Iran launched unsuccessful attack on UK's Diego Garcia

The article kind of downplays the most interesting elements. Not an expert, but to my limited understanding:

* I think this is the longest-range use of a ballistic missile in anger, possibly ever?

* This seems to reveal previously-unknown range of Iranian ballistic missiles and, if true, could touch basically all of Europe?

Accusing Iran of "lashing out" and being "reckless" by attacking US bases while the US and Israel literally murder school children, bomb hospitals and assassinate state leaders is rich.

It didn't have to be this way but they decided this to turn into a fight of survival for Iran and destroy any option for a peaceful resolution. Now they are going to pay the price.

Unfortunately this is more interesting than a failed Diego Garcia attack — the late Ayatollah had a self-imposed range limit on the strikes or tests they would carry out. By using IRBMs in this fashion, it’s clear the new regime no longer feels bound by that restriction..

Which is notable since it’s about the same distance from Southern Iran to Diego Garcia (3,800km) as it is from Northern Iran to London.

To me this is like the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo during WWII. The tactical result isn't important, the range of the strike is, and that it happened at all. Japan thought it was immune from air attack on the home islands in 1942, and the raid shocked them.

Iran is showing the world (especially Europe), that it's more vulnerable than it thinks. Europe has more skin in the game than just the price of oil and nitrogen. Also think about what would happen if Iran is able to recreate something like the Cuban missile crisis now that we've moved a bunch of our military assets to the middle east.

considering that there were already provocations about "unsuccessful attacks on Turkey", I have doubts that this attack was also Iran's

the "notable distance/unexpectedly high range" quoted everywhere seems like a nice war justification: "see, they do have rockets that can threaten us!"

Iran repeatedly stated that they will not attack any country's assets if they do not assist the US/Israel. Most European countries have refused to take part, the UK decided to help so this seems like a very easy situation to have avoided.

The fact that it was unsuccessful does not make it any less worrying. Iran was a regional problem before the war, but this new escalation shows they’re a threat to the entire world. They might have previously had a chance at a Vietnam or perhaps a Korea-style stalemate

What kind of game is Iran playing here? It's as if the regime wanted to get nuked.

Question: could this lead to much more expensive war risk insurance for all ships transiting the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean?

That’s a lot of traffic

The .io tld is going through rough times :pensive:

Diego Garcia is strategically very important to global security according to the US

Had something actually struck within the ADIZ there would have been massive implications. My guess is they intentionally failed as a warning shot.

This isn’t a random act and its quite the signal if you know what it means, Iran knows what it did here.

Can we just leave countries alone, like we do with North Korea?