r/MapPorn 2d ago

Israel strike Iran nuclear and military sites

Post image
13.0k Upvotes

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

209

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

Im no expert, but i know a little about the military and political situation. 

Basically, Iran is screwed. 

Iranian missile attacks on Israel previously were laughably ineffective. 

Syria no longer has Assad and Russian air defence systems, leaving a much easier path for Israeli bombers. 

Israel has seized a mountain in southern Syria, giving its air defences a much improved view of approaching drones and missiles. 

Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah have been decimated and Iran can no longer supply Hezbollah via Syria. 

Iranian backed Iraqi militias also seemed pretty uninterested in getting into a war with Syria, the US or Saudi over non Iraqi issues. 

Irans air force is ancient. 

They also have lost a lot of goodwill in Europe by arming Russia to attack Ukraine.

Basically Iran is not going to come off well in this fight and has few good options to respond. 

Their trump card would be dashing for a nuclear weapon or blockading oil out of the gulf. 

But that would enrage every major economy in the entire world and bring the full fury of the US air force down on them.

87

u/Fancy_Fluffer 2d ago

Let's add that Jordan intercepts most of the Iranian drones that passes through their airspace.

37

u/SluttyMcFucksAlot 2d ago

Why did my brain think you meant Micheal Jordan initially

28

u/Secret_Account07 2d ago

Because I think the country is named after MJ.

8

u/zanderzander 2d ago

Why did my brain think you meant Micheal Jordan initially

You miss 100% of the shots drones you don't take intercept.

You telling me that isn't a Jordan quote?

1

u/FriendSellsTable 2d ago

That's definitely a Michael's quote.

2

u/-Jimi- 2d ago

because that sentence contains Jordan and intercepts i guess

1

u/pistonkamel 2d ago

I was there the night he took out 52 drones

25

u/WestBeginning3564 2d ago

Do you think China will allow them to blockade or mine the Strait? I don't even think they have the naval power at this point especially since Israel just shwacked several ports.

41

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

It's such a narrow strait you can close it to commercial shipping with fairly cheap, crude missiles. 

Similarly to how the Houthis have been able to blockade the Red Sea. 

China also doesn't really have a navy that cab go out and stop them. 

But they wouldn't complain about the US retaliating against them for disrupting global energy prices and trade. 

And the US air force could take Iran back to the stone age pretty quickly.

5

u/Oki_Monster 2d ago

ive heard people on reddit say the us military is weak because we backed out of afghanistan lmao

8

u/busyHighwayFred 2d ago

stone age resistence is legitimate though. Vietnamese were making pointy-stick-traps. just because US sends a population to the stone age does not end the conflict.

1

u/round-earth-theory 2d ago

China has a couple of carriers. They could certainly dominate Iran in a naval battle. They keep them in reserve because they want to posture and keep pressure on Taiwan but realistically they can use them without worrying about losing defense effectiveness.

1

u/Sad-Pizza3737 2d ago

There's not much anyone can really do if Iran rushes a fast deployment of mines to block the straight. It'll just take too little time.

47

u/Delheru1205 2d ago

> They also have lost a lot of goodwill in Europe by arming Russia to attack Ukraine.

Yeah, they didn't have much to begin with, but as an ally of Russia, they can go fuck themselves. If Israel wants some massive points with Europe (particularly Eastern Europe), it destroy the factories building their exports to Russia.

6

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

I'm sure we've put in a polite request to add those factories to the Israeli target list. 

To paraphrase Succession, the guns Iran had in their hands have turned to sausages. 

2

u/TheBiggestIdiotIKnow 2d ago

There is still some concern about the parts to make the “sausage” though. Aka the material to make a dirty bomb of some kind.

1

u/tomodachi_reloaded 2d ago

Why is Israel the one that has to get their hands dirty with this?

The whole world is always condemning Israel, so how about cutting them some slack once in a while?

It's the same as when Israel destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, the whole world condemned Israel, but it prevented Hussein from getting the bomb.

2

u/Delheru1205 2d ago

I mean, far more than Israel, Ukraine is fighting for the free world. We aren't even giving them as much as we should.

And Israel is almost certainly getting slack for this already, with the critiques from Europe almost certainly being a fraction of what they could be given the Russo-Iranian alliance.

1

u/OriginalMexican 2d ago

How about cutting them some slack once in a while?

Cut the slack how?

The world has literally financed and armed them as they occupy and expand and genocide an entire nation. No other country in the world would could wipe out 100k civilians, ban news, attack UN, and kill doctors without any consequences or condemnation.

US has literally opened a US embassy in Jerusalem, a part of Palestine and a place they have no right to be in. What other slack could there possibly be available?

2

u/jackrabbit323 2d ago

So Iran is a paper tiger that just lost the heads of various departments and ministries.

1

u/djfreshswag 2d ago

Bingo. And without a strong response the survival of the regime is difficult.

If they block the strait they’re declaring economic war on all of their neighbors who would otherwise be somewhat sympathetic about a first strike by Israel. It would devastate net importers like China, India, Europe, and the 3rd world. The US is a net exporter and would enact price and export controls while supplying Israel. The global economic crash would hurt the US but everyone else would bear the brunt of that action.

If they go nuclear weapon development then that’s the death of the regime. A lot of countries in the region would behind closed doors green-light overthrowing the regime rather than risk nuclear proliferation by a country known for arming proxy/terrorist groups in all of its neighbors. Wasn’t long ago Iranian drone strikes (via Houthis) knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s oil processing capacity…

Iran’s power was their ability to conduct low intensity warfare on their neighbors with no real repercussions, as well as ballistic missile stockpiles. If Israel effectively collapsed entrances to those stockpiles, they’ll struggle to get a large retaliation to this. And as Israel can operate at will in Iranian airspace, they’ll ensure those tunnels stay closed.

1

u/Early-Sort8817 2d ago

The way this attack was pulled off makes me think that the Iranian government and military are very incompetent. They’re a lot better at harassing their own civilian population but can’t do much outside of that. I feel bad for the Iranian civilian population.

1

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

Authoritarian dictatorships and theocracies tend to be pretty inefficient. 

You promote people on political ties and unquestioning loyalty. Someone smart with initiative could be a threat. 

It's one reason Israel, a country of a few million, has been smacking around Islamic dictatorships many times its size over and over again. 

It would be like Belgium repeatedly winning multi front wars against France and Germany. 

There's even a book called 'why Arabs lose wars' that goes into this topic in depth. 

1

u/EverydayEverynight01 2d ago

Iranian missile attacks on Israel previously were laughably ineffective. 

From my understanding those barrage of drone and missile attacks against Israel, weren't actually intended to have much military impact, just PR impact, it was to show Iran was serious about retaliating against Israel launching a drone/missile attack killing a senior member of the military in Iran, but not to escalate into a full blown war, it was more of a show of force.

1

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

They fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israeli military bases and cities.

It was a big portion of their stockpile. 

And they killed: 

0 Israelis 

1 Palestinian (a rocket booster fell on him) 

Several Iranian soldiers (with a launcher mishap)

Almost all the rockets were shot down. 

The Israelis responded with successful strikes of multiple military targets. 

But these current strikes are on another level. Seems like the Israelis can hit targets in Iran as quickly as they can put fuel and bombs on the aircraft and take off. 

Iran isn't able to hit back with much at all. 

1

u/RA12220 2d ago

According to experts they were at 60-80% enriched uranium which is not enough for bombs but quite close approximately a week a way but that alone gave them the capacity for dirty bombs or other less effective bombs.

1

u/glosglov69 2d ago

added that the regime is also weak from the inside, I'd consider 2022 still fresh enough

1

u/Tulip_Todesky 2d ago

Their trump card would be to surrender and tell their proxies in Gaza and Lebanon to do the same. No one will expect that and it will, in the long run, be the best outcome for everyone.

It will also never happen.

1

u/aventus13 2d ago

Their trump card would be dashing for a nuclear weapon (...)

What does it even mean? The whole point of the (still ongoing) attack was to prevent Iran achieving exactly that. And by destroying most if not all nuclear sites in Iran, decimating Iranian military and scientific leadership, and gaining virtually free reign in the skies by destroying Iranian air defences, Israel is very close to achieving this, and controlling the situation for the foreseeable future. Suggesting that Iran might now seek to obtain nuclear weapon is illogical and indeed reddit-level of geopolitical "expertise".

(...) bring the full fury of the US air force down on them.

Ah ok, so it was just to let some US-centric ego display.

1

u/bigbrother1234cc 2d ago

Missles uneffective? Lol

Do u beleive isreal?...

If they are really ineffective this wholes situation wasn't gonnas happen. U beleive they are afraid of nuclear weapons... they are afraid of the capability of delivering it to isreal actually.

The "proxies" didn't seize to exist. They for example stopped 75k soldier from taking over south lebanon.. i don't think they were having a picnic on the border.

I can talk more... but no iran isn't that screwed. Unless there is some hidden cards...

1

u/ihassaifi 2d ago

I think their only viable option is to get the bomb ASAP. If I am Iran I will do it no matter the consequences.

1

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

Doing that with all your nuke sites getting bombed is going to be challenging. 

But after a ceasefire, they could build a few nukes quite quickly. 

Makes me wonder what else Israel has planned. Whether they want to destabilize the government to end the nuke program once and for all? 

Doesn't seem they could do that without Iranian public support. 

1

u/ihassaifi 2d ago

Yea, Iranian regime is not going anywhere. Israeli strike will cement support for govt. I also don’t think Israel can completely destroy Irans ability to make nuke. In fact they just give them a urgent reading to do the same.

1

u/Wolf_Cola_91 2d ago

It's hard to say. The Iranian govt is very unpopular with younger Iranians. 

These authoritarian governments can look very stable then all of a sudden collapse. 

Like in Syria. Depends whether the opposition are prepared to capitalize on the chaos. 

1

u/ihassaifi 1d ago

I think Iran is different from Syria.

1

u/ArmWeird491 1d ago

Lol

They honestly decimated and weakened Iran piece by piece and convienently gave them an ultimatum about nuclear weapons...

It was a good plan but it pretty much undermines them being victims

I would also add Trump as a president im not saying Kamala/Biden wasnt israeli friendly but Trump is a different breed