Israel Launches strike against Irans Nuclear Programme

hmm, me thinks Israelis are a helluva lot more resourceful and resilient… remember, when Irish folks get a few inches a snow, our supermarkets are bled dry of jacks’ roll and Brennans!

If Iran wants to close the straits or mess with oil supplies, okay but they would be cutting off the nose to spite the face in terms of their own crucial oil exports, not to mention direct neighbours and bigger players like China

If they rile up stuff with e.g. their militias in Iraq - okay, but they'll face kick-back for taking out Israel strikes on Iraq who had nothing to do with it. Smashing up their own backyard will only earn them even more enemies in the region

If they e.g. strike US assets in the region - with Trump in power they might get away with some optical minimized strikes but not much more than that

They have some options but I'm not seeing any good options for them. They've painted themselves into a corner with an over reliance on proxies to do their dirty work and are now paying the price for that.

Reuters

The US believes Iran could carry out retaliatory attacks targeting American forces in the Middle East soon, two US officials have told Reuters.

One of the officials said the attack could happen within the next day or two.

But the sources also told Reuters that Washington was looking for a diplomatic resolution.

You might be very surprised soon enough. Bibi has got himself into a war off attrition which is the last thing he wants, within a fortnight he will be seeking a deal but he will be offered one he can't possibly accept.

Israel's society won't be able to handle 6 months of conflict and hardship against a country with a ten times bigger population and a 70 times bigger area.

Measured strikes and proxy attacks.

Like after the Soleimani assassination. These are "light" strikes mainly used as projections.

The US is expecting some of these after Fordow, and I'm sure a certain "level" of them will be tolerated after some political bluster. However the key point is that the Iranians can't do anything significant.

Plus, due to the intensity of the current conflict, any such strikes in the near future will be under the microscope - and could risk riling up Trump.

It's all just a dance and the Iranians have limited options. None of which will realistically stop Israel from bombing them and several of which could have the opposite effect (and draw more inclusion from Trump)

Yes. The rule based order is essentially - do as we say not as we do. It's a blunt instrument of US foreign policy used to get their way. The people who defend it know it's all bs, but I reluctantly have to agree with them the government here has to go along with the pretense because we are utterly dependent on the US. If the Government did start criticising the US Government it could have a disastrous impact on our economy. In that scenario people's convictions will be tested if there pockets start to become lighter. It's sickening and kind of depressing because what example is being set to children by all this. We don't condemn something based on any principle but rather who is doing it - if it's terrorism by the good guys, well that's fine and dandy

Give it time. Remember, this reaction by Israel was years in the making.

Again it doesn't look like Iran can do anything significant, but they most certainly will do something.

That said, Israeli jets are freely flying over the country right now able to hit pretty much anywhere - and most of the upper echelons of high ranking heads of Iranian military are probably more worried about themselves and their families being eviserated by a suicide drone at 3am in the morning than they are about striking back right now.

They can only do something that doesn't draw America in to direct conflict otherwise they are done. They know that.

They appear very limited in what they can do to Israel now with Hezbollah and Hamas neutered as well and their missiles are just too costly for what they can hit by way of a major strike.

They can, however, reasonably cheaply continue to cost Israel's economy vast sums of money every day with judicious use of what's left of their missile stockpiles even if not scoring major strikes. Israel's defence systems are grotesquely expensive per interceptor and so long as the threat goes on their economy is crippled to all intents and purposes.

Strategically that seems like the best option for the regime at least to me while they get in to negotiation with the Trump admin.

I've no doubt when composing your post there was a relevant point you were trying to make, alas it never made it!

You mean tens of thousands of people chanting death to Israel and death to America continually on the news over decades, but sure your anecdotes are a better barometer of the publics opinions.

Have you travelled through Iran? Because I have and met with friends families there, it's a country of 90+ million people. Of course the regime has it's ardent supporters, just as we see MAGA in the US. Doesn't mean the entire nation is like that.

Qatar shuts it's airspace and multiple airlines now cancelling flights to the Gulf