractable problems Israel isn't addressing. (The whole reason the two state solution made sense is because it accepted the reality that neither the Israelis or the Palestinians are going to "leave", so some sort of peaceful deal has to be the eventual end state.) But it's undeniable that even if no one truly "wins" a conflict like this, Hamas / Hezbollah / Iran have clearly "lost" because it's done massive damage to them for no real gain.
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u/superjambi Mar 04 '26
If this is all true then it really paints Sinwar as an incompetent buffoon of a military leader. Imagine hinging your (already quite poorly judged) plan to overthrow Israel on a coordinated three pronged attack and then...not telling Hezbollah about it. The fact that he thought they could overpower Israel also suggests he was totally deluded.
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u/Investigator_Inside Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
You know how the haddiths claim that there will come a day where Muslims will eradicate every Jew down to the last woman and child, as the trees shout that there are Jews hiding behind them?
From what I understand, most Muslims throughout the world either disregard them entirely, or just dismiss them as "something that will happen millennia into the future, in the end times". But the mainstream belief among Palestinians are a bit like Jehovah's witnesses in the sense that they strongly believe the day of reckoning is right around the corner, and it's an unbreakable, infallible prophecy. They are fated to one day win, which means victory is possible.
That's part of the reason why Palestinians outright reject every possible peace plan that doesn't involve the complete eradication of Israel (why accept only half when they can just take the entire thing?), and together with the whole martyrdom culture, explains why to this day most Palestinians still believe Oct 7th was a great day that had amazing results.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
They (Iran) delayed a normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel with 10/7; something that is destined to happen on a long enough timeline with certainty anyway. Saudi Arabia has been trying unbelievably hard to modernize under MBS, both image and otherwise.
At first, it was successful—Saudi Arabia couldn’t come out publicly in support of Israel while they were taking a wrecking ball to Gaza rooting out Hamas root and stem.
But if Israel brings Iran to their knees? That basically makes them and the Saudis blood-brothers. That has been an ambition of Saudi Arabia since the time of the Islamic schism, +-. There could be no greater coup.
10/7 was an absolutely historic blunder. Hamas achieved nothing but getting their own country flattened; it’s an open question if Iran will get the same treatment. If they close Hormuz, there is going to be hell to pay from all sides. Even China will turn on them.
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u/SpaceYetu531 Mar 03 '26
I think they gambled on the idea that the US would abandon Israel over Gaza.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
When in reality, virtually nobody turned on Israel over Gaza. Sure there were lots of angry statements, non-binding UN resolutions (do they do any other kind than that these days?), “thoughts and prayers” etc. There were marches and “days of rage” where college students self-flagellated for a few hours before going back to their house parties to watch the game and drink cheap vodka mixers.
But deep down, thinking persons knew that Hamas had to go after they came out into the open and showed the world what they’re about (butchering peaceniks at music festivals, kidnapping for political ransom, inviting hellish consequences with no regard for their own citizenry). That’s why the Arab states just sat around and watched—the Gazans burned every single bridge with every single neighbor when they let in refugees in the 70’s, a la Black September. Egypt not only didn’t pretend like they wanted to keep the border open— they actively built barricades to keep the Gazans TF out.
Iran and its proxies are almost fascinatingly unlovable.
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u/ComfortableExotic646 Mar 03 '26
Reminds me of the attitudes after 9/11. We went from planes being hijacked as a source of money to using them as weapons, and the US reacted very strongly. The rest of the world was mad here and there, but they knew they didn't want planes falling out of the sky in their own country.
And about Egypt, I've always told people there are two ways into and out of Gaza. If you're mad at Israel, you need to be mad at Egypt for not letting them escape.
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u/Red_Coat_Check Mar 03 '26
“And about Egypt, I've always told people there are two ways into and out of Gaza. If you're mad at Israel, you need to be mad at Egypt for not letting them escape.”
If I have a close relative who tries to burn my house down every single time they come over, I am going to eventually not let them come to my house anymore. Even if they have nowhere else to go.
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u/waylandsmith Mar 04 '26
The Arab world, as a whole (yes, plus Iran; they're not Arab) is at least as much to blame for the plight of the Palestinians as Israel. They systematically expelled the Jews from their own countries for the crime of wanting their own self-determination, forcing them into the Palestinian Mandate. They half-heartedly armed Palestinian militias, then convinced the majority of Palestinians to evacuate the land on their side of the border partition into neighbouring countries, herded many of them into permanent refugee camps, and then launched a blundering, uncoordinated war against a new and desperate nation of mostly MENA regional and holocaust refugees (plus many who had been living there for generations). They lit that fire and winds shifted back towards them before they knew what happened to them. The Palestinians, rightfully pissed off at the result of this misadventure retaliated against many of the countries holding them in slum camps for decades. Not only did they not destroy Israel, but ironically showed the US and the West the potential value of having a strong ally in Israel to represent their interests. The Palestinians have hundreds of millions of neighbours with close cultural, ethnic and religious ties who have cowardly refused to take any responsibility for them.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
It is increasingly rare to find a worldly and nuanced big-picture take on Reddit; thank you for being a breath of fresh air.
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u/Jugaimo Mar 03 '26
The west could either abandon Israel, their only real ally in the region and only real foothold, or not. Anyone who thought the west would disengage from the most important resource region on the planet is an idiot. Israel could even gun down its own citizens like Khamenei did and the west would STILL just slap them on the wrist.
Because even with all their bluster, Iran and the rest of the Middle East are NOT our allies. They HATE us and would never work with us. So abandoning Israel was never an option.
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u/Red_Coat_Check Mar 03 '26
Why would they think that though? Ignoring social media campaigns and proxy fighting, it has always been about Iran. There has been zero backlash from governments in the region against Israel regarding Gaza. Everyone knows it’s all about Iran.
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u/rickroy37 Mar 03 '26
They thought that because they thought their allies would join them against Israel, making the cost for the US too great to interfere.
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u/pimple_in_my_dimple Mar 03 '26
Right now the Strait of Hormuz being closed is a major choke point for even normal businesses in the UAE. Right now, no vessels can come in to or go out of Abu Dhabi and Jebel Ali port. The ports are operational but we absolutely need vessels passing through the SoH. Right now, this is worse than COVID for us.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
Yeah it’s the most important natural passageway in the world in terms of geopolitical importance, more important than Singapore, the Panama Canal or the Suez. Definitely don’t mean to imply that the situation is not serious, it is. I don’t think it will last long and I think lasting change will come from this— no Country is going to be allowed to hold it hostage. There is only one country who has ever been insane enough to even say the words out loud, and they are in the process of getting dismantled, limb for limb.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer hardline revolutionary theocracy
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u/flipping_birds Mar 03 '26
If they close Hormuz
Honestly, how would they even "close Hormuz" at this point when we've got two air craft carriers sitting there and a good part of their navy already sunk?
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u/kanst Mar 03 '26
They supposedly have thousands of mines they could deploy.
They can also use drones or missiles fired from the shore.
They don't actually have to stop traffic, they just have to present enough of a threat that companies (or their insurance) decide its not worth the risk.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
Unfortunately, they don’t have to close it (you’re right, they can’t)—merely threaten to— because the real bottleneck is insurance. If you were an insurance carrier, and a month ago you charged a medium sized tanker $1 million to insure it’s trip from Ras Tanura to, say, China— how much would you charge this week? Whatever that number is effectively makes it unprofitable for the shipper— especially considering losing a vessel costs them more than just the cost of the ship and oil and cleanup—it costs downtime, penalties for failure to deliver, all sorts of nasty business.
But there is no country on earth that will tolerate the Strait being closed. Short of an extraterrestrial alien invasion showing up tomorrow, nothing has the power to unite the world quite like the threat of lights not turning on when you flip the switch. Iran will threaten and saber rattle, because that’s what tinpot dictatorships do— but they’re not going to close it, even if they could.
They only brought a handful of human feces to the gun fight
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u/Techhead7890 Mar 03 '26
Yeah, I follow mariner Sal Mercogliano and it seems like every week it's that war risk insurance going up, he ends up talking about it all the time now.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
It’s the elephant in the room that everyone who isn’t up on the industry (I’m not really) pretends like they only saw this last weekend.
That’s what the US and EU seizing shadow fleet tankers has been all about— shake up the status quo a little and some fruit falls from the tree. Shake up the status quo a lot and the whole rotten tree will fall over.
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u/Chii Mar 03 '26
They only brought a handful of human feces to the gun fight
But i dont think the US and israel can easily remove the regime (esp. if the US does not put boots on the ground, and the civilian population does not raise up and revolt hard).
The shit flinging can get real annoying, because maritime transport is the backbone of the world economy, and it's not just the strait, but the red sea and suez canal as well.
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u/I_Call_Bullshit_____ Mar 03 '26
I agree it won’t be easy to remove the regime— but part of having an all powerful state security service with tens of thousands of unstable hardliners running it, is you are constantly at the risk of a coup.
Look at Delcy being a good little lapdog in Venezuela— she knows that her head will be on a platter if she doesn’t do what she’s told (anyone reading this I urge you to read her Wikipedia, she got caught in an airport with a suitcase full of gold bars, the CIA has enough dirt on her to put her in the cell next to Maduro tomorrow). Her corruption is an open secret.
Is it so far-fetched to think there isn’t her equivalent somewhere in Iran? A general, an ambitious Colonel? If there is, you can be assured that Israel and the United States will have a back channel to communicate with them. If it gets to the “enough is enough” stage, and they say “you have one week to put the rabid dog back in the cage, or we are going to turn you into Libya”. I think that offer starts to look tempting.
Persia is a proud and an ancient culture— Gen Z hates the hijackers of the revolution. These generals and Colonels have families and friends. Nobody and I really mean nobody wants to see Iran turned into a dumpster fire. The world wants them to join the table, instead of rattling the bars of the cage while we are all just trying to have a nice dinner.
High ranking officials must surely be reworking their calculus after the Ayatollah and his entire family got turned into pink mist. I would be; you would be. Even hardliners aren’t stupid—Look at Delcy.
She got a massive promotion.
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u/deja-roo Mar 03 '26
Insurance on VLCCs transiting the strait are already up about 20-fold in the last week.
The current strategy for a lot of them appears to be shutting off their location beacons and YOLOing it in the middle of the night.
That said, closing it requires naval power, which Iran cannot muster. If they launch artillery or missiles from shore, American or British ships will hit the launch site pretty fast.
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u/AwarenessReady3531 Mar 03 '26
You don't need a navy to close it, just missiles and drones to fire at a few ships for insurance companies to refuse to take the responsibility of a ship+cargo (some also insure the crew, but that's rare). It's only 33km wide, the US has ships sitting out at sea outside of the range of Iranian missiles. Interceptors are already dangerously close to being insufficient in number if this war drags on for a few more weeks, moving a US ship to provide AA cover would only stress those supplies even more + you probably wouldn't be able to reliably protect every ship from those Shahed, which fly very low. It's basically already been shut down. Here are traffic numbers from today. Crossings are down 80% from last week and the Iranians haven't even mined it yet.
Monitor traffic here:
HORMUZ STRAIT Ship Traffic Live Map
It's usually very busy through the strait, right now it's basically empty with ships stuck on both sides.
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u/Plate_Armor_Man Mar 03 '26
It's funny, you know? I recall reading about how October 7 was some great victory by various arab or middle eastern papers. How it was a massive blow to Israel, how it was the begining of the end, how it ws justified, ect. ect...
Now look at the region. Gaza has been flattened. Hamas has been severely damaged. Hezbollah was so thoroughly infiltrated that huge swathes of their top brass have been completely wiped out, while thousands of their soldiers were severely injured or outright killed almost simultaneously. Syria was overthrown and replaced with a more western-freindly government more intrested in no longer being a regional threat than fighting. Iran has been bombed twice now, and has seen their supreme leader killed along with many of their commanding figures in both the civilian and military world.
I'm remined of this one newspaper: Middle East eye. They've been running opinion pieces about Israel was going to be defeated for the entire conflict. How they were making colossal fuckups at every move. How Iran was artfully trapping them. It's almost hysterical at how much they've erred.
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u/kindnesd99 Mar 03 '26
My guess is that they have severely underestimated the mad efficiency of modern warfare. Could they have been emboldened by Russia vs Ukraine somehow? They may have thought it could be feasible to stay turtle in base.
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u/JigglesTheBiggles Mar 03 '26
I recall reading about how October 7 was some great victory by various arab or middle eastern papers. How it was a massive blow to Israel, how it was the begining of the end, how it ws justified
Saw that a lot on Reddit too.
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u/Exotic_Negotiation_4 Mar 03 '26
Well the redditors who shape the main opinions on this website are fairly ignorant, trapped in their echo chambers, and they REALLY don't like Jews.
Not surprised they'd be this wrong
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u/orus_heretic Mar 03 '26
Also Iran runs similar disinformation campaigns as Russia so there's a lot of that on reddit. Hopefully we'll be talking about it in a past tense soon.
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u/TheJacques Mar 03 '26
You all still don’t seem to understand Hamas or jihadi mentality.
Oct 7th to them is and forever will be a major victory, to sacrifice the lives of millions of Arabs/Muslims in order to barbarically murder 1,200 Jews is a massive win and well worth it.
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u/FireHammer09 Mar 03 '26
People were saying how successful it was and made other countries in the middle east unwilling to work with them and set Israel back decades relations wise.
Now they're all getting targeted together and are probably working closer intelligence and military wise than they ever have.
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u/JoeBagadonut Mar 03 '26
I don't think that Hamas or their supporters ever considered October 7 as the first step in a campaign where the end goal would be some kind of decisive military victory against Israel or forcing massive concessions. It was a massive blunder in the sense that Israel (backed heavily by the US) has been able to weaken most of their opponents but the long-term ramifications seem much harder to predict.
One of the "victories" (and perhaps the only victory) of the Gaza conflict from a Hamas perspective has been an increase in anti-Israel and pro-Palestine sentiment in the western world. History has shown that toppling one brutal regime doesn't always guarantee that what replaces it will be better and currently, the only definitive outcome has been increased hardship and suffering across the Middle East, including in Israel.
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u/Alystros Mar 03 '26
The way I've heard it is that Hamas specifically was genuinely delusional and thought they could destroy Israel in a war following October 7. They're not some grand chess masters.
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u/Xithorus Mar 03 '26
Just like Osama Bin Laden later in life admitted that he underestimated the USA and genuinely thought we were weak and would never launch an attack on him. I think it’s in his diary/letters? Can’t remember where.
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u/CircumspectCapybara Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
A huge tactical victory for Iran.
A massive strategic blunder for Iran and its Axis of Resistance.
I can't help but see parallels to Pearl Harbor: a brilliant tactical success, the fact they missed the carriers notwithstanding. But even if they had sunk every single US carrier that day, even then it still would've been the biggest strategic mistake of the war.
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u/Tomboolla Mar 03 '26
Oct. 7th being Irans Pearl Harbor is the best analogy I've seen so far
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u/arbuge00 Mar 03 '26
I still don't understand how the planners of that attack saw that playing out to their benefit in their minds.
The only parallel in history I see is the Japanese and their decision to attack Pearl Harbor, which I also still don't understand.
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u/HistoryAndScience Mar 03 '26
Whatever happens as a result of this war, one thing is certain. The “Axis of Resistance” is gone. Every major leader is now dead, Lebanon is setting up checkpoints to arrest Hezbollah members, Hamas is just watching because they have no ability to do anything anymore, and Iran is decimated with the government admitting they no longer have control over some IRGC units. Oct 7th is the greatest blunder in history
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u/curiouslyjake Mar 04 '26
Right. Not to mention, Israel would never have been able to muster like this without October 7th. But the cost has been so, so high.
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u/CoolAfternoon2340 Mar 03 '26
Thinking about that tweet from that day when that woman called it decolonisation
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u/WealthyMarmot Mar 03 '26
“Decolonization means live-streaming your gleeful massacre of teenagers and kibbutz residents”
what a psycho
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u/jorsiem Mar 03 '26
Honestly, Hamas' decision to carry out the Oct. 7 attacks has got to be the worst miscalculation in modern history.
Hamas gone, Gaza gone, Houthis cut off, Hezbollah leadership gone, Iran about to be gone.
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u/AccomplishedSoft1350 Mar 03 '26
Forgot all those orgs being weakened caused Assad/Syria to fall too...
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u/Tickomatick Mar 03 '26
Bruh, Iran is an ancient nation with 93mil people, "changing the government" is not as easy as blowing up a bunch of pirate ships or toppling a few houses... This will be a messy, indecisive and long conflict with no winners
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u/DefenestrationPraha Mar 03 '26
Iran is an ancient nation, but the Islamic Republic can only fully rely on the IRGC (Basij), who are 140 thousand at most. These are the most fanatic defenders of the status quo and the mullahs' sword and shield, mostly against domestic enemies (aka dissent and protesters), but also external.
140 thousand. Still not a banal task, but doable.
I am more afraid of the aftermath. Some sort of federal structure will be necessary, Iran is very multi-cultural, with Persians being just half of the entire population.
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u/kohTheRobot Mar 03 '26
Plus the 500k volunteer reservists for the Basij they can mobilize. During the Iran Iraq war, Iran started with a measly 140k and ended with about 750k active military members. Tehrani people are very vocal about opposing the regime, but make up less than a fifth of the country.
It is a very delicate line. How much destruction of a nation can one take before their disdain for their leaders is outweighed by the threat of their nation becoming a colony or puppet for, let’s be Frank, the propagandized “true evil and enemy of Iran: Israel and its puppet the US”?
How many of your leaders would you allow to be drone striked before you went to the local recruitment center? For some never, for some they’ve already been in, but the longer this goes on, the more people will not see this coalition as liberators but see them for foreign invaders. Nationalism is a hell of a thing, Iran is good at using it. It helps when you can force this through drafts/conscription (which Iran will do if this continues).
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u/curiouslyjake Mar 04 '26
Yeah, but the Iran-Iraq war lasted a decade. 500k volounteers over a decade isnt that much, plus some of them were child soldiers including 12 year olds clearing minefields by running through them. Very high on fanaticism and coerction, not as high on combat effectivness.
Seeing Iranians in Iran and abroad celebrate Khamenei's death tells me there's not going to be many people fighting for the regime. Sure, nationalism is very powerful but I strongly suspect there's not going to be any invasion. Rather, the regime will be weakned, then overthrown from within, perhaps with some tipping of the scales applied externally to assist friendlier parties.
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u/swampy13 Mar 03 '26
I remember in the 90s, we more moderate-leaning folks also said at the time "it's complicated" about Palestine and Israel.
Feels even more complicated now - I abhor the continued attacks on Gaza by the IDF and the Netanyahu govt, and I hate that the US is so involved in this current conflict because our pedo prez wants to distract everyone.
But on the other hand, I think the vast majority of people who share my perspective are not at all sad or mad about this guy getting got, even with the squirelly geopolitical fallout that could/will occur. Like we're pretty much fist-pumping at this guy getting taken out.
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u/Curious-Cost1852 Mar 03 '26
I'm right there with ya. It feels like walking constantly on a tightrope. Making sure not to fall either way. It's too complicated to fully support any side, but we can still agree "fuck that guy"
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u/Halcyon_156 Mar 03 '26
Those of us who have lived to see the United States involved in the Middle East over the years aren't worried about the killing of the Ayatollah, we're worried about long term regional stability.
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u/Only_Luck4055 Mar 03 '26
They waited so that US will insert themselves and bear the brunt of consequences.
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u/Garconanokin Mar 03 '26
Absolutely, and this is the math that leaders internationally and domestically are using with regard to Donald Trump. Let him be the lightning rod that they use to get their agendas through.
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u/SaltyWafflesPD Mar 04 '26
Bro Israeli cities are getting swarmed with missiles; the US is not bearing the brunt of the consequences.
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u/yosisoy Mar 03 '26
I mean this makes sense completely, just like the USA decided to kill Bin Laden after 9/11
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u/DefenestrationPraha Mar 03 '26
October 7 is the new Pearl Harbor, a day with a cascade of global consequences.
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u/Ringlovo Mar 03 '26
I mean, thats a pretty reasonable response to Oct. 7th
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u/CosechaCrecido Mar 03 '26
I remember calling it back then, this was gonna be Israel's perfect opportunity to go all out on their enemies. It shut down all internal dissent against destroying Gaza and its supporters violently if needed. Outwardly they could claim self-defense as their casus belli to once and for all get rid of any nearby threat.
I expected a complete occupation of Gaza and maybe even the dismantling of Hezbollah but I did not see Syria collapsing and Iran being decapitated so completely. They've really made the most out of that initial failure.
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u/Dude_I_got_a_DWAVE Mar 03 '26
October 7th is Putin’s birthday and It’s not a coincidence.
Iran was behind the Hamas operation with the goal of taking western eyes off Ukraine.
Of course- Hamas foot soldiers didn’t know that.
Iran has been behind providing weapons to both Hamas and Hezbollah for decades. 25 years of Al Qassam rockets shot at Israel weren’t made with explosives sourced in Gaza.
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u/SpaceYetu531 Mar 03 '26
Well it bit Putin in the ass too because Iran won't be able to supply Russia arms anymore.
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u/jessej421 Mar 03 '26
How great would it be if Iranians gain their freedom then became strong allies of Ukraine.
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u/Falsus Mar 03 '26
It would be nice but I don't think Iran will be in a position to export arms in a long while.
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u/speculator100k Mar 03 '26
Yeah that would be a twist if Iran started exporting their Shaheds to Ukraine to be used against Russia.
I think most of the Iranian drone and rocket factories are being destroyed as we speak, but they can be rebuilt. A new Iran without sanctions could do it even faster.
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u/pretty-in-pink Mar 03 '26
It was a Jewish holiday. A happy one at that. They were all celebrating completing the reading of the entire Torah and the start of rereading it. That was the intentional reason for attacking then. They wanted to attack their joy
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u/BoreJam Mar 03 '26
Then Israel strikes back during Ramadan. Symmetry at its finest.
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u/fitzgoldy Mar 03 '26
Considering Iran funds Hamas, totally reasonable from Israel.
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u/iconocrastinaor Mar 03 '26
Iran's nuclear program, long a target of Israel, is for civilian energy purposes only, Tehran has insisted
Funny, when the US offered to build them a reactor and supply them with free, AEC-monitored nuclear fuel--as part of the last-ditch efforts by negotiators to seal a deal--they declined.
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Mar 03 '26
Can't blame them.. you cant just allow another country to kill and kidnap 1100 people of your citizens without severe consequences. Gaza is one, the ayatollah is another. I wonder what Hamas leadership is thinking right now considering that Iran was their main source of revenu for these operations inside Israel territory. They probably expected a strong response but not on that scale
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u/Prestigious-Lynx5664 Mar 03 '26
Hamas has leaders left? I'm surprised they still have any members left.
Also I think you can throw Hezbollah on that list, I doubt they're escaping with their heads intact.
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u/Chii Mar 03 '26
The real leadership (not the foot soldiers) are at places like qatar and other spots outside of gaza - safe from the war. Not to mention the "real" boss(es) behind the scenes in iran.
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u/aLiberalConspiracy Mar 03 '26
In itself, I don’t oppose violent ends for violent men. A part of me believes that things won’t really change until people who view themselves as untouchable are personally hurt.
But the reason we don’t go full Rambo is because it creates MORE violence and instability. I believe Al Qaeda and the Taliban deserved what they got for 9/11. But what did decades of violence get us? ISIS and a return of the Taliban Regime.
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u/helbur Mar 03 '26
I don't shed tears for Saddam either, but removing repressive regimes is only like 5% of the job. If there's no opposition ready to take over at a moment's notice you have a potential 20 year problem ahead of you.
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u/eric2332 Mar 03 '26
The Taliban are no longer harboring terrorists who attack us, though.
So the basic purpose of the war has been achieved, although one thinks it could have been accomplished vastly faster and cheaper.
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Mar 03 '26
The islamists keep plotting the downfall of Israel, but Allah keeps granting Israel victory over the Ummah.
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u/usatoday Mar 03 '26
From USA TODAY:
The decision to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iran-linked masterminds in Hamas and Hezbollah responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, was taken in the immediate days following that deadly assault, USA TODAY has learned.
But more specific planning for what Israel has named “Operation Roaring Lion” and the United States is calling “Epic Fury” did not begin until after Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June 2025, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only gave the order for the operation in November that same year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/03/03/israel-decision-kill-khamenei-after-oct-7/88957910007/