Pre-match: The inevitable war with Iran

Apart from some top members, Hezbollah doesn't disclose its fatalities anymore but tracking funeral invitations gives gives an insight into, even if it's only partial. Based on those invitations, a further 75 Hezbollah fatalities have been documented between 1st-7th October with many experienced field commanders among them, likely casualties from fighting on the border.
Based on this, the IDF estimates of 440 dead from the ground incursion/raids look fairly credible, which means Hezbollah are taking heavy punishment.

 

I agree with every word, but the getting rid of the regime part...that's where it gets tricky.

 

Khamenei is 85 and has survived at least one bout of cancer. He won't be there for long.

And non-monarchical autocratic successions are especially difficult. Usually, the technocrats take over and open up, as happened in Spain after Franco and the regime isn't changed, it just fundamentally changes its behaviour.

By definition, hardliners have real problems with compromising and uniting around a single candidate tends to be challenging for them. The technocrats don't so they can play divide-and-rule for a change. They can certainly unite around one candidate.

Also, never underestimate a fanatic's desire for vengance on the fellow-fanatic who "betrayed" him. Things tend to get nasty in those circumstances. Once they do, fragmentation tends to happen.

 

The elected President of Iran is a reformist but obviously has no real power. If Iran is at war with Israel when Khamenei goes that situation will continue.

 

Iranian politics are so weird.

 

Soccer related.

Indian club Mohun Bagan Super Giant are out of the AFC second tier club competition after refusing to travel to Iran.

 

Sweet band name

 

If only the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was left alone, Iran would be a very different place.

Let's not forget one of the causes that led us here - Operation Ajax where the MI6 and CIA collaborated to organize the overthrow of Mossadegh’s government due to the nationalization of Iran's oil industry previously been controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was imposed on Iranians as the ruler of Iran and Western interests were prioritized over those of his own people.

Moral of the story, the west needs to get out of the business of destabilizing government who won't do what they are told

 

Over the regime's 44 years of history, that's been true. What's different now is the turnout rates in the first and second rounds; an astonishingly low 39.9% versus a half-decent 49.8%.

That 10% increase doesn't mean he has much of a base behind him, but he does have a message behind him: "we want change. We like his ideas. We hate yours." That's power, of a kind, especially with Pezekhian having frequently said he will resign if he feels he is not having any impact in reforming the country.

Whether he'll use it is another matter but his (appointed) Vice President for Strategic Affairs, former foreign minister Javad Zarif, did resign over cabinet appointments. He returned after a few weeks, suggesting that he got at least some concessions

BTW that 39.9% turnout doesn't tell the whole story. A remarkable 1.8% of the electorate went to the polls, not to vote, but to spoil their ballots instead so the effective turnout rate was just 38%.

Since the regime places great store in participation rates as source of legitimacy, there is a lot of pressure on civil servants, city hall employees, teachers, etc. to vote. The kind of pressure you don't say no to if you want to get promoted or even keep your job.

Regimes that don't have the active support of at least 30% of the population don't tend to last long because they can't man the police, the riot squads or even the army and the bureaucracy as a whole. Khamanei and his circle have to be very worried

 

That's ancient history at this point. The average Iranian doesn't care what happened decades ago.

 

By the late 1970s the Shah was hated by the vast majority of a population convinced their lives were a misery and that he was the cause of that.

By the late 2010s the vast majority of the population regarded the late 70s as the good old days.

By the mid 2030s the regime will have changed beyond recognition or collapsed.

 

FYP

 

That tells me you don't know any of them

 

Update for the P&CE Bibi Non-monitors - saw gas at $2.73 today. Yet ANOTHER Joe/Kamala win. Woot-woot! Stay way from those pipelines & terminals, Bibi. Concentrate on residential neighborhoods as you have been.

 

Tbh the Shah didn't want to be there.

I think the people blamed the UK and US for everything bad and the Shah was the CIA's puppet.

The revolution wasn't really religious in nature. The fundamentalists usurped it.

 

Yes, the fundamentalists understood, intuitively or otherwise, Lenin's formula of power being the result of mass multiplied by cohesion. The fundamentalists were less cohesive than the leftist factions but had much more support and unified quickly, while the moderates were all over the shop in messaging.

Put a unifying figure like Khomeini - a charismatic figurehead and a ruthless organizer - at the top of the fundamentalist pyramid nobody could have stopped them seizing power.

Keeping it would have been another matter, until Saddam decided he would take Nasser's place as the Arab world's great white hope.

 

Hi all. Been a long time I know.

how about no war with Iran. But whatever happened to those stealth fighters they were building?

 

In 2023 the Iranian government decided that putting men in them wasn't a great idea.

 

I already made fun of him for that

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-inevitable-war-with-iran.2104600/page-96#post-41957281

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-inevitable-war-with-iran.2104600/page-96#post-41957327

There is no egg on his face!

We are all stupid it was always a drone

 

Well, for the first time I read in the press what I've been posting for some time, that given the time elapsed since Pakistan started the path to fabricating a bomb and Iran's response to that threat it would be unlikely they don't have one.
According to the IAEA Iran in "theory" has enough enriched material for 4 bombs.
According to American intelligence Iran is close to manufacturing a bomb.

 

Don't always agree with Tom Friedman obviously. But

Hey - wasn't there some kinda nuc-u-lar deal that was working?

 

Let me get this straight...

Western leaders next stupid idea is to have a puppet monarchist who profited from the overthrowing of the previous democratic elected government to lead a transition towards a democratic government...

Wow... you just can't make this shit up. The next Juan Guido, how's that working so far?

 

Well, well, well. The whereabouts of Esmail Qaani, the man who replaced Qassim Soleimani as commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force (a mix of the CIA and JSOC), has been much speculated on since he disappeared from view on the 3rd.

He's now reported to be alive but under interrogation as part of the IRGC's investigation of how Israel was able to locate and kill Hezbollah's senior leadership. There is some speculation that he's in hospital after suffering a heart attack, which is not at all uncommon among IRGC suspects.

Hezbollah are reportedly convinced that the security breach is "100 percent Iranian" and the Iranians seem to share that belief, particularly about Israeli moles among the IRGC personnel working in Lebanon. The focus is on those who were aware of the movements of Brig. General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was killed alongside Nasrallah.

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You gotta remove the [. quote. ] stuff at the beginning and end![/quote]