Limited thought if anyone cares. All the Israeli news coverage I see treats Hezbollah as a much bigger threat than it is, like the war in Lebanon is vital for Israel's survival or something. Their total base is a couple million Lebanese shiites with a sub-replacement fertility rate and, without control of Syria anymore, curtailed ability to rearm. They are badly outnumbered by Sunnis who view them as heretics, and their desire to retain arms is less about war with Israel and more about wanting to protect their community from Sunnis/wanting political power within Lebanon, where they are otherwise the poorest group. They are not invading northern Israel any time soon. Their power really has crested and their continued existence does not justify eternal war in Lebanon.
I hate the precedent of Iran influencing Israel's options in Lebanon, but that war should end regardless. The big priority is making peace or at least stable non-aggression with new Syria, which the Israeli rightists have predictably flubbed.
I'm not sure if you're framing Bibi losing the election as a good or bad thing, but if his handling of the Gaza war and related adventures has been such a disaster then that should probably be a whitepill? I thought the point to esoteric Bibi-ism was to just lock in the post-Oslo status quo, which he clearly didn't stick to, on top of not providing any coherent answer for who was supposed to administer the Gaza Strip and pouring gasoline on the dumpster fire of Zoomer-Israeli relations.
(I'm kinda rooting for the world to switch to nuclear more than renewables, FWIW, but I guess that's fairly tangential.)
You seem to say the war arose from a military delusion. I think you are forgetting the rhetoric from the beginning of the war, where both US and Israel strongly implied that there was a high chance that Iran’s government would be toppled. Fox had Reza Pahlavi on and called him “Crown Prince.” It seems the delusion came from pundits and diasporoids who pushed policymakers to believe, without evidence, the Iranian regime is much more unpopular than it actually is. The average internet Iranian grew up in North Tehran and they think they know their country. Yet the continuous high rate of cousin marriage, the reliable surveys and polls showing low support for protests, and low IQ of the country do not change the prior that Iran is nearly as conservative as its stupid neighbors.
It doesn’t matter how many basij bases the IDF bombs. 10 years, and probably 20 years from now, the IRGC will still be intact.
I basically agree that shi'ism is the only thing that can hold the country together, and probably we should have spent the past 30 years boosting relatively moderate shi'ites instead of cucking them out and deluding ourselves with Iranian emigre cope.
Yes, and for this reason, supporting Ahmadinejad was the only smart part of the Iran plan. He seems to be only leader with populist appeal to the support base of the regime. He would obviously turn on the US and Israel eventually, like he did in real life, but all that matters is that he could dismantle the Islamic Republic beforehand.
Perhaps, on a more long term level it would probably be a good idea to fund Sunni missionaries to go there. Moving them from Birmingham and Berlin to Iran is a massive Pareto win for the world.
Limited thought if anyone cares. All the Israeli news coverage I see treats Hezbollah as a much bigger threat than it is, like the war in Lebanon is vital for Israel's survival or something. Their total base is a couple million Lebanese shiites with a sub-replacement fertility rate and, without control of Syria anymore, curtailed ability to rearm. They are badly outnumbered by Sunnis who view them as heretics, and their desire to retain arms is less about war with Israel and more about wanting to protect their community from Sunnis/wanting political power within Lebanon, where they are otherwise the poorest group. They are not invading northern Israel any time soon. Their power really has crested and their continued existence does not justify eternal war in Lebanon.
I hate the precedent of Iran influencing Israel's options in Lebanon, but that war should end regardless. The big priority is making peace or at least stable non-aggression with new Syria, which the Israeli rightists have predictably flubbed.
I'm not sure if you're framing Bibi losing the election as a good or bad thing, but if his handling of the Gaza war and related adventures has been such a disaster then that should probably be a whitepill? I thought the point to esoteric Bibi-ism was to just lock in the post-Oslo status quo, which he clearly didn't stick to, on top of not providing any coherent answer for who was supposed to administer the Gaza Strip and pouring gasoline on the dumpster fire of Zoomer-Israeli relations.
(I'm kinda rooting for the world to switch to nuclear more than renewables, FWIW, but I guess that's fairly tangential.)
You seem to say the war arose from a military delusion. I think you are forgetting the rhetoric from the beginning of the war, where both US and Israel strongly implied that there was a high chance that Iran’s government would be toppled. Fox had Reza Pahlavi on and called him “Crown Prince.” It seems the delusion came from pundits and diasporoids who pushed policymakers to believe, without evidence, the Iranian regime is much more unpopular than it actually is. The average internet Iranian grew up in North Tehran and they think they know their country. Yet the continuous high rate of cousin marriage, the reliable surveys and polls showing low support for protests, and low IQ of the country do not change the prior that Iran is nearly as conservative as its stupid neighbors.
It doesn’t matter how many basij bases the IDF bombs. 10 years, and probably 20 years from now, the IRGC will still be intact.
I basically agree that shi'ism is the only thing that can hold the country together, and probably we should have spent the past 30 years boosting relatively moderate shi'ites instead of cucking them out and deluding ourselves with Iranian emigre cope.
Yes, and for this reason, supporting Ahmadinejad was the only smart part of the Iran plan. He seems to be only leader with populist appeal to the support base of the regime. He would obviously turn on the US and Israel eventually, like he did in real life, but all that matters is that he could dismantle the Islamic Republic beforehand.
Perhaps, on a more long term level it would probably be a good idea to fund Sunni missionaries to go there. Moving them from Birmingham and Berlin to Iran is a massive Pareto win for the world.