Iranian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

[xmupzx]

Do you guys think it is likely that Israel will attack Iran again in the near future? In my opinion, Israel lacks obvious attack targets, and destroying underground facilities is almost impossible for their tactical aircraft, which would have to travel a long distance to reach them.

Unless the IAF targets Iran's natural gas export facilities, I am puzzled as to why they didn't do so in the last war.
After all, this can immediately lead Iran to face a financial crisis, can't it?

 

[uguduwa]

You are describing the Persian diaspora in the West. Iranians in Iran are the polar opposite of the average Iranian you encounter in the West.

It‘s probably the other way around. Iranians living in the west get a good dose of racism which brings some of them back to their senses but the ones who never left Iran are collectively dilusional.

Watch this video for example, see how many of them mention Italy. Some even say, they look like Germans LOL. The entire country is collectively high on some weird drug or at least that‘s the impression I get when I interact with them.

 

[uguduwa]

You and people like you will keep repeating your hate, but you still can't imagine that maybe China and Russia just don't want to sell? Iran has clearly shown interest in the J10, eg here

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But for China it has always made more sense to get a concession from the Americans in the trade war and in exchange don't sell to Iran. Same for Russia. Iran has been complaining about Russia not delivering planes it bought for decades. Just look at the reaction on forums like this when the idea of selling advanced weapons to Iran comes up. Lots of people are against it. What exactly is Iran supposed to do? They're in a bad situation with no good allies and are trying to make the best of it. The only solution would be to recognise Israel and forget about Palestinians, but that might lead to protests at home

Other way around is also true. Iran treats their relations with Russia and China as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the West with the hope that they would one day be accepted as a member of West. They need to resolve their identity crisis and accept themselves for who they are - a middle eastern country.

 

[2handedswordsman]

Israel now handled them just that - and the issue is that Iran, submissive or not, isn't really eligible to not be bombed by Israel.
Their "right" (which no US ally in the region really has) was based on their air defense and rocket force.
And they managed to lose much of both. Which is beyond criminal level of neglected by leadership, which asked a lot from population to not let happen that just happenned; it was their main selling point.

There is one way to read the facts. Nobody can be sure that he will be bombed, maybe Israel did but they got serious hits even from militias. Irani's managed to hit Israel hard enough to make Trump step in with his obliteration ramble to save their asses and stop the exhaustion of Israeli AD and subsequent defeat. Iran took real painfull hits also, but tell me, if things escalated more, do you think Israel could sustain this gigantic air bridge with two mid air refuelins to attack Iran with planes? If Iran decided to hit all the bases around it with the masses of SRBM it posesses? Thankfully they all escaped this scenario after the "obliteration" shit, and people can draw now their safe conclusions about allies, strategy, possibilities, sovereignty and stuff like these

 

[Gloire_bb]

Other way around is also true. Iran treats their relations with Russia and China as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the West with the hope that they would one day be accepted as a member of West.

Iran as it is clearly isn't, it's problems with the west are of its own design(big Satan etc).
Iran isn't hive mind though, and there are different people in Iran, thinking differently. Revolution wasn't exactly anti-western in the first place. Anti-western were people who were strong enough to claim its spoils. Which were a minority of revolutionaries, though they had the strongest person/symbol, and represented significant part of population overall.

The problem is simple(or not). After the revolution, Iran didn't just break up with US, it successfully humiliated it, and didn't pay for it.
It can't "just" realign, even if willing opposition will come into power; realignment after humiliation will be something between Iraq and Syria. Which is kinda meh.

Current leadership is anti American, but they're pro-themselves(Shiite international; only after this summer they somewhat realigned into Iranian nationalism, when, to their visible surprise, nation didn't abandon them).
Pro China? Not really, there's currently very basic incompatibility between two(again: Iranian leadership claims legitimacy as center of Shiite world, aka it's by default a rather aggressive and irrational religious power). And frankly China isn't really interested. Not anymore than it does already, supporting Iran alive through oil purchases.

Russia...Iran has a lot of hatchets with Russia(let's not forget Russia is a humiliating colonial memory here), which all of Iran remembers well (and Russia understands well enough... though Russian embassy was "smart" enough to congratulate Iranians on anniversary of Tehran conference).

Alignment with Iran for Russia is by default situational, conditional, and suspiciously careful; it's already huge sign of boldness and greatness of Soleimani for managing so much in such conditions...but Soleimani is dead, and it's quite clear there's no one in Iranian elites who could match him.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Irani's managed to hit Israel hard enough to make Trump step in with his obliteration ramble to save their asses and stop the exhaustion of Israeli AD and subsequent defeat. Iran took real painfull hits also, but tell me, if things escalated more, do you think Israel could sustain this gigantic air bridge with two mid air refuelins to attack Iran with planes?

Come on, look at what happens in the region. It's crystal clear who's won and who's lost. Just from consequences and follow up.

It's also absolutely clear who didn't lose in the resistance axis. It's Houthis, who continue to do whatever they want.

 

[uguduwa]

Iran as it is clearly isn't, it's problems with the west are of its own design(big Satan etc).
Iran isn't hive mind though, and there are different people in Iran, thinking differently. Revolution wasn't exactly anti-western in the first place. Anti-western were people who were strong enough to claim its spoils. Which were a minority of revolutionaries, though they had the strongest person/symbol, and represented significant part of population overall.

The problem is simple(or not). After the revolution, Iran didn't just break up with US, it successfully humiliated it, and didn't pay for it.
It can't "just" realign, even if willing opposition will come into power; realignment after humiliation will be something between Iraq and Syria. Which is kinda meh.

Current leadership is anti American, but they're pro-themselves. Pro China? Not really, there's very basic incompatibility between two, and frankly China isn't really interested.
Russia...Iran has a lot of hatchets with Russia, which all of Iran remembers well(and Russia understands well enough). Alignment with Iran for Russia is by default situational, conditional, and careful; it's already huge sign of boldness and greatness of Soleimani for managing so much in such conditions...but Soleimani is dead, and it's quite clear there's no one in Iranian elites who could match him.

There are also more factors going into it. When the hostage crisis happened, Jimmy Carter was the president and he was not a war monger. Rapublicans bribed Iranians into not releasing the hostages in order to win the election. Raegan administration even helped Iran in its war against Israel (Iran contra affair). I also believe that one of the reasons why the US didn‘t take out Iran was that they didn‘t want Saudis to be the sole power in the ME. The US could have easily taken out Iran in 90s.

About their foreign policy, they are not in a position to play fortress politics because they are too small for that. Only the US, China and India are in a position to do so. Their best bet is to either drop their ambitions in the ME and make a deal with the West which would also mean that the IR regime would have to sacrifice a good part if its identity or align with the upcoming superpower, China. I am not sure how realistic it is though. China still does not have a blue water navy or an apetite for military adventurism.

 

[Gloire_bb]

The US could have easily taken out Iran in 90s.

They couldn't. No pretext. Very unlike Iraq, which first gave the pretext, and then signed it's own death warrant signing capitulation, where interpretation keys were held by Americans. Classic 3rd Punic war.

About their foreign policy, they are not in a position to play fortress politics because they are too small for that. Only the US, China and India are in a position to do so.

Well, until last few years they sort of did.
Problem isn't that Iran wasn't strong enough - problem is they lost people who made it work. And current ones just wanted to keep pretences and quiet peaceful life at the same time.
As a result, they got neither - and suffered complete intelligence disaster on top. Which got Israel results it couldn't even hope to achieve normally.
And now, Iran indeed isn't strong enough anymore.

 

[uguduwa]

I am personally not a fan of nationalist/religious empire building delusions. I think it‘s a relic in the past. 21st century should be for economic and trchnological development.

 

[uguduwa]

They couldn't. No pretext. Very unlike Iraq, which first gave the pretext, and then signed it's own death warrant signing capitulation, where interpretation keys were held by Americans. Classic 3rd Punic war.

Well, until last few years they sort of did.
Problem isn't that Iran wasn't strong enough - problem is they lost people who made it work. And current ones just wanted to keep pretences and quiet peaceful life at the same time.
As a result, they got neither - and suffered complete intelligence disaster on top. Which got Israel results it couldn't even hope to achieve normally.
And now, Iran indeed isn't strong enough anymore.

Your last paragraph is contradicting itself. If they successfully played fortress politics then they wouldn‘t have lost the people who made it work so easily in the first place and any functioning system relies on institutions that carry on the work left by the previous generation which was clearly not the case here.