Renamed - THE Israel-Iran war thread.

[The Original Happy Goat]

Paywall.

Short version:

Neither the US nor Israeli had any new intelligence that Iran had resumed work on actually making a bomb.

However, they were concerned that Iran had produced enough uranium that if they did decide to make a bomb, the process could be expedited.

Ultimately the timing of the decision to attack was one of opportunity: Iran was exceptionally weak, and Israel was never going to have a better chance to do maximum damage to the program.

Israel decided to attack regardless of whether or not the US joined them.

 

[Spartans9312]

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

View embedded media

Why wouldn't they? Nothing shocking about that.

 

[SqueakyClean]

Short version:

Neither the US nor Israeli had any new intelligence that Iran had resumed work on actually making a bomb.

However, they were concerned that Iran had produced enough uranium that if they did decide to make a bomb, the process could be expedited.

Ultimately the timing of the decision to attack was one of opportunity: Iran was exceptionally weak, and Israel was never going to have a better chance to do maximum damage to the program.

Israel decided to attack regardless of whether or not the US joined them.

If true (which I take with a massive grain of salt), that would be pretty damning to the US / Trump.

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

Short version:

Neither the US nor Israeli had any new intelligence that Iran had resumed work on actually making a bomb.

However, they were concerned that Iran had produced enough uranium that if they did decide to make a bomb, the process could be expedited.

Ultimately the timing of the decision to attack was one of opportunity: Iran was exceptionally weak, and Israel was never going to have a better chance to do maximum damage to the program.

Israel decided to attack regardless of whether or not the US joined them.

isn't this basically the article in a paragraph?

“It is true there was no better time: Israelis have never been more well-practiced, and Iran and their proxies have never been weaker,” said the Israeli official. “But that’s not enough for us to operate. The reason we operated is necessity and understanding there is no alternative. What if they break out [toward a nuclear weapon] and there is no way for us to notice? There is no safety zone left.”

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

If true (which I take with a massive grain of salt), that would be pretty damning to the US / Trump.

I don't think so. I think it's simply indicative that Israeli leadership was sure this step was necessary, and they chose to do it now because they had the best combination of means and opportunity to have success.

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/23/netanyahu-iran-attack-nuclear-intelligence/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F43456da%2F685ad01022827c5c30282b9a%2F64a998b4ead59f19411e98bb%2F15%2F62%2F685ad01022827c5c30282b9a

Meh, WaPo is questionable at best these days and the lead author has been nothing short or a Palestinian sympathizer.

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

isn't this basically the article in a paragraph?

“It is true there was no better time: Israelis have never been more well-practiced, and Iran and their proxies have never been weaker,” said the Israeli official. “But that’s not enough for us to operate. The reason we operated is necessity and understanding there is no alternative. What if they break out [toward a nuclear weapon] and there is no way for us to notice? There is no safety zone left.”

Other than a change in which part of the equation to place the emphasis, I agree, I think everyone is basically saying the same thing.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Short version:

Neither the US nor Israeli had any new intelligence that Iran had resumed work on actually making a bomb.

However, they were concerned that Iran had produced enough uranium that if they did decide to make a bomb, the process could be expedited.

Ultimately the timing of the decision to attack was one of opportunity: Iran was exceptionally weak, and Israel was never going to have a better chance to do maximum damage to the program.

Israel decided to attack regardless of whether or not the US joined them.

It seems more and more of the experts are convinced we didn't get the uranium and now the BDA suggests we didn't get the centrifuges. Israel getting the scientists is something but that slows the program and doesn't stop it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

It seems more and more of the experts are convinced we didn't get the uranium and now the BDA suggests we didn't get the centrifuges. Israel getting the scientists is something but that slows the program and doesn't stop it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

Didn't get them because they moved them, or didn't get them because the bombs couldn't do the job?

 

[JamieDimonsBalls]

It seems more and more of the experts are convinced we didn't get the uranium and now the BDA suggests we didn't get the centrifuges. Israel getting the scientists is something but that slows the program and doesn't stop it.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

Do you want to destroy enriched uranium itself?

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Ceasefire to hold? Maybe.

Iran-Israel ceasefire appears to hold under pressure from Trump — Reuters

A shaky ceasefire began to take hold between Israel and Iran on Tuesday under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, raising hopes for an end to the biggest ever military confrontation between the Middle East arch-foes.

apple.news

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Do you want to destroy enriched uranium itself?

That comes with big problems but as long as they have it they are always close to having a bomb.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Didn't get them because they moved them, or didn't get them because the bombs couldn't do the job?

I don't know about the centrifuges. The uranium was gone.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

That comes with big problems but as long as they have it they are always close to having a bomb.

Won’t be a problem buried under 2 or 3 hundred feet of rock and dirt. Problem might be that it’s located above ground if they moved from underground.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Where is it?

Where is Iran’s Uranium? Truce Highlights Mystery Over Stockpile — Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump’s declaration of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran may curb the exchange of missile fire, but the biggest mystery of the war remains unsolved: the location of Tehran’s near-bomb-grade uranium.

apple.news

 

[snarlcakes]

Where is it?

Where is Iran’s Uranium? Truce Highlights Mystery Over Stockpile — Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump’s declaration of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran may curb the exchange of missile fire, but the biggest mystery of the war remains unsolved: the location of Tehran’s near-bomb-grade uranium.

apple.news

It's in Auburn, Indiana. @mcmurtry66 and cray cray are currently guarding it.

 

[DANC]

If true (which I take with a massive grain of salt), that would be pretty damning to the US / Trump.

46 years of US citizens and soldiers being killed by Iran is more than enough justification for taking out their nuclear facilities.

0 civilian deaths. Iran should consider themselves lucky.

 

[SqueakyClean]

I don't think so. I think it's simply indicative that Israeli leadership was sure this step was necessary, and they chose to do it now because they had the best combination of means and opportunity to have success.

(Going on the assumption that the information in the article is correct, which I will freely admit could be completely wrong....)

Listen, don't get me wrong here, I don't trust Iran AT ALL, but you are still justifying bombing a foreign country based upon a POSSIBILITY that they can do something in the future, but were still a long way away.

Yes, it was easier now because their anti-aircraft capabilities were diminished, but even if they had another 6 months to rebuild them, I'd wager that our tech is still superior enough that getting past those defenses would not have been a huge issue (or we could have easily taken out the new defenses). This decision (according to the article) was made 9 months ago and Israel was going to do this raid anyways. We just ended up doing their "dirty work" for them.

And while yes, we are talking about keeping them from getting a nuke, but at the end of the day, Israel just assassinated scientists, not combatants, Islamic terrorists, or generals. These are civilians. Maybe they are all in the "Death to America / Israel" crowd, but it would be the equivalent of an Islamic terrorist cell hunting down all of the Boeing scientists here in America that are working on a guidance system for a new missile. They are not the ones that were going to launch a nuke, even if they were the ones who created it.

I admit this is a relatively naive view of the world and that there is no black / white to this situation, I just don't like the direction of the world and how fast people are willing to justify things on possible threats versus eminent threats.

 

[76-1]

Where is it?

Where is Iran’s Uranium? Truce Highlights Mystery Over Stockpile — Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump’s declaration of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran may curb the exchange of missile fire, but the biggest mystery of the war remains unsolved: the location of Tehran’s near-bomb-grade uranium.

apple.news

If the 16 trucks (looked closer to 23+ to me) lined up outside of Fordow prior to the strike actually moved anything of consequence anywhere you can be certain that Israel has a great idea of what was in those vehicles and where they went...

Israel has had complete control of the airspace over Iran for the past 12 days... They undoubtedly have had layers of different types of drones loitering over the known nuclear sites from day one... Add that to our own types of surveillance and the idea that they were able to spirit material or centrifuges away (via those trucks) to an unknown site is ludicrous...

Now could they have hidden a reserve amount of materials prior to the Israeli attack? Yes..., that's completely plausible and it would have been incredibly foolish of them not to have done that... Even if they did, I think that between us and the Israelis we'll eventually detect any efforts by them to try again (which they almost certainly will)...

I think the next phase of all this will be the high speed resumption of the Intelligence War between us and Iran...

In my opinion, we need to put the full court press on to figure out who is left (scientist - wise) who could lead a reconstitution of their nuclear weapons program And who is leading their ICBM program and work with the Israelis to assure that they meet an untimely end just as their predecessors have... That's a low intensity, high reward type of kinetic warfare were we can maintain plausible deniability (if we let the Israelis do the dirty work)...

 

[SqueakyClean]

46 years of US citizens and soldiers being killed by Iran is more than enough justification for taking out their nuclear facilities.

0 civilian deaths. Iran should consider themselves lucky.

1) There are technically other uses for enriching uranium besides building nukes. The argument is that they were doing it more than they should have which likely means that they were stockpiling it for a future nuke use (and that is the sole reason that I am relatively on board with this).
2) 0 civilians? Got a link for that? I highly doubt that there were no civilians killed. Unless they knew for sure that the planes were on the way and evacuated (which according to every Trump supporter on here, this whole operation was a massive surprise with Trump giving his "two weeks" timeframe), there were still security guards, janitors, HR people, technicians, maintenance workers, ie, a whole myriad of people that were essentially making the place work that couldn't identify a piece of uranium if their life depended on it.

 

[BradStevens]

1) There are technically other uses for enriching uranium besides building nukes. The argument is that they were doing it more than they should have which likely means that they were stockpiling it for a future nuke use (and that is the sole reason that I am relatively on board with this).
2) 0 civilians? Got a link for that? I highly doubt that there were no civilians killed. Unless they knew for sure that the planes were on the way and evacuated (which according to every Trump supporter on here, this whole operation was a massive surprise with Trump giving his "two weeks" timeframe), there were still security guards, janitors, HR people, technicians, maintenance workers, ie, a whole myriad of people that were essentially making the place work that couldn't identify a piece of uranium if their life depended on it.

 

[Spartans9312]

 

[SqueakyClean]

View embedded media

Insert "NEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDD" response here, but....
The empire actually used a bunch of slave labor and prisoners in their construction of the Death Stars, so the workers didn't have a choice as to whether they could decline the job. And thus, yes, they were actually innocent victims when the rebels blew that sucker up.

(Edit): Also, there were a bunch of cell blocks on the Death Star (enough that R2 had to search through them all to find out which one Leia was in). Guessing there were at least a few other prisoners being held there.

 

[76-1]

Insert "NEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDD" response here, but....
The empire actually used a bunch of slave labor and prisoners in their construction of the Death Stars, so the workers didn't have a choice as to whether they could decline the job. And thus, yes, they were actually innocent victims when the rebels blew that sucker up.

Anyone working in those facilities would have been vetted to the max by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard...

I have zero sympathy for anyone even peripherally involved in an effort whose known end result would be the purposeful cold blooded murder of millions of human beings...

Their demise falls under my "Tough Shitski Rule"... They should have chosen their loyalties and employment more thoughtfully...

 

[GooglyMooglyWooglyBoogly]

1) There are technically other uses for enriching uranium besides building nukes. The argument is that they were doing it more than they should have which likely means that they were stockpiling it for a future nuke use (and that is the sole reason that I am relatively on board with this).
2) 0 civilians? Got a link for that? I highly doubt that there were no civilians killed. Unless they knew for sure that the planes were on the way and evacuated (which according to every Trump supporter on here, this whole operation was a massive surprise with Trump giving his "two weeks" timeframe), there were still security guards, janitors, HR people, technicians, maintenance workers, ie, a whole myriad of people that were essentially making the place work that couldn't identify a piece of uranium if their life depended on it.

Here’s one for you. How about no ability to enrich uranium, at all?

Putting aside the pretense that the most oil rich country on the planet has an earnest desire to transition to nuclear energy for the good of the planet. Which is an absurdity on its face.

If they earnestly want a domestic nuclear energy program they can import it.

 

[BradStevens]

Insert "NEEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDD" response here, but....
The empire actually used a bunch of slave labor and prisoners in their construction of the Death Stars, so the workers didn't have a choice as to whether they could decline the job. And thus, yes, they were actually innocent victims when the rebels blew that sucker up.

(Edit): Also, there were a bunch of cell blocks on the Death Star (enough that R2 had to search through them all to find out which one Leia was in). Guessing there were at least a few other prisoners being held there.

I mean, they've got all these droids, can't they build the damn thing?

 

[hookyIU1990]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/23/netanyahu-iran-attack-nuclear-intelligence/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F43456da%2F685ad01022827c5c30282b9a%2F64a998b4ead59f19411e98bb%2F15%2F62%2F685ad01022827c5c30282b9a

Try this one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/23/netanyahu-iran-attack-nuclear-intelligence/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzUwNjUxMjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzUyMDMzNTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NTA2NTEyMDAsImp0aSI6IjFkY2M5YmM5LTQ1YzMtNDBmMS05M2UwLWViZjM2OGViZTljNCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC8yMDI1LzA2LzIzL25ldGFueWFodS1pcmFuLWF0dGFjay1udWNsZWFyLWludGVsbGlnZW5jZS8ifQ.JV7EH__5JNxSBmdZzIX5zxi5OfVphvJsquXM_xQQ_eA

Just an FYI. Those links are loaded with trackers. Basically everything from the ? on back can be deleted so as not to pass that along. It may be why the paywall pops up sometimes for others and puts their browsing on you and vise versa.

Just a helpful tip, 7 days before this place goes poof.

 

[ulrey]

View embedded media

Mostly peaceful chant?

 

[HurryingHoosiers]

Apparently our bombing of Iran did very little damage and only set Iran back a few months

Of course, shit stain and his press secretary are irate that a low level loser from the intelligence community outed their exaggeratiion of the bombings success.

 

[SqueakyClean]

Anyone working in those facilities would have been vetted to the max by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard...

I have zero sympathy for anyone even peripherally involved in an effort whose known end result would bee the purposeful cold blooded murder of millions of human beings...

Their demise falls under my "Tough Shitski Rule"... They should have chosen their loyalties and employment more thoughtfully...

Let's try this again:
This facility produces/(ed) enriched uranium, which is a necessary process in creating fuel for a nuclear power plant. Iran has a nuclear power plant.
So the end result was not necessarily "the purposeful cold blooded murder of millions of human beings..."
Sure, maybe I'm being naive, maybe everyone in that place knew full well that this was being developed for a bomb. They were producing more than what their current nuke plant requires. You can make the claim that they were making it for a bomb. They can claim that they were stockpiling it for future nuclear plants that they intend to build. Is option A more likely than option B? Probably. But we have no proof of a definitive plan to do so.

That's the point. I don't know. You don't know. Nobody here does. Israel believed it, and in fairness, their stake in the game is a lot higher than ours. Either way, they were able to convince Trump to pull the trigger. It is going to be up to our intelligence services to eventually prove that this act was justifiable. As much crap as we give for Dubya going into Iraq to destroy WMD's, Rumsfeld at least got up and made a presentation saying essentially "This is why we think that Saddam is making chemical weapons" and showed the satellite images of the facilities, pointing out what every building was for. A similar argument is eventually going to have to be made "proving" that Iran had the intention of making a bomb.

Maybe in the grand scheme of things it was the greater good. A lot of people are still dead right now though. I really hope that Trump was right.

 

[BradStevens]

Here’s one for you. How about no ability to enrich uranium, at all?

Putting aside the pretense that the most oil rich country on the planet has an earnest desire to transition to nuclear energy for the good of the planet. Which is an absurdity on its face.

If they earnestly want a domestic nuclear energy program they can import it.

Some context:

Why is Iran’s nuclear programme so essential to its identity?

Why does a country with large oil reserves feel such a need to have home-grown civil nuclear energy?

www.theguardian.com

 

[SqueakyClean]

I mean, they've got all these droids, can't they build the damn thing?

Seen Andor?
The argument was that slave labor was actually cheaper / easier than droids. The Empire was arresting people / beings on bogus charges and forcing them into work camps.

 

[BradStevens]

Seen Andor?
The argument was that slave labor was actually cheaper / easier than droids. The Empire was arresting people / beings on bogus charges and forcing them into work camps.

I have not. I've heard it's good but so much Disney material is dreck I had to stop watching their shows. Marvel and the Star Wars franchises are just not very good anymore. Liked Mandalorian, though.

 

[SqueakyClean]

Some context:

Why is Iran’s nuclear programme so essential to its identity?

Why does a country with large oil reserves feel such a need to have home-grown civil nuclear energy?

www.theguardian.com

Ah. Kissinger's fault. Makes sense now.

 

[SqueakyClean]

I have not. I've heard it's good but so much Disney material is dreck I had to stop watching their shows. Marvel and the Star Wars franchises are just not very good anymore. Liked Mandalorian, though.

If you can get past the first three episodes, Andor is fantastic and probably the best thing they have produced in over a decade.

 

[SqueakyClean]

If they earnestly want a domestic nuclear energy program they can import it.

We wouldn't sell it to them.
Russia would.
Russia would have no qualms about selling them enough to build a bomb.
So what exactly would be achieved except forcing them to pay more for it than making it themselves? Shouldn't we be encouraging capitalism over there?

 

[GooglyMooglyWooglyBoogly]

We wouldn't sell it to them.
Russia would.
Russia would have no qualms about selling them enough to build a bomb.
So what exactly would be achieved except forcing them to pay more for it than making it themselves? Shouldn't we be encouraging capitalism over there?

Whereby squeaky advocates for state owned energy production under the banner of “Capitalism”.

 

[The Original Happy Goat]

Just an FYI. Those links are loaded with trackers. Basically everything from the ? on back can be deleted so as not to pass that along. It may be why the paywall pops up sometimes for others and puts their browsing on you and vise versa.

Just a helpful tip, 7 days before this place goes poof.

You make it sound so suspicious. The reason I linked that version of the link was that it was shared on reddit as a gift copy. One of the query strings told WaPo not to require a paywall. None of it has any information about my computer, as I don't subscribe to WaPo, and the link didn't come from me.

 

[dbmhoosier]

You can never hate the media enough.