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US and Israel launch strikes on Iran, as Trump says ‘massive’ campaign underway

468 pointsby lavptoday at 6:34 AM1171 commentsview on HN

https://archive.ph/VqSqj


Comments

optimalsolvertoday at 7:40 AM

My previous comment:

The most salient lesson of the post-Cold War era: Get nukes or die trying.

A nation's relationship to other states, up to and especially including superpowers, is completely different once it's in the nuclear club. Pakistan can host bin Laden for years and still enjoy US military funding. North Korea can literally fire missiles over South Korea and Japan and get a strongly-worded letter of condemnation, along with a generous increase in foreign aid. We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today. Putin knows perfectly well that NATO isn't going to invade Russia, so he can strip every last soldier from the Baltic borders and throw them into the Ukrainian meat grinder.

Aside from deterring attack, it also discourages powerful outside actors from fomenting revolutions. The worry becomes who gets the nukes if the central government falls.

Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.

My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers: Pour one out for Gaddafi, then hire a few hundred Chinese scientists and engineers and get nuked up ASAP.

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throwaw12today at 11:33 AM

This war shows Hamas was resistance group and Israel was actual oppressor and terrorist.

Israel attacked Iran

Israel attacked Lebanon

Israel oppressed and kidnapped Palestinians

World is getting destroyed by couple hundred Israeli and US maniacs, by the way, all of whom are connected via Epstein

notenlishtoday at 10:25 AM

This is why we can't have nice things.

manyaomantoday at 10:15 AM

I take this as a confirmation that more "nuclear bomb material" i.e. unpublished Epstein files still exist.

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shihabtoday at 8:35 AM

Another mid east war entirely on Israel’s behalf, another war Americans will pay tax for, die for- just so Israel can keep grabbing few parcels of lands from Palestine.

jackdoetoday at 12:28 PM

special operation

karim79today at 10:05 AM

I can't help but think that all this shit is because Netanyahu really wants to put off more court hearings on his lame ass corruption charges. I really can't wait for him and his cronies (in Israel, and the West) to be brought to justice.

Without having to wait for the history books to do their thing.

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swingboytoday at 11:02 AM

A mere 8 months ago, Trump and his cronies were saying that Iran’s nuclear program was “totally obliterated” every chance they got.

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csomartoday at 6:49 AM

Crypto going down while Gold going up (on XAUt) suggests the market thinks this war is not going to go necessarily to the US/Israel advantage.

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apples_orangestoday at 12:34 PM

I hate that we apparently have to take sides when commenting ..

m00dytoday at 10:19 AM

This is the beginning of 3rd world war.

marcyb5sttoday at 11:24 AM

I find the nuclear motivation an excuse. I mean, enrichment plants or not, if Iran wants a few nukes I am pretty sure that Russia would part with some enriched material and smuggle it pretty easily to Iran.

My theory is that Israel has dirt (Epstein files maybe) on Trump and holds him by the balls. The second idea is that this is an obfuscation campaign to have the public opinion forget about Epstein, the state of the real economy, the falling approval rates, or all of the above.

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Devastatoday at 8:19 AM

Iran is a lesson to all: as soon as Israel or the US take a disliking to you you have to rush for nuclear weapons.

Iran has been the grown up in the room for well over a decade at this stage and it didn't matter one bit. You cannot appease Israel or the US because that don't want to be appeased, they want to bomb Iran into a lawless wasteland. They could have switched to a secular liberal democracy and it'd make no difference.

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throwaway637372today at 10:28 AM

US president can be democrat or republican, republicans can control the Senate or the House, or the democrats can control the Senate or the House - regardless of who is in power, Israel's interests by US are always met. US can wreck havoc on close relations and ties with Europe, Canada, etc. - but relation to Israel never changes. You can oblivious to all this, but the truth is: Israel de facto controls the US.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmtoday at 11:47 AM

Nothing to do with nuclear weapons. They are trying to surround and isolate Turkey as the only other military heavyweight of the middle east.

Israel and the US have already shown their cards in Syria. It is not peace they are after, it is regional domination.

seydortoday at 7:03 AM

Thankfully the stock market is closed

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shevy-javatoday at 11:26 AM

It kind of reveals Trump as a big liar. Not that this is a surprise, but even in his own self-image he can no longer try to shift the blame to others. Now he committed to war until regime change occurs.

HNisCIStoday at 7:24 AM

Currently an absolute shit load of C17s landing in Germany after leaving the PG region. I guess we know which country finally caved and let the US use them for whatever fresh conquest this is.

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aeon_aitoday at 12:29 PM

The most likely and capable retaliation will be cyber/info wars.

Iran has sophisticated influence operations and will likely flood social media with disinformation designed to deepen political divisions and erode trust in institutions.

This advice serves even if you don’t believe the above. Be deeply skeptical of all viral content in the coming days and weeks, especially anything designed to change your opinions, or provoke outrage/fear. Verify before sharing. Expect deepfakes. Stick to primary sources when possible.

mdni007today at 10:34 AM

Why does HN continue to delete all comments against this?

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croestoday at 12:39 PM

> Iran, pledging to lay waste to the country’s military and obliterate its nuclear program.

Is that the same program that was totally obliterated in June 2025 according to Trump?

"Obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before"?

arunabhatoday at 10:30 AM

Ben Franklin was asked what kind of govt would the newly formed United States have. He was sadly right when he replied 'A republic, if you can keep it'

One of the (many) pretexts for the war, at least from Trump seems to be that Iran 'interfered' in US elections. From the Washington post

'President Donald Trump shared an article about Iran seeking to interfere in U.S. elections on his Truth Social account a couple of hours after U.S. strikes began in Iran early Saturday.

“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States,” the post read, with a link to a piece from Just the News, a conservative website from which Trump frequently shares articles. Shortly after, the president posted another article from the site, albeit unrelated to Iran; it was about the Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor Fani T. Willis.'

Does the US even have a functioning Congress left? Who will even believe such a preposterous lie? Even the most die hard MAGA supporter will find it hard to believe this fabrication.

It's like Trump doesn't feel the need to even maintain the fig leaf of a causus belli. He must truly feel that he is now the king of the United States to be so emboldened.

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komali2today at 9:19 AM

Ever since the ICE stuff I've been desperate to find a way to not pay my taxes - even if it means donating 2, 3x, hell 4x my tax bill to somewhere else. Obviously it's basically impossible to do this (especially if your income is all self employment income) outside of just spending every penny you earn on something that could be viably considered a business expense. So I'm wondering if I should just straight up stop working until I can relinquish my USA citizenship.

Spend down my savings and assets till I have almost nothing to exit tax, exit, and then start working again.

I don't want to fund the bombing of strangers I have no quarrel with.

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kometoday at 7:28 AM

shameful for the west, and a tragedy. leave iran alone. defending the mullahs wasn't exactly on my bingo card, but here we are...

please, can somebody in the US or Israel have an "are we the baddies" epiphany?

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carabinertoday at 8:27 AM

Remember when we bombed Iran at Fordow? It happened less than a year ago. Iran sent some perfunctory retaliation, and everyone forgot the whole affair. Same with this. Nothing ever happens.

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ardit33today at 7:58 AM

This was doesn't benefit the US whatsoever. I am getting tired of our taxes going to another useless war, like the Iraq one, that only benefits a foreign entity, aka Israel.

Iran could have been contained and Obama was right on his approach. We don't know the details of the strikes, but I hope it doesn't go into a full blown war, but this will be another Iraq like disaster, and american people are getting tired of doing the bidding of Isreal, a country that is already mirred into doing a genocide. This war is already unpopular in pools. Iran's regime is terrible to its people, but this has the potential to be another disaster where countless of people could die.

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blkstoday at 10:39 AM

So another war of aggression by Israel.

apitoday at 7:26 AM

What a gift to the deeply unpopular Iranian regime. Nothing galvanizes support for whatever-you-have more than an external threat.

Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump.

The Iranian regime may fall, but it'll be like Iraq. We'll get something like ISIS out of it, or worse, and the place will be a complete basketcase of civil war for 25+ years. Or we'll be there for 25 years in another "forever war." Bravo.

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bettercallsaladtoday at 8:42 AM

What an utter betrayal of no war by DJT. This is the final straw. Era of Trump is dead, we are back to neoconservative era. I guess Adelsons are too hard to say no to.

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rurbantoday at 9:49 AM

The headlines in Europe are that Israel is carrying out preventive strikes, the USA is helping.

And that's certainly the deathbed of any hopes to a mullah regime change. They will come out stronger than before.

LePetitPrincetoday at 1:11 PM

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tonethemantoday at 2:15 PM

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ParonoidAndroidtoday at 9:25 AM

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aaron695today at 7:54 AM

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humanlitytoday at 10:46 AM

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stevenjgarnertoday at 7:42 AM

Paywall : https://archive.ph/M6Ywb

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beltertoday at 7:08 AM

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982307932084today at 11:03 AM

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Matltoday at 10:32 AM

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RiverStonetoday at 9:18 AM

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dastuertoday at 10:24 AM

As Iranians, we have collectively been waiting for this day.

We want this mafia regime be gone as soon as possible so that we can be free.

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thomassmith65today at 11:03 AM

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johnbarrontoday at 7:19 AM

At this moment, dont know what looks more terrifying. This war the US just got itself into, or the contents of the unreleased Epstein files...

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anonnontoday at 8:05 AM

Can any Iran simps explain why the regime couldn't just agree to zero enrichment and cease its weekly ritual of organized mobs chanting:

> DEATH TO AMERICA

in the streets like blood-thirsty lunatics, something for which there was no equivalent in the US even after 9/11 (mobs chanting "Death to Muslims/Islam"), let alone doing so with governmental encouragement as happens in Iran?

Do they not realize how many Americans aren't pro-Israel and aren't invested enough in the Middle East and its politics, proxy wars, and human rights abuses to want the US to support Israel in military action against Iran, except for their nuclear ambitions, and regularly professed eternal hatred for our country?

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epsterstoday at 7:33 AM

Trump launching bunker-busters on his midterm chances. Which depending on how bad it goes, potentially means impeachment and prison. Whatever it is the Israelis have on him, it must be good.

Works out great for Netanyahu though as is customary. He can be PM for a while longer and stave off his own impending trial and imprisonment. If this goes well for Israel, he might even get that pardon that Trump campaigned for tirelessly.

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dodgerdantoday at 10:19 AM

3 days ago this was in the news:

> "Epstein files: DOJ withheld documents about claim Trump sexually abused minor"

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/epstein-trump-doj-garcia.htm...

Will it even make a single newspaper or talk show this weekend?

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fortran77today at 7:53 AM

The headline says "US and Israel". Why are you all focusing on Israel?

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drivebyhootingtoday at 7:34 AM

Please, can the administration do something useful for America instead of… whatever this is?

Can we follow the age old adage WWJD?

What would (Xi) Jinping do?

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