alt Hacker NewsI don't know much about geopolitics so tell me if I'm off base but it seems to me if they're making threats it's because the facility is not a high enough priority to actually strike? If they wanted to and had enough ordinance to overwhelm whatever defenses, then they just would right? But they can't/won't so they're hoping to gain advantage without actually spending ordinance?
Regardless, it is grimly interesting to watch the next chapter of tech companies becoming increasingly significant in geopolitics.
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No. They have been able to destroy much more important and hardened targets, i.e multiple AN/TPY-2 radars, the extremely valuable AN/FPS-132 radar in Qatar, $Bs worth of aircraft on the apron at Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi.
Not to mention being able to quickly deliver counter-attacks to like for like infrastructure when theirs has been attacked. i.e the Ras Laffan counter punch after South Pars was attacked and the UAE aluminium plants after their steel mills were hit etc.
They have also already essentially taken AWS Bahrain permanently offline at this stage.
So they are certainly capable of it but simply hitting the target removes the leverage of using it in a negotiation. If it's already gone you can't say "we won't hit X if you agree to terms Y before time Z".
There is no reason to just strike it. The point is it is a threat and they want to raise the cost of continuing to bomb them.
If they can strike and destroy $1 trillion worth of things it would be very dumb to do that right away. Then they will have used up all their valuable targets and they will have less leverage going forward. Instead they would want to destroy $50 billion a day until they get what they want.
No... hitting it gives them nothing. What MIGHT give them something is the threat of hitting it, it might change the behavior of their enemy. Of course, if push comes to shove they might have to actually hit it to not lose credibility, but that's not the ideal outcome for them. Think of a kidnapper at a disadvantage threatening to shoot the hostage.
Noone would be remotely surprised if Iran attacked a nominally American target, so it's puzzling why the Iranians would talk about it instead of just doing it. They would also need to be careful not to cross the line between pressuring friends of the US administration to lean on Washington and pushing so hard that those friends double down on their commitment to the US. It's not like the Gulf states are simpatico with Iran after all, they might think for example that the Shia worldview is vaguely heretical and wacky anyway so why should they not let the US shoot at them.
I guess the idea is to create pressure on the US govt. And it will only happen when the elites assets are damaged.
They did the same with US companies in the Gulf region, and then followed through with attacks on Oracle and Amazon data centers.
This strategy absolutely works.
The Iranian's regime's minimal goal is regime security. To that end, it aims to apply maximum pressure/cost on Israel/US, and hope that they will relent at some point. Iran has no other means to actually cause the Israel/US to stop (as in, it lacks the ability militarily deter or defeat).
Iran recognizes that it is not just the actual damage, but the credible threat of damage that incurs pressure/cost. For example, there are piles of ships holed up in the Gulf - Iran has the capability to strike at them, but they don't need to. Publicity is part of magnifying the threat.
Iran likely lacks the capability to actually assuredly destroy any single target of its choosing. Iran instead likely has the capability of destroying maybe 1-10% of targets that it actually chooses to engage. However, it can hold hundreds of targets at threat to try to ratchet up the pressure. In addition, by casting an ever wider net of claimed targets, when it does get around to attacking, it's more likely to be able to construct a narrative of "calling their shot".