Discussion

Iran launched unsuccessful attack on Diego Garcia, it is understood

mikeyouse: Unfortunately this is more interesting than a failed Diego Garcia attack — the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out. By using IRBMs in this fashion, it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction..Which is notable since it’s about the same distance from Southern Iran to Diego Garcia (3,800km) as it is from Northern Iran to London.

carbocation: The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding:* I think this is the longest-range use of a ballistic missile in anger, possibly ever?* This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe?

alephnerd: Yep. Hence why I posted it.> previously-unknownIt was implied by Iran's space program.There's a reason most regional powers also invested in a space program as well as a civilian uncles program. The name of the game is dual-use technologies.

madaxe_again: Iran have boats.

mytailorisrich: Iran has always said a lot of things (mostly BS). This is worthless without evidence and I don't think anyone had evidence that their missiles were restricted to 2,000km, amd I don't think anyone took their word for it. In fact this attack proves that they were not (although it is unclear to me if the missiles fired could actually jave reached Diego Garcia).

myth_drannon: Had

spiderfarmer: Don’t believe Hegseths obvious buffoonery. They still have boats.

greesil: Excellent point. Maybe it's the goal of this attack to demonstrate this capability.

AndrewKemendo: Diego Garcia is strategically very important to global security according to the USHad something actually struck within the ADIZ there would have been massive implications. My guess is they intentionally failed as a warning shot.This isn’t a random act and its quite the signal if you know what it means, Iran knows what it did here.

fnordpiglet: They’ve been preparing for this day for 5 decades, and I wouldn’t believe this administrations propaganda if they claimed the sky was blue.

maratc: They had a religious ruling on the range, and they also had a religious ruling on "not creating an atomic bomb."The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas is still standing, as these rulings can apparently be changed or bypassed.

cardanome: Maybe don't murder the religious leader that made the rulings.Can anyone blame them for considering developing nuclear weapons for real now? I can't.

georgeburdell: The fact that it was unsuccessful does not make it any less worrying. Iran was a regional problem before the war, but this new escalation shows they’re a threat to the entire world. They might have previously had a chance at a Vietnam or perhaps a Korea-style stalemate

brabel: How convenient for Trump that now all Europe now has a pretext to send the help they were asked for.

fidotron: The whole point of that noise is to put NATO + Japanese military in the Straits of Hormuz so that Israel and the US can continue to attack Iran with impugnity. Any effort by Iran to shut the Straits in response to further attacks will hit some "innocent" party and drag them into the conflict.It's basically bait for WW3, and luckily so far the EU particularly are not biting.

Rebelgecko: If you're already at war, why waste resources on warning shots?

throwaway27448: > The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some AyatollasI don't think much of the world has processed that Iran's ostensible lack of nuclear weapons is purely a matter of will and not capability.

noir_lord: Would the Americans and Isreali’s start bombing mainland Iran and takin out their weapons and oil/gas infrastructure as retaliation?.

visuhire: I was reading that one of the two failed en route, and the other was intercepted. I don't think this was an intentional failure to hit.

AndrewKemendo: Sometimes getting shot down is the goal or at least a test to see what kind of response you’ll get

roughly: Iran did the same before the conflict in response to prior Israeli attacks - the two drone waves they sent that were intercepted were both demonstrations of capability, not actual attacks.Unfortunately I’m not sure their current audience is gonna pick up the implied threat.

NooneAtAll3: considering that there were already provocations about "unsuccessful attacks on Turkey", I have doubts that this attack was also Iran'sthe "notable distance/unexpectedly high range" quoted everywhere seems like a nice war justification: "see, they do have rockets that can threaten us!"

cardanome: Iran is fighting for survival, Israel and the US are fighting by choice.They attacked Iran not the other way round. US bases, even if also used by UK which aides US it their war, are legitimate targets.US imperialism is the greatest threat to the world.

anvuong: The IRGC is fighting for survival, most Iranian want them gone, and Iran will be better as a whole if the IRGC is all dead. Don't try to conflate the government with the country, they don't always align.

spaghetdefects: Most Iranians do not want the IRGC gone, that's US/Israeli propaganda. Thousands of people have been marching in support of the IRGC. Common sense would also tell you that Iranians aren't going to support the people bombing their schools.

derektank: Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries.This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.

zer00eyz: The question is do they have a launcher that fits in a shipping container...

verdverm: Large surface and mini subs, yes. They still have many small boats for laying mines. These are indistinguishable from a typical motor boat.Look at how Ukraine has denied Russia access to most of the Black Sea. It's going to be real hard to stop Iran from creating enough uncertainty to ease the worries of the shipping world. Iran will have to say they are done threatening the straight.

irishcoffee: The haven’t even started using these yet, curious who wins this game of chess: https://www.usff.navy.mil/press-room/news-stories/article/31...

nozzlegear: We're losing the plot here. What use are small motor boats for launching ballistic missiles?

applfanboysbgon: You didn't have to take their word for it. It was self-evident from the fact they never did anything like this before, and now they are.Notably, the previous guy issued a religious decree against the development of nuclear weapons. Despite American's favorite propaganda tool for manufacturing consent, "but the WMDs", we have no reason to believe that was ever actually being violated. But you'd better believe it will be now if they think they can pull it off.

alephnerd: > This isn’t a random act and its quite the signal if you know what it means, Iran knows what it did here.It also publicizes Iran-NK military cooperation on ballistics missles development, which the Biden admin warned about [0], as well as Iran-Russia military cooperation (which was obviously much less under-the-radar).It also shows the merger of the Ukraine conflict with the West Asia conflict, and was a major reason why Fiona Hill argued we entered an unavoidable polycrisis in 2022 [1].[0] - https://www.janes.com/osint-insights/defence-news/us-officia...[1] - https://xcancel.com/FrankRGardner/status/2027098560647348410...

cardanome: Accusing Iran of "lashing out" and being "reckless" by attacking US bases while the US and Israel literally murder school children, bomb hospitals and assassinate state leaders is rich.It didn't have to be this way but they decided this to turn into a fight of survival for Iran and destroy any option for a peaceful resolution. Now they are going to pay the price.

10xDev: Can we just leave countries alone, like we do with North Korea?

AndrewKemendo: The reason people leave North Korea alone is because they have nuclear weapon(s)

10xDev: So we can only reach stalemate once a country has nukes?

gizajob: There’s only so many decades you can say “death to America, death to Israel” and fund proxies against them until they say enough is enough and deal with the baiting once and for all.

cardanome: Or maybe you could ask yourself why people chant this. Maybe people don't fancy your mass murder of their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Maybe Iran didn't appreciate the US supporting Saddam Hussein to fight a war against Iran where he used chemical weapons against the population.The might be a reason the whole region hates Israel and the US. Just saying.

breppp: > On the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattenedIran have been attacking uninvolved NATO member Turkey for a while now and nothing happens. The USA is already fully engaged into this war while Europe can hardly deal together with Russia, it is doubtful they'd do anything even if it rained down on their territory

hebelehubele: Hey, they can always issue some sternly worded statements! That'll show'em.

tptacek: This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example).More importantly, it's pretty clear that the geopolitical rulings are, well, geopolitical in nature. Iran is a nuclear threshold state; its strategy is to come as close to the breakout line as it can and extract concessions for not crossing it. The supposed nuclear fatwa is just public relations strategy. At the point Iran decided the cost/benefit/risk/reward of crossing the threshold made sense, it would be updated.

rayiner: Your in-depth knowledge of completely random things never ceases to amaze me.

tptacek: I'm Catholic and Twelver Shiism is the closest thing Islam has to Catholicism. It's a really neat system.

thaumasiotes: > But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?)Wikipedia has romanized: [singular] marji'; plural marāji'.

rayiner: Do the missiles Iran has been raining down on other countries for decades not count as WMDs?

oa335: No.“ A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people”https://www.dhs.gov/topics/weapons-mass-destruction.

gizajob: I can’t be an apologist for what’s going on but the Iranians seemed capable of killing tens of thousands of their own citizens in order to quash an uprising against the regime only weeks before the current events.

cardanome: Thousands, not tens of thousands. Which is bad enough so it seems silly to lie about this but whoever can make up the biggest number seems to favored by the Western narrative.And lots not act like the decades of sanction were not designed to do exactly this. Sanction mean you create as much hardships as possible for the people in hope they topple their government. They nearly never work but here we are.> Contrary to popular belief, economic sanctions are ineffective in fulfilling their objectives. Historical observations from Russia to Cuba and Iran reveal that the more sanctions are designed to pressure the ruling class, the harder ordinary citizens are hit. Leaders often perceive sanctions as a means to enhance nationalism, portraying the United States and its allies as hostile. In many instances, such actions have only strengthened their hold on power while stifling dissent internally.https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yljdgwppzoAs for the protests, the truth is also that these were not peaceful protests. Mossads agents had been arming people and instructing them to riot. Hundreds of police offers have been murdered and mosques have been burned down. Mossad agents have been instructed to fire at protestors to increase the death toll.Yes, there has been valid criticism and unhappiness with the government. But most of these people had been protesting for economic reasons. They didn't want to see their country invaded.Today many of the people that had protested in January are joining the mass demonstrations in favor of the Islamic Republic. The war has united the Iranians.

mda: Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.

mytailorisrich: I wrote "flatten", not "invade".

jl6: No. There’s a definition from the UN here if you’re interested:https://unterm.un.org/unterm2/en/view/UNHQ/9626F6CEB2A92C9B8...

gambutin: Iranian kids have been chanting death to Israel and death to USA for 47 years now. They’ve been waiting for this.

mda: Attacking as in a couple of rockets heading US bases which were intercepted. Of course nothing would happen, why would Turkey (or other European countries) join this pointless war?

AndrewKemendo: According to postwar foreign policy clearly that’s true:Look at Libya and Ukraine for your most direct examples - give away your nukes, get invaded. South Africa is an odd example that proves the rule: they simply bend the knee to the west.Nuclear deterrents and mutual assured destruction has been the key driver in preventing large scale conflict in the “postwar period.”Everyone knows Israel has nukes it’s just a matter of when they can get enough public support to use them

swat535: This is simply not true. I'm Iranian and I wish it were but IRGC has more support than you think. There is at least 30-40% of the population who support it and within those, more than half will gladly die for the regime.My home country has more than 90M people and 40% of that equates for millions of supporters.From the outside, you are only hearing the diaspora talking points, which don't realistically represent Iran. Many of them have grievances with the regime, or have been exiled after the Shah.Iran is a complex country and it's hard for outsiders to grasp it, mainly because the censorship happening on both sides.I personally think this war was a major mistake, no Iranian is going to cheer for US or Israel after watching their children being killed by them. The west was doing a good job exporting liberal ideas to Iran slowly over the past 3 decades. Some of those were starting to drip into the country, but this war undid all that effort.

netsharc: Unfortunately it's we who will pay the price, with "we" being the entire world, considering the destruction of a lot of oil production infrastructure will cause a price hike for everything.

cardanome: Well China is still getting Iranian oil no problem.We in the West, well we are aiding the US in this war by allowing it to operate from military bases in our countries. We deserve it for looking the other way while Israel has been mass murdering Palestinians for more than two years now.At least Spain showed some guts.Of course it will also potentially cause suffering in the global south but that is on those that started the war.

AnotherGoodName: > This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of EuropeTrue but they have also literally launched multiple orbital satellites from iran on iranian rockets. Eg. The Noor 2 spy satellite and before that the Noor 1 series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_2_(satellite)These are in orbit to this day. They regularly post images it takes of US military bases. Essentially it’s similar to how sputnik was a demonstration of icbm capability. Iran can launch a first generation ICBM right now. Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily) and a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted) and so these aren’t used militarily but essentially everyone acting shocked they can hit 4000km range was not paying attention.I think one of the problems we are having right now is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities. It’s one thing for the common civilian to think the enemies missiles are made of cardboard and tanks of paper but it’s another when the leader of a nation believes it. Now here we are with a war that’s stalemated and no way out.

breppp: > Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily)Iran's missiles are used as a terror weapon against civilian population, which is hardly what anyone would consider the optimal use of a rather expensive ballistic missile.No reason (apart for already proven suicidal tendencies) not to fire one on New York just for the terror value

throw310822: > Iran's missiles are used as a terror weapon against civilian populationClassic. An advanced tech US missile hits a school and kills 200 schoolgirls? "A tragic mistake, it happens in war". A much less advanced Iranian rocket hits a building? "Terrorists! They point their weapons at civilians!"Since Iran was attacked and it has a right to defend itself, we should give it more precise weapons so it can hit directly the military headquarters in central Tel Aviv.

einszwei: Your comment made me realise that while Iran has attacked a dozen countries, they have yet to attack a school or a hospital.Not condoning anyone but shows the priority of both sides.

cardanome: Well some civilians have been injured when Iran attacked the hotels where US agents were stationed. Mostly due to them being foreign workers and well we all know how Dubai and the Saudis treat foreign workers. They were not allowed evacuate in time.Of course it will be hard to completely avoid civilian casualties in the long run, I fear but yeah Iran has been pretty measured. Iran's fight is with the US imperialists and Israel and not the people that live in the region.

bdangubic: that would be stupid and their regime is not stupid

jopsen: Do you think launching a dumb ICBM at New York would make the US put boots on the ground.I kind of doubt it's enough. This wouldn't be another 9/11, it would be merely be retaliation.

kortilla: It already looks like the US is sending marines over. Any excuse to make it more politically palatable would be latched onto.

breppp: Hardly, after attacking all their friends in the region, which would leave them even more isolated after the war, I would not attribute careful strategic planning either

watwut: They were not mutual friends. They were mutually hostile.And the friends are hosting american soldiers and bases.

kortilla: Intent is literally the difference in terrorism though. The US hitting 500 targets in Iran and one of them being a school is the exact opposite of a strategy of terrorism. With terrorism you explicitly target civilians to drive fear.Trying to hit the Burj Khalifa without targeting any military or high political office is terrorism.When Iran launched at military bases or tried to shoot at planes, it was not called terrorism.

arbuge: They did however murder thousands of protesters in their own streets in January, and who knows how much more dissidents over the years.This one was just this week: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-execution-teen-wrestler-ja...So there's that.

cjbgkagh: “Better to be feared than loved” - Niccolo Machiavelli

alephnerd: > is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilitiesWe've been hinting about these capabilities for decades [0]. A lot of what is being brought up now is stuff a number of us touched on during the Obama years.None of this is really hidden either - it would be brought up in think tanks and even undergrad classes if you attended a target program.Civilian leaders have always had a hands-off approach to Defense and NatSec policy - once you show them how close to a polycrisis everything is they quickly defer responsibility. It's actually pretty similar to working in a corporate environment - it's all about managing upwards.[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...

jopsen: > it's all about managing upwardsThat might not work with the current administration. Which probably a/the problem.

dragonelite: It's a message toward the west don't think you're safe further away. Iran is pushing the west out of west Asia. Time will tell what USIS and EU will do to combat this.

ignoramous: [delayed]

zabzonk: > a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted)Intercepted? In the UK, by what? London has no missile defence system that I am aware of.

kenhwang: Probably by the Sea Viper system from a destroyer parked in the Dover Strait. Now, the UK probably doesn't have enough interceptors or destroyers carrying them to be confident they'll be able to stop a proper all out attack, but that seem to be a common problem with every Western country right now with a peacetime military budget.

picture: How do you know their intentions?It's also a bit unreasonable to launch live munitions that have some 90% probability of being intercepted by a given system on a good day, while intending for "just a warning"

AndrewKemendo: It’s more like if David and Goliath are in a standoffDavid takes a small rock and whips it at a sensitive spot on Goliath’s ankles that most people don’t know about (Diego Garcia)David knows Goliath will probably dodge it, and most likely kick it away given it’s importance, but there’s a point being made by shooting: if it hits then that’s a win, but if gets knocked down it’s a warning that they know where they need to hit for it to hurt

srean: I doubt whether the missile had sufficient range/fuel. More like a warning shot.

tonyedgecombe: I don't know but I can certainly blame them for oppressing and murdering their own citizens.

watwut: But that has nothing to do with this war. Like, nothing at all. Israel doing genocode in gaza and what seems like ethnical cleansing of lebanon does not have anyyhing with that either. USA threatening Greenland is also not a factor in this war.Donald Trump does not care about protesters in Iran. His idea of regime change is "keep the regime and change head for someone who will pay me personally".And Hegseth does not care either. He is proving his manhood.And Israel have completely different goals, so.It is not like Saudi were democrats. They have cut that journalist into pieces. They are violent dictatorship on their own right.

breppp: After being caught developing nuclear weapons for real numerous times, now it is really for real?

pepperoni_pizza: Were they caught by the same people who found WMDs in Iraq by any chance?

breppp: the IAEA, presumably you trust UN agencies?in any case, these are the mythical WMDs found in Iraq:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee...https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have...

pepperoni_pizza: > the IAEA, presumably you trust UN agencies?Oh we trust them no? Because you do sound like someone who would tell me the UN is controlled by Hamas.edit: looking at post history, you only comment political Israel-related content on HN. I don't think this interaction is going to go anywhere.

maratc: You should educate yourself better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing

w10-1: Strategically, it makes no sense to corner and threaten people. Murdering their own citizens shows the degree to which they'll go to preserve their power. If anything, that's a reason to slowly bleed them instead of cornering and escalating.The evil of your enemy does not excuse your own strategic stupidity or cruelty.

dastuer: Have you protested when they killed 40,000 unarmed civilians in early January?