Current Affairs Iran

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Mutzo Nutzo said:
I don’t believe the US has the ability to influence the internal Iranian political situation. Therefore the forces exerted must be external. Diffusing the situation in Israel/Gaza MAY play a part but I doubt it. The IRGC control the key points of government and industry within Iran, they’re not going anywhere.

If the economy did start to bounce back then it’s the IRGC who would benefit and not your average Iranian citizen. I also can’t see the the IRGC allowing the levels of civil unrest needed to overthrow their government ever take hold.

So there lies the conundrum, what do you do about Iran? It continues to be the biggest sponsor of international terrorism, it’s developing a nuclear weapons program and it has the capability to effectively cut off or seriously disrupt the flow of middle east oil.

Walking away and leaving them to it simply won’t cut it. They want to project power albeit regionally but that region provides the bulk of the global fuel that drives global economies.
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It is US / Western culture that does the influencing, not the government of the US.

As for the IRGC controlling the key points of government, all I would point out there is that the level of repression in the state at the moment really suggests that they are not, in fact, in control - if they were, it would be far less repressive because there would be nothing to repress.

As for the economy - yes, if sanctions are reduced the IRGC (and the rest of the state) almost certainly would coin it in, to a degree that the rest of society wouldn't. This would almost certainly result in millions of Iranians asking why that was the case. We saw from the Mahsa Amini protests how much anger there is beneath the surface, how even relatively minor things can kick off massive protests.

Finally with regards to the flow of oil, that was what I was saying above - its vital to them, both in terms of production and the ability to control it. Making it less valuable by cutting consumption of it hurts their economy and the ability of them to hurt ours.
 
PhilM said:
Iran has allegedly hit a US owned vessel with an ASGM. So, I wonder how many targets in Yemen get struck tonight.
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If Biden has any sense, none. These sort of attacks are both unstoppable (in terms of preventing the launch), very easy for the Houthis to get away from and usually result in no or very little damage.

I think if they want to send a message then they'd be better off trying to mug the small boats into attacking another ship in international waters, and then doing what they did a couple of weeks ago.
 
Mutzo Nutzo said:
Iran those friendly neighbourhood missile monkeys just launched a large attack (missiles and drones) against Baluchi militant bases.

Thing is these bases are located in Pakistan!

Hmmmm
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Pakistan barely controls that area anyway TBF - they themselves have lost at least seven security personnel over the past four days to ambushes and an IED from various groups. This may also be payback for the IS-claimed bombing at Solemani's funeral (edit: sorry, memorial) too.
 
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