Iran has generally been an active and persistant threat for many US firms long before this war began, and I have a hard time thinking they have had the restraint and the resources to collect together an arsenal of zero-day exploits they have yet to unleash. To me, this just reads as empty threats intended more for the potential economic fear it can produce.
Well maybe it partially held back / restrained for the sake of self preservation. It is gloves off now.
It's only pointless as long as you ignore their legitimate attempts of building nukes. If you don't want them to have nukes, then military action is the only way to stop them unfortunately. Because if/once they do get a nuke, it'll be impossible to stop them after that, and they'll hold the entire middle east hostage, so might as well do everything you can to prevent that before it happens, now that Russia is too busy to lend them a hand.
>Iran has generally been an active and persistant threat for many US firms long before this war began
I doubt this. Iran's leadership, like any dictatorship, just wants to be left alone to subjugate its people and enjoy the masses of wealth and power they have. When you're in such a privileged but fragile position, you don't go around poking the hornet's nest looking to start a fight with the biggest military in the world, because it would mean your end.
But Iran will probably retaliate now that they got attacked. OR, it will be a false flag to justify boots on the ground. IDK.
Israel, like the US, needs to be in a permanent state of war to keep the ball moving
Remember STUXNET? Have you thought for a second that maybe if their centrifuges and nuclear facilities weren't constantly attacked and sabotaged by US and Israel every step of the way for the past few decades, plus having their top nuclear scientists assassinated every now and then, they could have had nukes a long time ago when those warnings were issued without those constant roadblocks setting them back?
The moment IR gets nukes, Saudis and all the other countries around them will get nukes as well.
I don’t understand why everyone is so hell bent on not preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. We have enough of this crap already, and the last thing we need is more nukes.
If Iran was on the path to developing nukes, the correct path here was to:
1. Show the evidence to congress, and declare war legally based on the facts.
2. Get international buy-in, and work with our allies (all of whom would very much like to prevent Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon).
This was a hastily started war with flimsy goals and seemingly no real urgency. And one of the first things we did as part of our attack was to bomb an elementary school, killing hundreds of children.
Critics of this war aren't "hell bent on not preventing the spread of nuclear weapons". We're mostly looking at the situation, and thinking "this is not great".
Obama had a perfectly good deal in place with Iran before Trump fucked it all up. Military action was not the only way to stop them.
What makes you think the Iranian regime is trustworthy to actually respect that deal and not just continue building nukes on the side while using diplomacy to string everyone along that they aren't?
You know who else had a deal? Ukraine. Did that deal stop them from being attacked by Russia? Can you stop a military invasion by waving the piece of paper with the deal in the enemy's face? Because that's why nukes are the best insurance policy over deals and why Iran desperately wants them.
How can people be so gullible to blindly trust Iran's word thinking a deal means anything?
I don't think anyone believes the Iranian regime has ever been trustworthy. Probably why part of Obama's deal included inspections, surveillance, and monitoring.
Ukraine's deal was vague promises with vague consequences, which of course materialized into zero ability to stop a land invasion.
The Iranian deal before its destruction was very much concerned with safeguarding against any attempt to "potentially circumvent" and gave auditors alot of freedom to investigate without obstruction.
Your partisan posting in regards to the notion of the war being pointless indicate that you're coming more from a place of emotion than logic. I can empathize, but strongly caution that its important we discuss the facts of arguments rather than gesturing that all but you fail to see the light.
The nuclear capacity we bombed “very successfully” months ago?
Like Israel?
Interesting way to describe the government the people of Gaza.
If Palestinians launch the rockets from Gaza to Israel, why should Israel to continue their trade with them? This is counterintuitive.
So ... that is why they only cared about themself and did not involve with Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, ..
Taunting someone else on the ice is a bad idea.
As is giving anyone reason to want you to plunge to your icy death, rather than to merely fall gently on your butt.
Iran can clearly barely defend itself. The idea they will suddenly pull off something meaningful now strains credulity.
They were always hacking all the time.
The reason why I call it empty threats is because it accomplishes its goal no matter the outcome. If a sympathetic lone operator uses this as an excuse to start shooting, they can claim the credit. But if all it does is stoke fear that "Something somewhere might happen" then it's still a win for them.
I'm curious what you're basing this on, since Iran has been supplying Russia with drones, etc. for much of the war in Ukraine and so far has launched attacks into Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Cyprus since the US began its attacks.
Iran may not be able to strike at sites in the US, but it could certainly target data centers in the Middle East with some hope of success. I'm not at all confident the current administration has accurately assessed Iran's capabilities or has the ability to protect the assets of US-based companies (or US citizens) in that region.
Either way the target is tempting. Japan attempted it using the technology of their time which was entirely unguided. Today drones are precision instruments vs random dart balloon bombs.
The semi-official IRGC account warns of attacks on offices and infrastructure of US & Israeli firms in the ME with drones and missiles, not zero-days.
The other reason this is relevant is because it might lead one to reasonably conclude Iranian options for retaliation have already been exhausted.
If they have some capability in reserve what are they waiting for?
We overthrew their democratically elected government to install the Shah as a puppet dictator because the British goaded us into it by hand-waving about "communism" after Iran nationalized their own oil reserves from the Anglo-Iranian Company (which became BP). What followed was a brutal era of repression where American companies took a slice of oil revenue.
Once this became untenable, another of our puppets, Saddam Hussein, ejected the future Ayatollah Khomenei from Iraq in 1978. Why? Because we wanted the religious fundamentalists to win instead of the communists, which might bring Iran into the Soviet sphere of influence.
we then propped up a decade of war with Iraq by supplying Iraq with weapons. More than a million people died.
Iran has weathered decades of sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "we're going to starve you and deny your citizens basic medical care". The death toll for this is also likely in the millions.
We've let our rabid attack dog in the region, Israel, bomb Iranian consulates (eg Damascus), assassinate scientists, diplomators and negotiators, bomb them with impunity and otherwise commit regular war crimes.
We've gone to war for no other reason than Israel wants Iran to be a fail-state because it threatens the Greater Israel project [1]. It's clear that there was no military planning in any of this or, more likely, military planners probably said "this is a bad idea, we can't win" and they were ignored.
Iran continued complying with the JCPOA for at least a year after Trump cancelled it at the behest of Sheldon Adelson [2].
All of this while Saudi Arabia, our "ally", provided material suport to the 9/11 hijackers [3]. Our attack dog spies on us. A lot eg Jonathon Pollard [4]. And Jeffrey Epstein was almost certainly a Mossad access asset that compromised every level of our government, our companies and our educational institutions.
We are the bad guys here and I hope one day Iran gets some justice for the harm we've inflicted upon it.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel
[2]: https://fpif.org/these-three-billionaires-paved-way-for-trum...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Saudi_role_in_the_Sept...
If they could do it, they would do it first and brag about it after.
And I say this as someone on team Persia on this conflict.
Like damn, between reduced work-weeks and the prospect of wrecking our government-entwined spyvertising parasites, maybe the war was a good idea...
Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious example [1][2].
I believe that in the very least these companies have risen to the level of defense contractors so Palantir is at least as valid of a target as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Boeing. Is that sufficiently valid? I don't know.
But I don't think you can plead ignorance about what your tech platform is being used for, particularly if you're Palantir. You are helping a military force kill people and are deciding which people. You can't wash your hands of that.
[1]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
[2]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
That definition actually isn't traditional, it's recent and was created due to what was seen in both the World Wars last century. Fire bombing Dresden? Not a legitimate military target by modern definitions (parts of Dresden perhaps, but not the way the attack was conducted). The rockets fired at the UK by the Germans almost blindly? Not legitimate by today's standard.
Prior to the Geneva Convention, there was much less debate about legitimacy, it was just done.
Everything that hurts the only thing the orange retard cares about, the stock market, they've been pretty clear about it I think
Like if you take over a control system to open a dam, sure i'd buy that as counting. But say ddos'ing a website? Its hard for me to picture that as counting as an armed attack.
> Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious example
The idea of having private companies form part of your defense industrial base isn't new. I would assume the same rules apply to tech companies contributing as a factory making dual use products for the war effort would.
After all, they already bombed an AWS data center in 2 countries who were not participating in the war.
That sounds like a poor strategy. Expend all of your resources in one grand gesture rather than trying to push your enemy's internal factions to curtail or end the fighting?
Unlike the current US administration, Iran is playing a long game - one in which it has been isolated in many ways. Indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets is not going to win it many friends; putting pressure on the tech companies that have been buddying up to the administration and may have some sway, on the other hand, is a cheap strategy that could pay off. Iran understands that the only language that seems to matter with Trump's backers is profit; threaten that and you may have some success.
The fact that Iran has already done some damage to AWS data centers makes it seem likely they could do so again if they tried. I don't know for certain, I'm not a military intelligence expert, but the strategy of "throw the kitchen sink at it" seems like a sure loser.
Not surprisingly, pretty much every company mentioned in this article is on that list.
tim-tday•1h ago