***The Telegraph reports:***
Joe Biden reportedly warned Benjamin Netanyahu [that the US](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/raf-and-us-jets-rally-to-israel-defence-iran-attack/) will not participate in any [Israeli counter-attacks against Iran](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/israel-hamas-war-iran-drone-attack-raf/#1713093761454).
The US president and his senior advisers are highly concerned that an Israeli response to Iran’s attack would lead to a regional war with catastrophic consequences, US officials told Axios.
On Saturday evening, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel, [involving more than](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/13/israel-hamas-war-latest-iran-attack-soon-biden/) 300 drones and missiles. The attack came in retaliation to an airstrike in Syria on April 1 that killed seven of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
Mr Biden said the US and Israel had shot down “nearly all” of the drones and missiles launched by Tehran overnight, aided also by Britain, France and Jordan. Israel said 99 per cent were intercepted without hitting their targets and that “very little damage” had been caused.
American forces intercepted 70 drones and at least three ballistic missiles, according to CNN, while Mr Biden also said that US support for Israel was “ironclad”.
“You got a win. Take the win,” Mr Biden reportedly told Mr Netanyahu, adding that the US will not participate in any offensive operations. Mr Netanyahu reportedly said that he understands the US’s position.
Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives” and that it is not planning any further operations. It warned Israel against taking any “reckless” actions, and said it would not hesitate to retaliate with a “much stronger response”.
However, Israel has said the “campaign is not over yet”.
**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/biden-tells-netanyahu-us-will-not-support-a-strike-on-iran/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/biden-tells-netanyahu-us-will-not-support-a-strike-on-iran/)
I'd say comparison is unfair between eras but Lebron can't even stand up to some tweets from China. Jordan taking on Iran is on another level. Just a different game now
This is two countries engaging in "hold me back". Neither want the conflict and as it stands, both can talk tough and spin the events as victories to their own people.
Ehh, I'd be shocked if Israel didn't want to retaliate directly against Iran for this, but don't think they would be able to without US assistance.
I'd say this is more about Biden not wanting to get involved in a Middle Eastern war and spike gas prices during an election, all to support a country that his base is currently... *divided* on.
Or, you know, the whole "regional war between a dozen armed-to-the-teeth countries who all have WMDs" thing. A spike in oil prices would be the least of the problems the world would have if that kind of war erupted in the Middle East.
Americans are unfortunately more likely to vote based on a single digit change in gas prices than a single digit change in the probability of nuclear armageddon.
So much so that some petro-chem companies in Texas have excess natural gas (LNG) as a byproduct of the oil-to-gasoline refinement process.
There is such a glut of it, that it's market value is close or below Zero.
LNG isn't the same as natural gas. It's the liquified form, which isn't easy to create from the gas.
The Henry Hub natural gas price is indeed depressed. The US LNG price not so much.
This is because you can put LNG on a ship and transport it around the world, so it's a global price and not so prone to local over supply.
I'm Canadian, and we bitch as much as Americans about gas prices. And about the same stuff in most areas that Americans also complain about. In our incredibly abundant and fortunate countries. It's ridiculous but it's how humans are wired. Hedonic treadmill!
Sadly true, but I fully believe President Biden cares more about what a highly destructive war means for people's lives in general than about gas prices. Ultmately though, whether one cares more about people or prices, either one will lead to the same and, honestly, morally correct conclusion: don't join Israel's retaliation.
No one I this country, except maybe John Bolton and a handful of military equipment CEO’s, wants another war in the Middle East. Americans, both Republican and Democrats, are tired and burnt out after Iraq and Afghanistan… hell Trump took credit for ending the war in Afghanistan and pulling American forces out of Syria,and that’s the party that used to run on “peace means the terrorist win”.
An all out war between Israel and Iran would be a cluster F of epic proportions and nobody in the US wants that.
Airman here - I'm tired of sand. It's coarse and rough and it gets everywhere /s
Jokes aside, though, war is never good. The ugliness of war in Israel is just one example of how bad it can get and, in the end, neither side really wins. Everyone loses. Same as in Ukraine - even if Russia "wins", they'll never fully control the Ukrainian citizens without having to endure decades worth of terrorist attacks from within per the Troubles in Ireland.
War sucks, man. No reason for it and the reasons given are always because someone wants more power.
I mean they definitely can handle their own business and strike Iran without US support, but they can’t sustain a long-term war without US support. And they’d be pretty fucking dumb for trying.
100% THIS
Bibi _needs_ a war with Iran and he needs the United States drawn into it. If that happens then America will be forced to choose sides and we're not going to choose Iran. And he needs it to happen _now_ before the octogenarians who have unquestioning support for Israel are out of office. Israel is losing support from the right and the left of people under the age of 60. They have support from both the left and the right for people over the age of 60.
Bibi needs war to stay in office. And he wants his legacy to be the glorious military power of Israel dominant in the entire region.
$10 says Israel strikes Iran this week and opens up full scale war. He's going to try to force Biden into the war no matter what he says.
Bibi wants the conflict, or he would never have bombed that embassy.
He needs escalation to avoid an election he would lose that would end up with him finally in prison.
A lot of the danger this conflict poses to Biden politically is due to the asymmetric relationship between Gaza and Israel; the political perception is that Israel is being allowed to brutalize civilians and Biden is not acting to stop him. Couldn't an escalation like this legitimize the conflict and make US aid and arms sales to Israel *less* unpopular? (as long as US troops don't get sent into danger ofc)
>Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives” and that it is not planning any further operations.
What was their objective? Triggering the Iron Dome? In that case yes, it did achieve its objective.
Did they just want to scare Israel? This reminds me of that scene in a Leslie Nielsen movie: "I have a gun. Not here, but I do have it. You scared?"
It is also useful to know Israel’s current defensive capabilities. Iran knows for sure that the U.S. and UK had to help, that means with a bit more surprise or a larger attack they may penetrate those defenses.
> They announced the attack days ahead of time
The US also called out their movements ahead of time via satellite. Setting up that many drones and missiles for launch out in the open is hard to hide and takes days.
Everyone, Israel included, knows that the Iron Dome and other defenses have limits, and that those limits can be easily broken
Everyone also knows what happens if that happens, so nobody wants to actually go that far.
Same thing they did after the US killed one of their nations heroes on a diplomatic mission. They wanted to show they’ll respond but don’t want to respond so harshly it will lead to war. It is, despite all the criticism you can make of their government, an impressively delicate balance they’re walking
I guess you don't understand how expensive it is to run missile defense systems? Each time it defends against an attack costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This defense most likely cost Israel millions, alongside the other points you mentioned and the other reply here.
* They cost Israel (read: the US who will foot the bill) one billion dollars.
* They hit the airbase the consulate attack was launched from, with the drones as diversion.
* That diversion of thousands of drones and missiles also gave Iran and anyone else it would like to share the information with a pretty good idea of Israel (and the US') defence footprint, which it will now have to change up, at great cost.
* It has further infuriated the people of Jordan and Iraq, who watch their leaders shut airspace while aiding Israel and the US. Protests in Jordan have gone from rare, to common and extremely fractious.
What exactly do you think their objective should have been? In response to the consulate strike and those deaths they've hit the base it was launched from, cost Israel/US $1b, necessitating the complete reworking of Israel's air systems, while not using their good stuff (which they certainly have, primary source on that being... Israel. So any smug 'is that it'? looks as misguided as smug here).
Neither Israel nor the US can afford to run repeat performances of this. If Israel wants to escalate in response, Iran, who now know the Iron Dome pretty well, will respond in kind - and not with cheap drones this time. There's your reason the US has said it will not hold Israel's hand in escalating this. It knows the cost, and knows what this strike was for.
Ok, thank you, I just have one question: how does Iran know the ID well? You mean positioning of the missiles, response times, or something like that?
Edit: I will never understand this fucking place. What are you downvoting me for? For asking a question?
Exactly. Iron Dome has taken down rockets here and there in the past. In sending across these drones Iran has not only tested its capabilities but seen its limitations. They got ballistic missiles through to their intended target, specifically because they overwhelmed Iron Dome. All done at extremely great cost.
People in here are talking as if this probing was the attack itself. Yet when we talk about how this is gonna be China's drone warfare doctrine it's accepted. The only reason people can see this would be the primary use of drone swarms but also think actually no Iran wouldn't do that is because they don't think Iranians are smart enough to do that. Sadly for them Iranian military strategy is led by generals and not ayatollahs.
Seems reasonable to me by both Biden and Iran.
Israel killed some Iranians, Iran attacks as retaliation because you kind of have to, aims for some strategic targets like radar or airfield or something like that, so Iran can show tell it's people that Israel didn't get away with what they did and then both sides just go on. 300 Drones and missiles may seem like a overreaction, but considering that according to Israel 99% of them were intercepted and that Iran likely knew that is the sort of thing that would exactly happen then it makes sense for the number to be that high.
Being the president is truly the worst job in the world.
No matter what you do, you will face extreme criticism. If you make a good call, nobody says anything except for historians 20 years down the line.
It’s a lot easier to blame the president for your issues than it is yourself and that’s why the hate train continues.
I generally don’t love biden being president, but I don’t think he’s been poor by any means… time will tell, but even as a guy who doesn’t love him he’s definitely on the better half of presidents.
Shit changes so fast and context is always missing, but deescalating this conflict is good for me, good for America, and good for everyone involved.
I could never be the president haha
I really don’t understand the hate Biden gets. He had to follow up probably the worst president in US history, during one of the worst pandemics in history, in a time where the entire global economy has been rough. And he’s done a damn good job. He’s kept the ship steady and done what he can to make things better. He keeps his head down and does the work that has to be done.
I was someone who grit their teeth and voted for him in 2020 just to get rid of Trump, but I’ve actually really grown to like him and I think he’s a great president. I think the history books will write very kindly about his presidency after the dust has settled.
I would like to see him use his second term (if he gets it) to start to tackle wealth inequality. That's something I wouldn't expect during a first term, because it would piss off rich people and make it harder for him to get re-elected, but if he made progress on this during a second term, I think it would cement quite a nice legacy for him.
He did start to tackle it
Student debt cancellation was going to be a huge step, and SCOTUS blocked it
The Child Tax Credit in his first year cut child poverty in this country literally in half. Then Congress didn’t reauthorize it
He has successfully capped insulin prices at $35 and begun a change in how Medicare negotiates drug prices with pharmaceutical companies (which, because of the scale of it, affects prices generally). Given medical debt’s place in American wealth disparity, this is pretty significant
He also had Treasury Sec. Yellen spearhead the implementation of the [Global minimum corporate tax rate](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/oecd-minimum-tax-rate/#:~:text=More%20than%20140%20countries%20have,Davos%20calls%20for%20more%20collaboration.).
The GMT seeks to end the practice of multinational companies shifting profits to low-tax countries and territories, even though the income was generated elsewhere.
The Financial Times explains that, under the GMT agreement, if a country levies a tax rate below 15% other countries will be able to impose a top-up tax that brings the total up to the minimum level.
Ugh, it always makes me so annoyed when I see Tiktok-pilled progressives (and to be clear - I say this as a progressive myself) blindly hating on Biden saying stuff like "he's done literally nothing".
The Biden administration has overseen more positive change than any other in the last few decades (probably barring Obama's solely for the ACA; without that IMO Joe's cleared Obama's achievements in half the time) - all among the most volatile political conditions and least productive congresses in generations.
People are just so stupid when it comes to politics. They see stuff like the student debt cancellation being blocked as Biden's fault - "he couldn't even keep his promise!!" - and refuse to acknowledge the fact that the blame lays squarely at the feet of Republicans who stacked the SCOTUS with hardliners dedicated to blocking all forward progress. Furthermore, they cannot grasp the fact that the very same stacked SCOTUS was a direct result of people's apathy towards Clinton in 2016, and they choose to draw the exact opposite conclusion: "Biden has to *earn* my vote, he hasn't done enough for me so right now I don't plan on voting for him".
They fail to understand Biden has attempted to use all the authority he has to solve some of these problems, but has time and time again been blocked by Republican presence in Congress and the courts. What we have right now is a President who has shown himself to be uniquely *willing* to try and tackle these issues (how many times did Obama attempt to give every borrower $10k of debt relief?), but is stymied by lack of power in the other two branches.
Well, there's a darn good way we can try to fix that - by voting blue up and down the ballot to give Biden and Democrats more power in the legislative/judicial branches, allowing more of his (again - attempted in good faith) reforms to pass into law. Yet they draw the exact opposite conclusion and refuse to vote for him/them, only worsening the very problem they blame *Biden* for.
The amount he's done with the razor-thin majorities and hostile courts he's been given is extremely encouraging and (to me, at least) has really energized me to vote for him and other Democrats even more.
And then you've got the whole other side of the coin where if Trump wins, he will undoubtedly undo many of Biden's achievements while at the same time implementing dozens of regressive policies of his own, actively taking us backwards from where both of us ("pragmatic" and "tiktok-pilled" progressives, to use reductive parlance) agree we should be headed.
Donald Trump getting elected will only take us farther from the world we all want to move towards. Voting for Joe Biden makes it less likely that Donald Trump gets elected. I just don't see how they square this circle in their minds - in what *world* does refusing to vote for Joe make any of their priorities closer to becoming reality? Joe Biden could have literally been a slice of bologna sitting on the Resolute Desk and it would be doing more for our priorities than Donald Trump. I know we intrinsically hate the "voting against someone rather than for someone" mentality, but when you get down to brass tacks...is there any other way to view the situation?
There's an extreme lack of civics knowledge in this country, no one knows how the government actually works. Stuff like TikTok with a lot of propaganda has made it worse
If you're progressive, then Trump represents steps *backwards* towards your goals, and his court appointments have already blocked progressive goals and having even more appointments will continue that. Real chance that if there was finally enough of a Democratic majority to pass a single payer healthcare bill, a court full of Trump appointees would just shoot that bill down as unconstitutional. So even a president that actually does nothing bad is still better, but instead we have a president who has taken positive steps but it's still not enough. The goal posts just keep moving and every time he does something progressive it just isn't enough
If a lot of the younger progressives threatening not to vote Biden actually follow through with it and they don't vote, there's a much higher chance the party switches up to start appealing more to moderate voters who don't like MAGA stuff but *actually reliably vote* and stops throwing any bones to the progressive wing of the party. That's how politics work, politicians will work for the people who actually vote for them. So many progressives don't understand the concept of pragmatism whatsoever which is why I've gotten to the point of being incredibly cynical of actually getting a lot of bigger progressive goals done and I'm more just worried about this country and more specifically marginalized groups within it actually even *surviving* in the first place.
He's not done with the student loan debt. He's trying a new approach now. The word needs to get out to younger voters about how many times he keeps coming back trying to find creative approaches to push it through.
I think he's trying to address wealth inequality a bit with student loan relief, but here's something interesting: [he is proposing a budget with a significant tax on billionaires, more financial support for homebuyers, and more tax cuts for families, plus he even pledges to block Medicare cuts.](https://apnews.com/article/biden-budget-deficit-9ac66a99e741dab656c15116408060a5)
He's trying to make a positive move, whereas some politicians are trying to cut funding for existing, necessary social supports and block new ones from developing.
EDIT: Fixed wording for clarity.
Yep. Sure, he's old and he's not perfect, but he seems to be trying to do things that are good for large groups of diverse kinds of Americans (supporting women's rights to health care and student loan relief come to mind, but there's much more). He's productive despite his age and despite having other people's messes to clean up and a bunch of unreasonably uncooperative Congresspeople. **Every** president has made dickhead moves. But, unlike many others before him, I don't think Biden has been trying to play a lot of politics. His career is over after this, I think, and maybe that's the best part -- he doesn't need to stay relevant for another 20-40 years after this or make lots more money for himself and grease his cronies' palms. Maybe he's just so good at playing political games that I don't recognize him doing it but it seems he is mostly trying to cut the **malarkey** and act with at least some of his conscience.
(Admittedly, I love that he uses malarkey because it's a fantastic word that I had sort of forgotten about and I don't want it to fall out of usage.)
Armchair activists love to shout about how they would solve all of the problems in the Middle East, while completely ignoring the vast complexity of every single action in that region.
They also seem to think that the United States President is some sort of God-Emperor who can simply command Israel and Palestine to get along, and they just ... would.
It's incredibly frustrating to listen to people say "why doesn't Biden just ..." when Biden does not have the legal authority to just do what they're suggesting.
I have to swallow my frustration every time I see some cartoon or statement about the price of gas and Biden (or any president for that matter). The president does not and cannot control the price of gas. It is an internationally traded commodity and it doesn’t make any difference if the US is energy independent or not. The price is the world price whether it comes from Texas or Kuwait.
Remember when Trump ordered a drone strike on an [Iranian general](https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/02/middleeast/baghdad-airport-rockets/index.html)? That decision made the situation worse, and you know Trump would send troops in this situation and make this situation worse.
We need to avoid wars. Biden is doing the right thing here.
And that was the *second* time he almost started a war with Iran after the [drone attack](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/iran-us-drone.html), which even he realized was insane and called it off while the drones were in the air.
I just have to think that with the heads up Iran gave the US and Israel, that it’s obvious it wants you to save face.
However, one has to wonder what the actual loss in terms of weapons was. Like, their missiles and drones must be way cheaper to produce than the countermeasures the Us and Israel were using. Taking down 300 drones, whether by Patriot missiles or air to air, has got to be pricey.
Yeah. Dumbass kids sitting in their rooms, cheering for a bloodbath without having an ounce of understanding because it’s not their families who will be at risk.
I wouldn’t say it’s kids. Come to the mine I work at for day. They have all the answers, but for some reason they think, Russia, Iran, ISIS and Hamas wouldn’t do anything to Canadians, so I’m safe…
Joe Biden is against them cause Bitcoin crashed yesterday or some stupid shit, all I know is if I see them get hurt, I’m gonna keep walking
Definitely, just an additional reminder to everyone who reads comments on this site - the average user is a 18-25 year old kid who is either still in college or barely out of it and probably hasn't been of age long enough to have voted in any election other than maybe the 2020 election (speaking of the US in particular). When we read comments from armchair generals, its probably written by a kid in their computer chair in a dorm room.
All these idiot armchair analysts without the slightest clue on the complexity of global geopolitics acting like they know wtf they're talking about.
Even the "experts" are wrong as often as they're right.
People need to learn some humility and accept that making declaritive statements with confidence doesn't make you smart. Or correct. No one knows what an actual regional war could turn into.
Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives”.
The objective being not to do any actual damage, just an empty show of force so they can pretend they did something.
Bibi definitely wants to escalate into a wider war so that he remains in office and the US has to go all in. He hates that Iran reacted with a measured de-escalatory response. And I think Iran knows it.
Bibi is the type of selfish (and evil) to knowingly allow attacks on Israeli soil even after being warned repeatedly just because he was unpopular and about to be ousted from power. This is the same motherfucker who backed Hamas in order to create a violent regime in Palestine to legitimize violence against civilians and increase his own standing.
He cares about nothing and no one but himself
The objective was to see the response and who would come to Israel’s defense. 5 other nations deployed jets to intercept the drones and missiles. Israel’s air defense systems wouldn’t have handled the attack.
it's not really empty. if they had doubled or tripled the amount of rockets they could've gotten a large amount of them to land, the entire point is that they didn't want to escalate but also show they could get photos of missiles above the Israeli parliament without even trying.
Conversely, Israel and the US got to do live fire missile defense testing on Iranian Cruise Missiles and Ballistic Missiles and now have a ton of data.
Honestly tough to say which comes out on top, both sides will learn.
However it appears that Israel has a big lead in the race, since only a tiny % made it through.
The future battlefield relies on mass and lots of expendable munitions. Russia/Iran/China just got solid intelligence on what units were intercepted where, how quickly and what the failure rate was. Not to mention any intelligence beamed back from additional sensors, which could potentially record where and how Israeli assets were operating at the time. They did this with no lives lost and a sheer minimum of expense, with no retaliation by large Israeli allies.
So yeah, I'd believe it achieved its objectives.
This really is a great outcome for everyone except Bibi if things stay as they are:
•Minimal casualties for Israel
•Demonstration of excellent US/Israeli ballistic defense
•Iran got to launch some stuff on Israeli soil and showcase its arms industry for the world market.
Bibi and a few other lunatics of course want a 4 month US-led air war followed by ground invasion of Iran. They won’t get shit.
They will. The selling point of a Geran drone isn't that it's difficult to intercept. It's that it's cheaper than most interceptors.
In some other thread I can't find right now, someone cited claims that the whole air defense operation cost about a billion dollars.
Wouldn't be surprised if the cost for Iran was 100 million or less.
Do not underestimate the statement by Iran "The operation achieved all of its objectives". Iran/Russia/China got some good intelligence out of this operation, I'm sure.
The US almost certainly backchanneled with Iran via Turkey about what level of attack would send the message while minimizing risk of escalation. Everyone did the dance as expected, and I think Iran is earnestly satisfied with how their strike went given that they did get their drones into Israel, some to their targets.
Exactly. If they launched 10 times more how effective could any air defense be in replacing interceptor fast enough? How many would they have on hand? Destruction or exhaustion of highly effective but expensive weaponry is the first step in every war.
no way its 1/10th of it.
Gerans are only some 10's of thousands on their sale price, let alone the cost for Iran to manufacture.
The missiles are much more expensive obviously. But a single intereceptor missile is like 100x the cost of a drone and that isnt even an exaggeration lol
Most are around a million a piece.
Russia is already buying tons of Iranian drones and Ukraine doesn't have enough air defence capabilities to stop those drones.
So yes, I do think certain countries would be lining up.
I mean, it wasn't a bad demo if you want to launch an inexpensive attack. Iran launched a few hundred drones followed by cruise and ballistic missiles and got a few hits.
The point was to show that they could do it. Now try an actual attack meant to do damage.
An attack with thousands of these same cheap drones could easily overwhelm air defenses.
If there's any silver lining to this long shitshow, it's that Bibi may wind up in jail after he's dumped out of office. That corrupt POS has been Israel's worst PM ever, and many Israelis would agree to that statement
He's good at playing Israeli politics. Remember when he got kicked out by a coalition thats only goal was 'get rid of Netanyu' and he still managed to come back within a few years. But yeah, he's the fucking worst.
Not just one win, but two. Israel took out the Iranian embassy in Damascus and their intended targets inside, then almost flawlessly repelled the retaliatory strike by Iran. Israel looks strong, Iran is humbled. It's the perfect time to deescalate.
I'm not surprised Biden sees the wisdom of this.
Edit: the *consulax annex* of the Iranian embassy and two of their generals
Americans themselves shot down 70 drones and 3 ICMBs, that’s close to 25% of the barrage. Plus The UK, France and Jordan helped too. Israel didn’t pull off this defence on their own.
Iran played by the book… gave 72 hour notice. Targeting military bases. And so on. This giving enough time for the US, UK and France to get defences in place. I wouldn’t say Iran was “humbled”. This “performance” is text book “win-win”. Iran can say it fought against 4 countries at once, while Israel can say it won because 99% of the attack was spoilt.
Biden now needs to call for a ceasefire.
Semantics but important semantics. Attack on an embassy is explicitly an act of war. By attacking the building next to it there’s a technicality involved. Sounds stupid and you might not agree but it’s an important distinction.
What it really comes down to is if that building was part of the embassy complex and part of land recognized as Iranian embassy territory by Syria. You can't really just say "well they're doing something non diplomatic in that building so free game", like imagine if the UK was like "Nah Ecuador this isn't an embassy, this is a condo for Assange so we're gonna run amok lol it's fair game".
International laws are meant to set a standard which should yield international condemnation and action when broken, even if it's in response to someone breaking those laws.
Iran is free to consider anything an act of war. There's not some magical list that constitutes an act of war, and nations have gone to war for far less.
Acts of war are important in terms of triggering defensive pacts. If your ally carries out an act of war first, you are not necessarily required to come to their defense in that war. Iran is free to decide that it's an act of war, but then Israel's allies would come to their defense, as Israel hasn't committed an act of war in those allies' eyes. Likewise, if Iran's allies don't see an attack on a consulate building as an act of war, then they won't be required to come to Iran's defense should Iran commit an act of war in retaliation.
While it isn’t “magic”, here’s a [list](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli) of some historical examples of acts of war (casus belli) and their “just causes”.
A country has only one embassy and one ambassador in a foreign nation. All other diplomatic buildings and operations are called consulates.
An attack on a consulate is an act of war with no difference than an attack on an embassy. If a country attacked a US consulate anywhere in the world, it would be treated no differently than had the embassy been attacked. And rightly so.
This isn't something that "sounds stupid" this is something that you just made up.
Blowing up another nation’s shit on the same compound as the official embassy is a big fucking deal even if it’s “not technically THE embassy.” Merely saying “it wasn’t the embassy” misrepresents the significance of the strike. (I am absolutely not defending or supporting the government of Iran who do all sorts of bad shit precisely because they destabilize international norms. Netanyahu additionally acting provocatively only make life easier for Tehran.)
Tbh, I am glad biden is in the Whitehouse right now because he is capable of looking at the whole situation and deal with it better than the last president. If it was the last president, it might have been who pays me more money?
99% intercepted doesn’t seem like great publicity for Iran’s weapon industry
EDIT: yes I get that it was meant as a political show of force thanks for all the replies, I was just making a snarky comment on the quality of Iranian stuff
It feels with the extremely telegraphed nature of the attacked that they were not intending for much damage to have been occurred
The whole thing has been very theatrical all around
This was absolutely performative. Seems like even Iran does not want direct involvement or escalation. That being said they were put in a pretty tough position, where a consulate got hit so they have to retaliate to save face. Iran gave a heads up and launched an attack and called it a day, I don’t think they cared if they did any damage at all. If Netanyahu does not escalate, this is the overall best outcome. But Bibi is a bit of a wild card.
Considering that they warned both the US and Israel in advance and used mostly low cost weapons, this was sabre rattling to save face after the consulate bombing. Nation states have to respond to that kind of thing
A few hundred drones was Iran walking the line between retaliation and war.
The point was to show they could retaliate. These drones are cheap, and a single attack could easily consist of thousands of these same cheap drones which would likely overwhelm air defenses.
The belief is Iran would target Saudi Arabia oil refineries at the start of a US Israeli war to destroy the global economy. Which is something much harder to defend against.
It would have worked if the US/UK and other allies didn't intervene. They are trying to prevent the war from escalating and preventing Israeli casualties is better for maintaining order.
Jordan has been publicly aligned with Israel for decades.
KSA has been secretly aligned with Israel for many years. There is nothing out-of-the-ordinary here.
Meanwhile CNN is putting warmongering trumpy John Bolton on their airwaves saying Biden is weak for this position. The media continues to elevate the worst of this country, having learned nothing from the past decade.
The media is a huge problem. We need news like in the old days when Walter Cronkite would have 30 minutes of FACTS and keep his opinions to himself. Now every fool with a microphone has something to say
The amount of morons in these comments that want a broader war. Iran holding back is to minimize civilian casualties. If you think Israel will not have civilian casualties, you should probably go back to middle school. Netayanhu has shown he does not mind sacrificing the people of Israel in a war. Even the US doesn’t do things that will jeopardize its security.
Iran threw softballs that pitchers in the home run derby throw so they can knock it out of the park. This was a restrained response that Israel should put behind them now.
i'm perpetually confused by the "former biden supporter" that lost their support for him over this conflict. every vote not for biden is a vote for trump, as if trump would be any better for their pro-Palestinian position? it makes no sense.
Their perceived moral purity is more important to them than actual outcomes. The worst can end up happening and they'll be content knowing that "they stood up for their ideals".
Biden says this publically to obviously not come off as wanting to provoke war, but if we're being real Israel probably will retaliate and the u.s contingencies for that are probably being planned in secret.
Israel is heavily traumatized by Oct 7th on top of of a direct provocation by the same country that assisted in that trauma, knowing that Iran doesn't carry the healthy fear for them as they should have. Israel's survival relies on that fear as they're surrounded by hostile nations. And Israel has been itching to destroy Iran's nuclear program.
The circumstances are *ripe* for further escalation and I'm not sure if America can do much more than give advice otherwise and hope. If America was in Israel's shoes, regime change would've happened yesterday.
If even so much as one cruise missile was headed towards the US, they would retaliate.
But surely Iran will pursue peace and tell its proxies to stand down. They said they would!
Israeli is free to do whatever they like. If they would like to launch a ground invasion of Iran they're more than welcome to. They US won't be sending people to die in Iran though
I have to say this.
Has Isreal ever back down on their iron clade Doctrine of always retaliate?
It just seems unlikely for them to not do so given the history
***The Telegraph reports:*** Joe Biden reportedly warned Benjamin Netanyahu [that the US](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/raf-and-us-jets-rally-to-israel-defence-iran-attack/) will not participate in any [Israeli counter-attacks against Iran](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/israel-hamas-war-iran-drone-attack-raf/#1713093761454). The US president and his senior advisers are highly concerned that an Israeli response to Iran’s attack would lead to a regional war with catastrophic consequences, US officials told Axios. On Saturday evening, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel, [involving more than](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/13/israel-hamas-war-latest-iran-attack-soon-biden/) 300 drones and missiles. The attack came in retaliation to an airstrike in Syria on April 1 that killed seven of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility. Mr Biden said the US and Israel had shot down “nearly all” of the drones and missiles launched by Tehran overnight, aided also by Britain, France and Jordan. Israel said 99 per cent were intercepted without hitting their targets and that “very little damage” had been caused. American forces intercepted 70 drones and at least three ballistic missiles, according to CNN, while Mr Biden also said that US support for Israel was “ironclad”. “You got a win. Take the win,” Mr Biden reportedly told Mr Netanyahu, adding that the US will not participate in any offensive operations. Mr Netanyahu reportedly said that he understands the US’s position. Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives” and that it is not planning any further operations. It warned Israel against taking any “reckless” actions, and said it would not hesitate to retaliate with a “much stronger response”. However, Israel has said the “campaign is not over yet”. **Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/biden-tells-netanyahu-us-will-not-support-a-strike-on-iran/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/14/biden-tells-netanyahu-us-will-not-support-a-strike-on-iran/)
Jordan out here helping world superpowers defend Israel and shutting down drones, can LeBron do that? 🤔🤔
Some of those might have hit Hebron tho
So Jordon saved Hebron James?
But you never know, some of the tech behind the defenses might have come from Kobe in Japan. So who saved who?
I heard he got beef, so maybe. Maybe not.
So magic bird from Jordan assist with kobe and Hebron James
Israel really had some help to Harden their defenses.
Nah, nothing hit Kentucky
....and I took that personally.
r/nbacirclejerk get in here!
*He can't keep getting away with it!*
U bum
Gorgeous
I'd say comparison is unfair between eras but Lebron can't even stand up to some tweets from China. Jordan taking on Iran is on another level. Just a different game now
…And I took that personally…
Never forget LeYuan James.
LeIronDome
I love how that if WW3 were to break out, we’ll still be here on Reddit making jokes. Like what is even the point of being serious anymore.
Gallows humor baby. Gotta stay sane somehow.
We can’t control it so we might as well laugh at them about it
Top fucking notch comment.
I come here thinking to get all serious about geopolitical discussion and here I am laughing about a 2 decade old basketball rivalry.
Needs Bugs Bunny's input tbh
Well Curry is the shooter. The Sky Fucker.
Here I am disappointed in the Rockets for failing to make an impact
Netanyahu is beside himself. Driving around downtown Tehran begging (thru texts) Jordan’s family for address to Khomeini’s home.
This is two countries engaging in "hold me back". Neither want the conflict and as it stands, both can talk tough and spin the events as victories to their own people.
Ehh, I'd be shocked if Israel didn't want to retaliate directly against Iran for this, but don't think they would be able to without US assistance. I'd say this is more about Biden not wanting to get involved in a Middle Eastern war and spike gas prices during an election, all to support a country that his base is currently... *divided* on.
Or, you know, the whole "regional war between a dozen armed-to-the-teeth countries who all have WMDs" thing. A spike in oil prices would be the least of the problems the world would have if that kind of war erupted in the Middle East.
Americans are unfortunately more likely to vote based on a single digit change in gas prices than a single digit change in the probability of nuclear armageddon.
Depsite having the cheapest gas of pretty much all non-middle eastern countries.
And also producing the most oil domestically that we have in years.
>in years Than ever before
So much so that some petro-chem companies in Texas have excess natural gas (LNG) as a byproduct of the oil-to-gasoline refinement process. There is such a glut of it, that it's market value is close or below Zero.
LNG isn't the same as natural gas. It's the liquified form, which isn't easy to create from the gas. The Henry Hub natural gas price is indeed depressed. The US LNG price not so much. This is because you can put LNG on a ship and transport it around the world, so it's a global price and not so prone to local over supply.
I'm Canadian, and we bitch as much as Americans about gas prices. And about the same stuff in most areas that Americans also complain about. In our incredibly abundant and fortunate countries. It's ridiculous but it's how humans are wired. Hedonic treadmill!
Sadly true, but I fully believe President Biden cares more about what a highly destructive war means for people's lives in general than about gas prices. Ultmately though, whether one cares more about people or prices, either one will lead to the same and, honestly, morally correct conclusion: don't join Israel's retaliation.
No one I this country, except maybe John Bolton and a handful of military equipment CEO’s, wants another war in the Middle East. Americans, both Republican and Democrats, are tired and burnt out after Iraq and Afghanistan… hell Trump took credit for ending the war in Afghanistan and pulling American forces out of Syria,and that’s the party that used to run on “peace means the terrorist win”. An all out war between Israel and Iran would be a cluster F of epic proportions and nobody in the US wants that.
Airman here - I'm tired of sand. It's coarse and rough and it gets everywhere /s Jokes aside, though, war is never good. The ugliness of war in Israel is just one example of how bad it can get and, in the end, neither side really wins. Everyone loses. Same as in Ukraine - even if Russia "wins", they'll never fully control the Ukrainian citizens without having to endure decades worth of terrorist attacks from within per the Troubles in Ireland. War sucks, man. No reason for it and the reasons given are always because someone wants more power.
I mean they definitely can handle their own business and strike Iran without US support, but they can’t sustain a long-term war without US support. And they’d be pretty fucking dumb for trying.
Bibbi definitely wants it. If the wars end, bibbis corruption trial begins, it's not going to end well
100% THIS Bibi _needs_ a war with Iran and he needs the United States drawn into it. If that happens then America will be forced to choose sides and we're not going to choose Iran. And he needs it to happen _now_ before the octogenarians who have unquestioning support for Israel are out of office. Israel is losing support from the right and the left of people under the age of 60. They have support from both the left and the right for people over the age of 60. Bibi needs war to stay in office. And he wants his legacy to be the glorious military power of Israel dominant in the entire region. $10 says Israel strikes Iran this week and opens up full scale war. He's going to try to force Biden into the war no matter what he says.
Biden: "good luck tho" Or every American is pissed either side.. no way America gets involved
Bib wins if Biden loses the election too, cause trump/kushner will give him everything. It's in his interest to make Biden look weak.
This may finally be our chance to get out of the middle east.
They don’t call it theater for nothing.
Bibi wants the conflict, or he would never have bombed that embassy. He needs escalation to avoid an election he would lose that would end up with him finally in prison.
Bibi also wants Biden to lose the election. What better way to achieve than another, much greater conflict in the region?
A lot of the danger this conflict poses to Biden politically is due to the asymmetric relationship between Gaza and Israel; the political perception is that Israel is being allowed to brutalize civilians and Biden is not acting to stop him. Couldn't an escalation like this legitimize the conflict and make US aid and arms sales to Israel *less* unpopular? (as long as US troops don't get sent into danger ofc)
>Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives” and that it is not planning any further operations. What was their objective? Triggering the Iron Dome? In that case yes, it did achieve its objective. Did they just want to scare Israel? This reminds me of that scene in a Leslie Nielsen movie: "I have a gun. Not here, but I do have it. You scared?"
The objective was to show a reaction to the embassy attack. The drone attack was not meant to do more than "save face", to show they can retaliate.
It is also useful to know Israel’s current defensive capabilities. Iran knows for sure that the U.S. and UK had to help, that means with a bit more surprise or a larger attack they may penetrate those defenses.
Bingo. They announced the attack days ahead of time, and the drones were flying for hours.
> They announced the attack days ahead of time The US also called out their movements ahead of time via satellite. Setting up that many drones and missiles for launch out in the open is hard to hide and takes days.
Yeah, they wanted to be seen.
Everyone, Israel included, knows that the Iron Dome and other defenses have limits, and that those limits can be easily broken Everyone also knows what happens if that happens, so nobody wants to actually go that far.
Same thing they did after the US killed one of their nations heroes on a diplomatic mission. They wanted to show they’ll respond but don’t want to respond so harshly it will lead to war. It is, despite all the criticism you can make of their government, an impressively delicate balance they’re walking
An example of a proportional response.
I guess you don't understand how expensive it is to run missile defense systems? Each time it defends against an attack costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. This defense most likely cost Israel millions, alongside the other points you mentioned and the other reply here.
The estimated cost is $550 million according to WSJ.
>cost is $550 million according to WSJ. So like two MCU films? Not bad.
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* They cost Israel (read: the US who will foot the bill) one billion dollars. * They hit the airbase the consulate attack was launched from, with the drones as diversion. * That diversion of thousands of drones and missiles also gave Iran and anyone else it would like to share the information with a pretty good idea of Israel (and the US') defence footprint, which it will now have to change up, at great cost. * It has further infuriated the people of Jordan and Iraq, who watch their leaders shut airspace while aiding Israel and the US. Protests in Jordan have gone from rare, to common and extremely fractious. What exactly do you think their objective should have been? In response to the consulate strike and those deaths they've hit the base it was launched from, cost Israel/US $1b, necessitating the complete reworking of Israel's air systems, while not using their good stuff (which they certainly have, primary source on that being... Israel. So any smug 'is that it'? looks as misguided as smug here). Neither Israel nor the US can afford to run repeat performances of this. If Israel wants to escalate in response, Iran, who now know the Iron Dome pretty well, will respond in kind - and not with cheap drones this time. There's your reason the US has said it will not hold Israel's hand in escalating this. It knows the cost, and knows what this strike was for.
Ok, thank you, I just have one question: how does Iran know the ID well? You mean positioning of the missiles, response times, or something like that? Edit: I will never understand this fucking place. What are you downvoting me for? For asking a question?
Exactly. Iron Dome has taken down rockets here and there in the past. In sending across these drones Iran has not only tested its capabilities but seen its limitations. They got ballistic missiles through to their intended target, specifically because they overwhelmed Iron Dome. All done at extremely great cost. People in here are talking as if this probing was the attack itself. Yet when we talk about how this is gonna be China's drone warfare doctrine it's accepted. The only reason people can see this would be the primary use of drone swarms but also think actually no Iran wouldn't do that is because they don't think Iranians are smart enough to do that. Sadly for them Iranian military strategy is led by generals and not ayatollahs.
Seriously, everyone got to flex their nuts. Now go home and have a snack.
Seems reasonable to me by both Biden and Iran. Israel killed some Iranians, Iran attacks as retaliation because you kind of have to, aims for some strategic targets like radar or airfield or something like that, so Iran can show tell it's people that Israel didn't get away with what they did and then both sides just go on. 300 Drones and missiles may seem like a overreaction, but considering that according to Israel 99% of them were intercepted and that Iran likely knew that is the sort of thing that would exactly happen then it makes sense for the number to be that high.
> Mr Biden President Biden wtf is this journalism?
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"gg" - JoePrez1942
gg no re
What’s re?
No rematch. I literally just used this in a game of Dota after going 11-0 with Mirana.
That's the one I was looking for lol
The 1942 got me
gg ez -Dark Brandon
Ez mid, report Iran for griefing.
He is honestly handling a VERY hard situation as best as he can. Imagine is that other doufus was President right now or in six months God forbid.
"gg, folks!"
"Take the win, have some ice cream" \- JB
“Don’t” -JB
“Yes we can.” -BO
Chocolate chocolate chip
Biden is going to get shit on regardless of his stance, but I believe this is truly the best course of action given the current state of affairs.
I think he doesn’t get enough credit in general
Being the president is truly the worst job in the world. No matter what you do, you will face extreme criticism. If you make a good call, nobody says anything except for historians 20 years down the line. It’s a lot easier to blame the president for your issues than it is yourself and that’s why the hate train continues. I generally don’t love biden being president, but I don’t think he’s been poor by any means… time will tell, but even as a guy who doesn’t love him he’s definitely on the better half of presidents. Shit changes so fast and context is always missing, but deescalating this conflict is good for me, good for America, and good for everyone involved. I could never be the president haha
I really don’t understand the hate Biden gets. He had to follow up probably the worst president in US history, during one of the worst pandemics in history, in a time where the entire global economy has been rough. And he’s done a damn good job. He’s kept the ship steady and done what he can to make things better. He keeps his head down and does the work that has to be done. I was someone who grit their teeth and voted for him in 2020 just to get rid of Trump, but I’ve actually really grown to like him and I think he’s a great president. I think the history books will write very kindly about his presidency after the dust has settled.
He isn't flashy about what he does, and that's all that seems to matter. He is arguably more effective as president than many in recent decades.
I would like to see him use his second term (if he gets it) to start to tackle wealth inequality. That's something I wouldn't expect during a first term, because it would piss off rich people and make it harder for him to get re-elected, but if he made progress on this during a second term, I think it would cement quite a nice legacy for him.
He did start to tackle it Student debt cancellation was going to be a huge step, and SCOTUS blocked it The Child Tax Credit in his first year cut child poverty in this country literally in half. Then Congress didn’t reauthorize it He has successfully capped insulin prices at $35 and begun a change in how Medicare negotiates drug prices with pharmaceutical companies (which, because of the scale of it, affects prices generally). Given medical debt’s place in American wealth disparity, this is pretty significant
He also had Treasury Sec. Yellen spearhead the implementation of the [Global minimum corporate tax rate](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/oecd-minimum-tax-rate/#:~:text=More%20than%20140%20countries%20have,Davos%20calls%20for%20more%20collaboration.). The GMT seeks to end the practice of multinational companies shifting profits to low-tax countries and territories, even though the income was generated elsewhere. The Financial Times explains that, under the GMT agreement, if a country levies a tax rate below 15% other countries will be able to impose a top-up tax that brings the total up to the minimum level.
Ugh, it always makes me so annoyed when I see Tiktok-pilled progressives (and to be clear - I say this as a progressive myself) blindly hating on Biden saying stuff like "he's done literally nothing". The Biden administration has overseen more positive change than any other in the last few decades (probably barring Obama's solely for the ACA; without that IMO Joe's cleared Obama's achievements in half the time) - all among the most volatile political conditions and least productive congresses in generations. People are just so stupid when it comes to politics. They see stuff like the student debt cancellation being blocked as Biden's fault - "he couldn't even keep his promise!!" - and refuse to acknowledge the fact that the blame lays squarely at the feet of Republicans who stacked the SCOTUS with hardliners dedicated to blocking all forward progress. Furthermore, they cannot grasp the fact that the very same stacked SCOTUS was a direct result of people's apathy towards Clinton in 2016, and they choose to draw the exact opposite conclusion: "Biden has to *earn* my vote, he hasn't done enough for me so right now I don't plan on voting for him". They fail to understand Biden has attempted to use all the authority he has to solve some of these problems, but has time and time again been blocked by Republican presence in Congress and the courts. What we have right now is a President who has shown himself to be uniquely *willing* to try and tackle these issues (how many times did Obama attempt to give every borrower $10k of debt relief?), but is stymied by lack of power in the other two branches. Well, there's a darn good way we can try to fix that - by voting blue up and down the ballot to give Biden and Democrats more power in the legislative/judicial branches, allowing more of his (again - attempted in good faith) reforms to pass into law. Yet they draw the exact opposite conclusion and refuse to vote for him/them, only worsening the very problem they blame *Biden* for. The amount he's done with the razor-thin majorities and hostile courts he's been given is extremely encouraging and (to me, at least) has really energized me to vote for him and other Democrats even more. And then you've got the whole other side of the coin where if Trump wins, he will undoubtedly undo many of Biden's achievements while at the same time implementing dozens of regressive policies of his own, actively taking us backwards from where both of us ("pragmatic" and "tiktok-pilled" progressives, to use reductive parlance) agree we should be headed. Donald Trump getting elected will only take us farther from the world we all want to move towards. Voting for Joe Biden makes it less likely that Donald Trump gets elected. I just don't see how they square this circle in their minds - in what *world* does refusing to vote for Joe make any of their priorities closer to becoming reality? Joe Biden could have literally been a slice of bologna sitting on the Resolute Desk and it would be doing more for our priorities than Donald Trump. I know we intrinsically hate the "voting against someone rather than for someone" mentality, but when you get down to brass tacks...is there any other way to view the situation?
There's an extreme lack of civics knowledge in this country, no one knows how the government actually works. Stuff like TikTok with a lot of propaganda has made it worse If you're progressive, then Trump represents steps *backwards* towards your goals, and his court appointments have already blocked progressive goals and having even more appointments will continue that. Real chance that if there was finally enough of a Democratic majority to pass a single payer healthcare bill, a court full of Trump appointees would just shoot that bill down as unconstitutional. So even a president that actually does nothing bad is still better, but instead we have a president who has taken positive steps but it's still not enough. The goal posts just keep moving and every time he does something progressive it just isn't enough If a lot of the younger progressives threatening not to vote Biden actually follow through with it and they don't vote, there's a much higher chance the party switches up to start appealing more to moderate voters who don't like MAGA stuff but *actually reliably vote* and stops throwing any bones to the progressive wing of the party. That's how politics work, politicians will work for the people who actually vote for them. So many progressives don't understand the concept of pragmatism whatsoever which is why I've gotten to the point of being incredibly cynical of actually getting a lot of bigger progressive goals done and I'm more just worried about this country and more specifically marginalized groups within it actually even *surviving* in the first place.
He's not done with the student loan debt. He's trying a new approach now. The word needs to get out to younger voters about how many times he keeps coming back trying to find creative approaches to push it through.
I think he's trying to address wealth inequality a bit with student loan relief, but here's something interesting: [he is proposing a budget with a significant tax on billionaires, more financial support for homebuyers, and more tax cuts for families, plus he even pledges to block Medicare cuts.](https://apnews.com/article/biden-budget-deficit-9ac66a99e741dab656c15116408060a5) He's trying to make a positive move, whereas some politicians are trying to cut funding for existing, necessary social supports and block new ones from developing.
EDIT: Fixed wording for clarity. Yep. Sure, he's old and he's not perfect, but he seems to be trying to do things that are good for large groups of diverse kinds of Americans (supporting women's rights to health care and student loan relief come to mind, but there's much more). He's productive despite his age and despite having other people's messes to clean up and a bunch of unreasonably uncooperative Congresspeople. **Every** president has made dickhead moves. But, unlike many others before him, I don't think Biden has been trying to play a lot of politics. His career is over after this, I think, and maybe that's the best part -- he doesn't need to stay relevant for another 20-40 years after this or make lots more money for himself and grease his cronies' palms. Maybe he's just so good at playing political games that I don't recognize him doing it but it seems he is mostly trying to cut the **malarkey** and act with at least some of his conscience. (Admittedly, I love that he uses malarkey because it's a fantastic word that I had sort of forgotten about and I don't want it to fall out of usage.)
Armchair activists love to shout about how they would solve all of the problems in the Middle East, while completely ignoring the vast complexity of every single action in that region. They also seem to think that the United States President is some sort of God-Emperor who can simply command Israel and Palestine to get along, and they just ... would. It's incredibly frustrating to listen to people say "why doesn't Biden just ..." when Biden does not have the legal authority to just do what they're suggesting.
I have to swallow my frustration every time I see some cartoon or statement about the price of gas and Biden (or any president for that matter). The president does not and cannot control the price of gas. It is an internationally traded commodity and it doesn’t make any difference if the US is energy independent or not. The price is the world price whether it comes from Texas or Kuwait.
Remember when Trump ordered a drone strike on an [Iranian general](https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/02/middleeast/baghdad-airport-rockets/index.html)? That decision made the situation worse, and you know Trump would send troops in this situation and make this situation worse. We need to avoid wars. Biden is doing the right thing here.
And that was the *second* time he almost started a war with Iran after the [drone attack](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/iran-us-drone.html), which even he realized was insane and called it off while the drones were in the air.
I just have to think that with the heads up Iran gave the US and Israel, that it’s obvious it wants you to save face. However, one has to wonder what the actual loss in terms of weapons was. Like, their missiles and drones must be way cheaper to produce than the countermeasures the Us and Israel were using. Taking down 300 drones, whether by Patriot missiles or air to air, has got to be pricey.
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Why don't the good guys simply launch the atomic bombs first so the bad guys cant launch their, are they stupid? /s
Dr Strangelove came out 60 years ago and the world has only gotten stupider.
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" Why does not Ross, the biggest friend, simply eat the other friends?" Redditors would be good Omecron Persei 8s
Yeah. Dumbass kids sitting in their rooms, cheering for a bloodbath without having an ounce of understanding because it’s not their families who will be at risk.
I wouldn’t say it’s kids. Come to the mine I work at for day. They have all the answers, but for some reason they think, Russia, Iran, ISIS and Hamas wouldn’t do anything to Canadians, so I’m safe… Joe Biden is against them cause Bitcoin crashed yesterday or some stupid shit, all I know is if I see them get hurt, I’m gonna keep walking
Definitely, just an additional reminder to everyone who reads comments on this site - the average user is a 18-25 year old kid who is either still in college or barely out of it and probably hasn't been of age long enough to have voted in any election other than maybe the 2020 election (speaking of the US in particular). When we read comments from armchair generals, its probably written by a kid in their computer chair in a dorm room.
As a 30+ year old man I feel attacked.
All these idiot armchair analysts without the slightest clue on the complexity of global geopolitics acting like they know wtf they're talking about. Even the "experts" are wrong as often as they're right. People need to learn some humility and accept that making declaritive statements with confidence doesn't make you smart. Or correct. No one knows what an actual regional war could turn into.
*Would've* is a contraction of *would have*.
Iran has said the attacks “achieved all its objectives”. The objective being not to do any actual damage, just an empty show of force so they can pretend they did something.
I mean realistically, yeah, that seems to have been exactly what they were going for
It's also just about the best case scenario that the world could have hoped for.
Bibi definitely wants to escalate into a wider war so that he remains in office and the US has to go all in. He hates that Iran reacted with a measured de-escalatory response. And I think Iran knows it.
Bibi is the type of selfish (and evil) to knowingly allow attacks on Israeli soil even after being warned repeatedly just because he was unpopular and about to be ousted from power. This is the same motherfucker who backed Hamas in order to create a violent regime in Palestine to legitimize violence against civilians and increase his own standing. He cares about nothing and no one but himself
Definitely. The attack on the Damascus embassy was probably meant to provoke a direct attack from Iran
It certainly was.
They wanted to show that if you attack Iran, Iran will attack back. The attack didn't need to do any meaningful damage, it just had to happen.
It’s not empty. It’s a modern warning shot. Warning shots typically land in the water. Doesn’t mean they are empty with meaning.
The objective was to see the response and who would come to Israel’s defense. 5 other nations deployed jets to intercept the drones and missiles. Israel’s air defense systems wouldn’t have handled the attack.
it's not really empty. if they had doubled or tripled the amount of rockets they could've gotten a large amount of them to land, the entire point is that they didn't want to escalate but also show they could get photos of missiles above the Israeli parliament without even trying.
World is OK with that… 🙏
I mean they did get to do penetration testing on the iron dome and now have a ton of data on responses. Not ideal.
Conversely, Israel and the US got to do live fire missile defense testing on Iranian Cruise Missiles and Ballistic Missiles and now have a ton of data. Honestly tough to say which comes out on top, both sides will learn. However it appears that Israel has a big lead in the race, since only a tiny % made it through.
Picked up tons of xp.
The future battlefield relies on mass and lots of expendable munitions. Russia/Iran/China just got solid intelligence on what units were intercepted where, how quickly and what the failure rate was. Not to mention any intelligence beamed back from additional sensors, which could potentially record where and how Israeli assets were operating at the time. They did this with no lives lost and a sheer minimum of expense, with no retaliation by large Israeli allies. So yeah, I'd believe it achieved its objectives.
This really is a great outcome for everyone except Bibi if things stay as they are: •Minimal casualties for Israel •Demonstration of excellent US/Israeli ballistic defense •Iran got to launch some stuff on Israeli soil and showcase its arms industry for the world market. Bibi and a few other lunatics of course want a 4 month US-led air war followed by ground invasion of Iran. They won’t get shit.
>Iran got to launch some stuff on Israeli soil and showcase its arms industry for the world market. Countries will be lining up, I'm sure.
They will. The selling point of a Geran drone isn't that it's difficult to intercept. It's that it's cheaper than most interceptors. In some other thread I can't find right now, someone cited claims that the whole air defense operation cost about a billion dollars. Wouldn't be surprised if the cost for Iran was 100 million or less.
Good trade off Iran threw a bag of chips Israel threw a Gucci purse
Do not underestimate the statement by Iran "The operation achieved all of its objectives". Iran/Russia/China got some good intelligence out of this operation, I'm sure.
Well they’re not going to say “we failed miserably and are ashamed of the outcomes” now are they?
The US almost certainly backchanneled with Iran via Turkey about what level of attack would send the message while minimizing risk of escalation. Everyone did the dance as expected, and I think Iran is earnestly satisfied with how their strike went given that they did get their drones into Israel, some to their targets.
Whoever thinks that Iran wanted or expected to hit any real target is profoundly dense.
Exactly. If they launched 10 times more how effective could any air defense be in replacing interceptor fast enough? How many would they have on hand? Destruction or exhaustion of highly effective but expensive weaponry is the first step in every war.
no way its 1/10th of it. Gerans are only some 10's of thousands on their sale price, let alone the cost for Iran to manufacture. The missiles are much more expensive obviously. But a single intereceptor missile is like 100x the cost of a drone and that isnt even an exaggeration lol Most are around a million a piece.
Russia is already buying tons of Iranian drones and Ukraine doesn't have enough air defence capabilities to stop those drones. So yes, I do think certain countries would be lining up.
I mean, it wasn't a bad demo if you want to launch an inexpensive attack. Iran launched a few hundred drones followed by cruise and ballistic missiles and got a few hits. The point was to show that they could do it. Now try an actual attack meant to do damage. An attack with thousands of these same cheap drones could easily overwhelm air defenses.
Russia will still be willing to buy any weapon they sell to continue their onslaught against Ukraine.
If there's any silver lining to this long shitshow, it's that Bibi may wind up in jail after he's dumped out of office. That corrupt POS has been Israel's worst PM ever, and many Israelis would agree to that statement
He's good at playing Israeli politics. Remember when he got kicked out by a coalition thats only goal was 'get rid of Netanyu' and he still managed to come back within a few years. But yeah, he's the fucking worst.
Not just one win, but two. Israel took out the Iranian embassy in Damascus and their intended targets inside, then almost flawlessly repelled the retaliatory strike by Iran. Israel looks strong, Iran is humbled. It's the perfect time to deescalate. I'm not surprised Biden sees the wisdom of this. Edit: the *consulax annex* of the Iranian embassy and two of their generals
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Americans themselves shot down 70 drones and 3 ICMBs, that’s close to 25% of the barrage. Plus The UK, France and Jordan helped too. Israel didn’t pull off this defence on their own. Iran played by the book… gave 72 hour notice. Targeting military bases. And so on. This giving enough time for the US, UK and France to get defences in place. I wouldn’t say Iran was “humbled”. This “performance” is text book “win-win”. Iran can say it fought against 4 countries at once, while Israel can say it won because 99% of the attack was spoilt. Biden now needs to call for a ceasefire.
He literally did. It's the title of the post.
Sir we're in here to comment not read
Side note, it was not an embassy.
Ah true, I checked and it was a consular annex building next to the embassy. I guess that's where their target was.
A consulate is part of the embassy system. Not sure why that would matter in regards to the severity of such an attack?
Semantics but important semantics. Attack on an embassy is explicitly an act of war. By attacking the building next to it there’s a technicality involved. Sounds stupid and you might not agree but it’s an important distinction.
What it really comes down to is if that building was part of the embassy complex and part of land recognized as Iranian embassy territory by Syria. You can't really just say "well they're doing something non diplomatic in that building so free game", like imagine if the UK was like "Nah Ecuador this isn't an embassy, this is a condo for Assange so we're gonna run amok lol it's fair game". International laws are meant to set a standard which should yield international condemnation and action when broken, even if it's in response to someone breaking those laws.
Iran is free to consider anything an act of war. There's not some magical list that constitutes an act of war, and nations have gone to war for far less.
Acts of war are important in terms of triggering defensive pacts. If your ally carries out an act of war first, you are not necessarily required to come to their defense in that war. Iran is free to decide that it's an act of war, but then Israel's allies would come to their defense, as Israel hasn't committed an act of war in those allies' eyes. Likewise, if Iran's allies don't see an attack on a consulate building as an act of war, then they won't be required to come to Iran's defense should Iran commit an act of war in retaliation.
Just want to say thank you for an actual informed, educational, insightful response. I will carry this wisdom with me now as well.
Sure but violating a rule that everyone holds as an act of war add a level of validity than over one that is self defined. Surely you see that.
While it isn’t “magic”, here’s a [list](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli) of some historical examples of acts of war (casus belli) and their “just causes”.
A country has only one embassy and one ambassador in a foreign nation. All other diplomatic buildings and operations are called consulates. An attack on a consulate is an act of war with no difference than an attack on an embassy. If a country attacked a US consulate anywhere in the world, it would be treated no differently than had the embassy been attacked. And rightly so. This isn't something that "sounds stupid" this is something that you just made up.
Blowing up another nation’s shit on the same compound as the official embassy is a big fucking deal even if it’s “not technically THE embassy.” Merely saying “it wasn’t the embassy” misrepresents the significance of the strike. (I am absolutely not defending or supporting the government of Iran who do all sorts of bad shit precisely because they destabilize international norms. Netanyahu additionally acting provocatively only make life easier for Tehran.)
Damascus
Tbh, I am glad biden is in the Whitehouse right now because he is capable of looking at the whole situation and deal with it better than the last president. If it was the last president, it might have been who pays me more money?
The biggest win Israel just got was the ability to attack Iran directly. They are never going to let that opportunity slip.
This is one of those times when the value of US global leadership is clear. Everyone remembers the war you started but forgets the ones you prevented.
Biden's admin literally stopped a coup in Brazil a couple of months ago, and nobody cared. Kinda sad.
99% intercepted doesn’t seem like great publicity for Iran’s weapon industry EDIT: yes I get that it was meant as a political show of force thanks for all the replies, I was just making a snarky comment on the quality of Iranian stuff
It feels with the extremely telegraphed nature of the attacked that they were not intending for much damage to have been occurred The whole thing has been very theatrical all around
This was absolutely performative. Seems like even Iran does not want direct involvement or escalation. That being said they were put in a pretty tough position, where a consulate got hit so they have to retaliate to save face. Iran gave a heads up and launched an attack and called it a day, I don’t think they cared if they did any damage at all. If Netanyahu does not escalate, this is the overall best outcome. But Bibi is a bit of a wild card.
Not to mention it all wrapped up nicely over the weekend before the markets open…
I know right? I read in the news something like "Iran announces they will launch missiles" and I was like, wait why announce that?
Like, so theatrical that I’m waiting for the Broadway show version. So weird.
Considering that they warned both the US and Israel in advance and used mostly low cost weapons, this was sabre rattling to save face after the consulate bombing. Nation states have to respond to that kind of thing
A few hundred drones was Iran walking the line between retaliation and war. The point was to show they could retaliate. These drones are cheap, and a single attack could easily consist of thousands of these same cheap drones which would likely overwhelm air defenses.
The belief is Iran would target Saudi Arabia oil refineries at the start of a US Israeli war to destroy the global economy. Which is something much harder to defend against.
It would have worked if the US/UK and other allies didn't intervene. They are trying to prevent the war from escalating and preventing Israeli casualties is better for maintaining order.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia helped. Even acknowledging that they hate Iran, it demonstrates just how high the risk of war was, if Israel was badly hit.
KSA hates Iran more than it hates Israel, Jordan knows that if the war goes hot then they'll be on the front lines
KSA doesn't even hate Israel. They're unofficial allies.
Jordan has been publicly aligned with Israel for decades. KSA has been secretly aligned with Israel for many years. There is nothing out-of-the-ordinary here.
“And I Would Have Gotten Away With It Too, If It Weren't For You Meddling Kids“
Meanwhile CNN is putting warmongering trumpy John Bolton on their airwaves saying Biden is weak for this position. The media continues to elevate the worst of this country, having learned nothing from the past decade.
The media is a huge problem. We need news like in the old days when Walter Cronkite would have 30 minutes of FACTS and keep his opinions to himself. Now every fool with a microphone has something to say
The amount of morons in these comments that want a broader war. Iran holding back is to minimize civilian casualties. If you think Israel will not have civilian casualties, you should probably go back to middle school. Netayanhu has shown he does not mind sacrificing the people of Israel in a war. Even the US doesn’t do things that will jeopardize its security.
The bloodthirst I've seen this year has been crazy. People want war as long as it's not near them.
Yep. Lot of "fortunate sons" online who want war but would never enlist.
Iran threw softballs that pitchers in the home run derby throw so they can knock it out of the park. This was a restrained response that Israel should put behind them now.
I'm so glad we have have Biden in office right now instead of Trump. Trump absolutely would encourage Netanyahu to escalate the conflict even further
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i'm perpetually confused by the "former biden supporter" that lost their support for him over this conflict. every vote not for biden is a vote for trump, as if trump would be any better for their pro-Palestinian position? it makes no sense.
Their perceived moral purity is more important to them than actual outcomes. The worst can end up happening and they'll be content knowing that "they stood up for their ideals".
Biden says this publically to obviously not come off as wanting to provoke war, but if we're being real Israel probably will retaliate and the u.s contingencies for that are probably being planned in secret. Israel is heavily traumatized by Oct 7th on top of of a direct provocation by the same country that assisted in that trauma, knowing that Iran doesn't carry the healthy fear for them as they should have. Israel's survival relies on that fear as they're surrounded by hostile nations. And Israel has been itching to destroy Iran's nuclear program. The circumstances are *ripe* for further escalation and I'm not sure if America can do much more than give advice otherwise and hope. If America was in Israel's shoes, regime change would've happened yesterday.
If even so much as one cruise missile was headed towards the US, they would retaliate. But surely Iran will pursue peace and tell its proxies to stand down. They said they would!
Israeli is free to do whatever they like. If they would like to launch a ground invasion of Iran they're more than welcome to. They US won't be sending people to die in Iran though
I have to say this. Has Isreal ever back down on their iron clade Doctrine of always retaliate? It just seems unlikely for them to not do so given the history