Not just their head of state, also his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild. Also multiple leaders from one chain of command across 3 layers.
That would be like killing Trump, Ivanka, Jared, their child, AND Vance, Mike Johnson, and McConnel all in a single night.
Iran has the chance of doing multiple funny things now!
Yeah, you’re just being ahistorical.
The US didn’t vote for apartheid. They were an apartheid regime run by minoritarian patriarchal white supremacists to start with. They were not governed by “the people”. Then, the property owning slave owning patriarchal white supremacists seceded from the monarchy and maintained the apartheid regime, the oppression of women, and the genocide of the inhabitants of the land.
NONE of that was democratic. None of that was put to vote. And even if it had been put to vote only the oppressors were allowed to vote.
Demos - the people
The people, the vast majority of people were oppressed and not participants in government.
You can argue semantics and say that because the land owning slave owning patriarchal white supremacists were voting among themselves on the best ways to commit genocide, mass murder, mass rape, mass torture, all for their own minority profits that this was a “democracy”. But, that’s not what the word means. Democracy isn’t voting. Democracy is self-governance of the people by the people.
America has never been that.
You do realize that an apartheid state literally is based on denying democracy to entire populations right? Sure white supremacists get to vote. That’s not a democracy. That’s rule by an occupying force.
Yeah, no. This is something you need to work through. Earnestly. I want you to read American history and understand how the country has never been a democracy.
Realize that the US was an apartheid regime until the 1960s. That’s 200 years of racial apartheid. You’re gonna call that a democracy?
If you think WW2 was the end of Democracy, and that was literally 20 years before the end of apartheid, your definition of democracy is white supremacist.
I think it actually might not be that straightforward. Venezuelan production is insufficient to address the impact on the oil trade caused by conflict with Iran.
Instead I think that the US is reliant on the oil from Guyana and Venezuela was displaying willingness and ability to interdict the oil production there, which the strategists probably saw as a risk in the scenario where Iran closed Hormuz.
I think we need to give them a break. They’re exhausted. Let’s see this as strategic retreat for now.
NBC and BBC both reporting this but they do not link to the source. So far I have not seen an Iranian source saying this.
That’s probably a subset of 2c. Israel sees the state of the grand chessboard and acts from a position of weakness, changing the state of play and requiring the US to act from a position of weakness.
But as always with us, Yog, I will caution that we should be actively seeking evidence to invalidate our hypotheses and current expectations so that we have a mor clear eyed picture of the ongoing processes.
This is one of the test points. In theory, the US should not have had sufficient time to replenish the entire stockpile of interceptors. So we have to make observations and connect them as evidence to various hypotheses.
If the stockpile of interceptors is shown to be sufficient, this means either a) the depletion during last year was a rope-a-dope ruse or b) the intelligence on Western production capacity is no longer (or was never) accurate, or c) I don’t know.
If the stockpile of interceptors runs out faster than in the 12-day war, then we know that the conflict was launched despite these defenses in place. This means either a) there is a new technology in play to neutralize Iranian missile waves, b) the West believes they have sufficient intelligence and capabilities to neutralize Iranian missile waves via blitzkrieg, c) something about the state of the grand chessboard is forcing their hand to act now from a position of weakness, or d) I don’t know
If it turns out the West is attacking from a position of strength, then we will need to assess where is that strength coming from? Is it:
a) superior intelligence, fire power, execution, positioning, timing, and strategy
b) covert infiltration of the Iranian military
c) commitments from Iranian’s neighbors, allies, and others to betray Iran when it is most vulnerable
d) wunderwaffe
e) infiltration and turning of various top Iranian political leaders to trade their survival for a larger Western goal
f) sufficient covert operations functioning within Iran to take destroy them from inside their own territory
g) something else
“been in various capacities” is doing a lot of work in this comment