Ever since LaRouche got old and died, we never did have another guy batting simultaneously for several countries' secret foreign services. Or at least not such a loquacious one.
I could buy this back in the 90s after we just won the Cold War (and greatly enjoyed X-Files), but I just don't think the CIA is that effective at this point.
Noticed that BBC News has begun seeding doubt about whether we finished the job. Headlines now say stuff like "Trump says we did a knockout blow, external observers are unsure." BBC wouldn't hint at this unless they had some new information. Maybe we didn't hit everything.
If only - BBC is tight with MI6/CIA fake news. Like most European media they take a lead from WaPo and NYT.
There have been loads of internal complaints about reporting on Israel, all over ruled and Raffi Berg is still in charge across BBC News for ME editing. It is actaully quire funny if you hear the early morning World service radio news. All the honest truth about Israeli atrocities get edited out by lunchtime as I guess his main focus is the evening news.
The reason they are edited out is because they are fake. First, they insert it in, knowing they are fake and will be viewed in the Global South. Then, if there are really really heavy legal problems, they get edited out. If there are just moderate legal problems, in my opinion they stay put.
The idea is to make the BBC viewership endorse the islamogauchist political views. After all, it's so much better if British folks protest about Gaza than about more local issues like Rotherham. Wasn't it Friedrich Engels in a 1893 letter to Franz Mehring who called it false consciousness?
So, you're saying that you're insane? I mean, you imply that you think that not only is there a genocide being perpetrated in gaza, but that it's so obvious as to be a test of sanity?
You do understand that calling it genocide is just an attempt to attach a powerful word to the situation for propaganda reasons? You're just falling for Qatari propaganda instead of Israeli propaganda
I don't think he is falling for propaganda. I think he deliberately writes things he writes. Trying to impress people who might be impressed by big words.
to me this is a fake attack much like Trump pulled off in Syria 2017 where few missiles hit, and to punish Assad for using CW on his own people they claimed they hit a CW factory in a Damascus suburb. How weird is that. Turned out to be a baby milk factory.
I was thinking the same thing. What a strange construction is "baby milk factory". Babies don't produce milk and factories don't grow up from baby factories. And why would hitting a factory elicit our sympathy, even if it had the word baby in it?
There would always be doubt in such a situation. There is doubt about the existence and extent of the program so there would have to be doubt about how successful we were in destroying it or setting it back.
I guess we'll have to invade and do a thorough search. It's the only way to be sure ;)
Yes the double standards are justified given the especially awful nature and anti-Americanism of the Iranian regime. Not all countries are the same. It’s fine for America to have nukes but bad North Korea has them.
Are you calling me an anti-semite because I am anti-zionist? Seriously in 2025. How embarrassing for you.
Still I claim that as a compliment - you bet all decent people are anti-zionist, including many of the jewish population of UK who were at the pro-Gaza anti-war march here in London on Saturday.
If you are an "anti-Zionist" who comments on Steve Sailer's blog, you are obviously an antisemite. I use it in quotes because it's nonsensical to talk about "anti-Zionism" in 2025. Seriously. It's like saying "anti Pakistan movement". Zionism was the political movement to create Israel. It succeeded. Accusing Israel of genocide and hating them isn't even the same as being "anti-Zionist", you can hate Serbia and accuse them of genocide without calling for the abolition of Serbia.
Anyway Jews can also be antisemitic. Look at Karl Marx and Bobby Fischer and Steve's old boss Ron Unz. Left-wing "anti-Zionists" are usually race communists, so they are not anti-Semitic in the traditional sense, but they are still anti-Semitic and anti-white.
Actually, am not sure if Ron Unz is halachically Jewish. He always stresses the point that his gone-away dad was Jewish. Which kind of suggests - by the obvious lack of info - that his mom wasn't.
Discussing with N*zis or islamogauchists like m droy is useless. He simply is not using the word meanings that mean what they mean. For example, how can you have genocide if the population in question is expanding?
Israel is committing a clear case of genocide. They are treating the Palestinians far worse than the Nazis treated the Jews. That’s not even remotely controversial.
You don't have to be an antisemite to be an antizionist. You could be innocently falling for the propaganda of antisemites. People who only make a fuss about Arabs getting killed when Jews do it either have a low opinion of Jews or a low opinion of Arabs.
I don't know why people like you don't understand that Israel's actions against Arabs is entirely reactive. The Arabs demand that Israel not exist. By your dubious standard they have been trying to manifest genocide against the Israelis for decades. And yet only Israel is subject to blame. If you pick team Arab in the debate about who should occupy that bit of land, it's fine, but don't act like you've done some kind of consistent western style moral reasoning about the conflict and, using the same standards you apply to other situations, arrived at the conclusion that the Israelis are insane/evil and that's all that's going on here.
No, you dislike the Israelis (I'm sure Jew has nothing to do with it) and like the Arabs. So Arabs hanfggliding over the border to rape and kill and burn is totally justified. Military action against an un-unformed army that purposefully mixies in the the civilian population, in order to free hostages, totally unjustified and, in fact, if you repeat it enough times...genocide!
My wife was born in Iran and has relatives living there. A few thoughts in no order of importance:
1. Ordinary Iranians dislike the regime - fashionable Tehranis seem to view it as comprised of whatever the Farsi phrase is for "idiot hicks" - but they generally don't actively oppose it, out of self-interest or concern for what would replace it. The nuclear weapons program had no benefit for them and the American bombs / Israeli targeted attacks didn't hurt anything they care about.
2. As an American acquaintance pointed out and my wife's relatives observed, the bombing of the nuclear facilities had absolutely no effect on the availability of electric power throughout Iran. I've read several commenters going on about how the US and Israel don't have plausible deniability anymore, but it seems like everyone's overlooking that the Islamic Republic has lost plausible deniability that its nuclear program is for peaceful use.
3. It really was now or never to attack, in terms of total air dominance.
It makes sense to me that you would not see protests immediately. The people who want the regime to fall would be in "wait and see" mode. What's interesting to me about this entire conflict going back to October 7, is how thorough the propaganda is. In all of this I am only confident of a handful of facts. Since the recent air war began, youtube has shown me several videos which made it sound like the regime had already collapsed.
The only nuclear reactor in Iran was not bombed and is still in operation. If it had been bombed there would have been a large release of radioactive material. The U.S. bombed enrichment facilities that increase the percentage of U-235 in the Uranium by removing the much more common U-238,
I don’t know whether the reactor in Iran is even connected to the power grid. Iran has all of the natural gas it needs to supply the country with electricity.
We weren’t even sold a bill of goods on this one. All it took was Bibi telling Trump to jump and he faithfully complied. Now Trump’s endorsing regime change.
Leave the mullahs in place, you're just rewinding the tape. Oceans of oil and a captive customer (China) assures the program will restart soon and progress more quickly than before (lessons learned, organization, experienced personnel).
"I'm starting to feel like Trump's bombing of Iran's nuke sites was just to create an excuse for Israel to stop fighting. Israel can't afford war losses anymore, but Netanyahu won't call a ceasefire, scared he'll be labeled a coward. Truth is, Trump's strikes didn't really hurt Iran much - just a big SHOW."
I entirely agree. Israel seems to have gotten hurt much more than Iran so far, with much less tolerance to pain. And apparently not a single shot was fired at the US bombers - sounds like an agreed slap on the wrists. We have seen Trump do this before.
The current situation? No, not really, too much bloviation to sort the wheat from the chaff. I was drawn back to the history of this long struggle between Islam and the West or Christendom as it were. When negotiators were sent to Vlad of Transylvania from the Sultan of Constantinople, they committed a diplomatic faux pax and failed to remove their head coverings upon meeting Vlad. Showing respect for their traditions, he had the hats nailed to the heads of the negotiators and after severing such heads sent them to the Sultan with his regards.
After following this history, in books for 2000 years, this chapter is interesting but just another chapter to be followed by many more. My ultimate opinion, 2 days after, Vlad strikes a blow but the ultimate war, so long developing, is being lost, BBC article after NYT article.
An informed thread by Jeffrey Lewis. The first tweet summarizes: "Why am I so unimpressed by these strikes? Israel and the US have failed to target significant elements of Iran's nuclear materials and production infrastructure. RISING LION and MIDNIGHT HAMMER are tactically brilliant, but may turn out to be strategic failures."
Given that we only see reports that US sources *say* we destroyed everything, I'm guessing we didn't. But, that and $5.00 will get you coffee at Starbucks.
I'm still hoping for a comeback by Reza Pahlavi. I noted earlier that the Shah's son is still around at 64, is an alumnus of USC, and his children were born in the United States. While his wife is also Persian, she is an alumna of George Washington. Therefore if we need to install a new leader, we have someone tanned, rested, and ready.
Theodore Roosevelt V is still alive at 82. He is a Harvard alumnus and MBA and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Meanwhile his cousin Kermit IV is a 53-year-old Yale Law alumnus and is currently on the faculty at Penn Law.
They've been on the same faculty for 25 years and there are only 103 members; I would be stunned if they didn't know each other, at least in passing. Also, clarifying my previous post, TR V is a generation older than KR IV, as the president was a Jr.
If one wants an analysis, the everyone should be looking at what is not discussed.
1. Force projection. Iran cannot project militarily much past its own borders. Iran's military reach is what can be reached with a mid-range ballistic missile.
2. Powell doctrine. No one is asking why military force was used, one is the end goal, and how victory will be defined. So Americans is once again on the path of doing military things until its political leaders and population get bored again.
3. Air dominance. After three years of war, Russia never achieved air superiority over the Ukraine. Yet, Israel managed to achieve it one the first day. For any second or third world country, spending money on jet fighters seems to be a waste of money.
One the first day of attacks, the Israeli Air Force flew manned aircraft into Iranian air space. Iran seems incapable of stopping those manned flights, seems to have zero plans of using their own air force in air-to-air combat, and seems unable of hitting anything with a surface-to-air missile.
Everyone is CIA 🥱
Ever since LaRouche got old and died, we never did have another guy batting simultaneously for several countries' secret foreign services. Or at least not such a loquacious one.
I could buy this back in the 90s after we just won the Cold War (and greatly enjoyed X-Files), but I just don't think the CIA is that effective at this point.
Noticed that BBC News has begun seeding doubt about whether we finished the job. Headlines now say stuff like "Trump says we did a knockout blow, external observers are unsure." BBC wouldn't hint at this unless they had some new information. Maybe we didn't hit everything.
There's a rumor the Iranians were ready to reveal a new enrichment facility.
BBC is very much "Global South"
If only - BBC is tight with MI6/CIA fake news. Like most European media they take a lead from WaPo and NYT.
There have been loads of internal complaints about reporting on Israel, all over ruled and Raffi Berg is still in charge across BBC News for ME editing. It is actaully quire funny if you hear the early morning World service radio news. All the honest truth about Israeli atrocities get edited out by lunchtime as I guess his main focus is the evening news.
The reason they are edited out is because they are fake. First, they insert it in, knowing they are fake and will be viewed in the Global South. Then, if there are really really heavy legal problems, they get edited out. If there are just moderate legal problems, in my opinion they stay put.
The idea is to make the BBC viewership endorse the islamogauchist political views. After all, it's so much better if British folks protest about Gaza than about more local issues like Rotherham. Wasn't it Friedrich Engels in a 1893 letter to Franz Mehring who called it false consciousness?
You are nuts.
It is an easy test. If you can identify a clear genocide then you have chances of sanity. If not - no one is interested in anything you have to say.
You also clearly never watch or hear BBC.
So, you're saying that you're insane? I mean, you imply that you think that not only is there a genocide being perpetrated in gaza, but that it's so obvious as to be a test of sanity?
You do understand that calling it genocide is just an attempt to attach a powerful word to the situation for propaganda reasons? You're just falling for Qatari propaganda instead of Israeli propaganda
I don't think he is falling for propaganda. I think he deliberately writes things he writes. Trying to impress people who might be impressed by big words.
Not just BBC. Plenty are saying it.
to me this is a fake attack much like Trump pulled off in Syria 2017 where few missiles hit, and to punish Assad for using CW on his own people they claimed they hit a CW factory in a Damascus suburb. How weird is that. Turned out to be a baby milk factory.
They're always hitting baby milk factories. Why aren't those women breast-feeding? Oh, it's because they need covers for weapons factories.
You really think even the US would hit a CW factory inside the suburbs of Damascus? To punish Assad for using CW on civilians?
That is pretty harsh on the IQ of the DoD.
And on the western journalists that walked around the factory afterwards to confirm what it was.
I was thinking the same thing. What a strange construction is "baby milk factory". Babies don't produce milk and factories don't grow up from baby factories. And why would hitting a factory elicit our sympathy, even if it had the word baby in it?
There would always be doubt in such a situation. There is doubt about the existence and extent of the program so there would have to be doubt about how successful we were in destroying it or setting it back.
I guess we'll have to invade and do a thorough search. It's the only way to be sure ;)
LENNY BRUCE IS NOT AFRAID.
Obscure REM quote...fits in nicely to the sense of "unreality" around this whole episide.
I was thinking William Goldman's "Nobody knows anything," but yeah.
Even Peter Hitchens sees the double standard around atomic secrecy
https://x.com/clarkemicah/status/1936776661024063499?s=46&t=kdqpX9FoK7c2oZJihqGaiQ
Yes the double standards are justified given the especially awful nature and anti-Americanism of the Iranian regime. Not all countries are the same. It’s fine for America to have nukes but bad North Korea has them.
That is nuts.
It certainly isn't fine for a genocidal nutcase like Israel to have them.
NK is a much safer case.
OK Hitler
Are you calling me an anti-semite because I am anti-zionist? Seriously in 2025. How embarrassing for you.
Still I claim that as a compliment - you bet all decent people are anti-zionist, including many of the jewish population of UK who were at the pro-Gaza anti-war march here in London on Saturday.
Hitler was an anti-Zionist.
If you are an "anti-Zionist" who comments on Steve Sailer's blog, you are obviously an antisemite. I use it in quotes because it's nonsensical to talk about "anti-Zionism" in 2025. Seriously. It's like saying "anti Pakistan movement". Zionism was the political movement to create Israel. It succeeded. Accusing Israel of genocide and hating them isn't even the same as being "anti-Zionist", you can hate Serbia and accuse them of genocide without calling for the abolition of Serbia.
Anyway Jews can also be antisemitic. Look at Karl Marx and Bobby Fischer and Steve's old boss Ron Unz. Left-wing "anti-Zionists" are usually race communists, so they are not anti-Semitic in the traditional sense, but they are still anti-Semitic and anti-white.
Actually, am not sure if Ron Unz is halachically Jewish. He always stresses the point that his gone-away dad was Jewish. Which kind of suggests - by the obvious lack of info - that his mom wasn't.
> Hitler was an anti-Zionist.
What? Hitler was a pro-Zionist. The Zionist project is to move the Jews from other places to the Levant. That was also what Hitler wanted.
Same reason the KKK was pro-Marcus-Garvey.
Are you calling Israel genocidal? How embarrassing for you. Where is the dolus specialis?
https://manifold.markets/Shump/will-the-icj-determine-that-israel
brainless - bye
Discussing with N*zis or islamogauchists like m droy is useless. He simply is not using the word meanings that mean what they mean. For example, how can you have genocide if the population in question is expanding?
Israel is committing a clear case of genocide. They are treating the Palestinians far worse than the Nazis treated the Jews. That’s not even remotely controversial.
You don't have to be an antisemite to be an antizionist. You could be innocently falling for the propaganda of antisemites. People who only make a fuss about Arabs getting killed when Jews do it either have a low opinion of Jews or a low opinion of Arabs.
Oh FFS - israel commits genocide, and you are defending them with semantics.
Do you not realise how low you have gone and what little people think of such argument. Shuffle away to Argentina
Why do you think the Saudis are much more OK with an Israeli nuke than with a potential Iranian nuke?
They are Sunni and close to US. their leaders love Israel, only their population hate them.
The Saudi population takes the opposite view - as would anyone normal.
I don't know why people like you don't understand that Israel's actions against Arabs is entirely reactive. The Arabs demand that Israel not exist. By your dubious standard they have been trying to manifest genocide against the Israelis for decades. And yet only Israel is subject to blame. If you pick team Arab in the debate about who should occupy that bit of land, it's fine, but don't act like you've done some kind of consistent western style moral reasoning about the conflict and, using the same standards you apply to other situations, arrived at the conclusion that the Israelis are insane/evil and that's all that's going on here.
No, you dislike the Israelis (I'm sure Jew has nothing to do with it) and like the Arabs. So Arabs hanfggliding over the border to rape and kill and burn is totally justified. Military action against an un-unformed army that purposefully mixies in the the civilian population, in order to free hostages, totally unjustified and, in fact, if you repeat it enough times...genocide!
maybe people can read.
What do you mean "even"? He's quite well known to be doubtful of foreign intervention, NATO, etc.
My wife was born in Iran and has relatives living there. A few thoughts in no order of importance:
1. Ordinary Iranians dislike the regime - fashionable Tehranis seem to view it as comprised of whatever the Farsi phrase is for "idiot hicks" - but they generally don't actively oppose it, out of self-interest or concern for what would replace it. The nuclear weapons program had no benefit for them and the American bombs / Israeli targeted attacks didn't hurt anything they care about.
2. As an American acquaintance pointed out and my wife's relatives observed, the bombing of the nuclear facilities had absolutely no effect on the availability of electric power throughout Iran. I've read several commenters going on about how the US and Israel don't have plausible deniability anymore, but it seems like everyone's overlooking that the Islamic Republic has lost plausible deniability that its nuclear program is for peaceful use.
3. It really was now or never to attack, in terms of total air dominance.
Yet despite the best efforts of the CIA regime operations, there is no sign of any protest apart from some Kurd groups.
It makes sense to me that you would not see protests immediately. The people who want the regime to fall would be in "wait and see" mode. What's interesting to me about this entire conflict going back to October 7, is how thorough the propaganda is. In all of this I am only confident of a handful of facts. Since the recent air war began, youtube has shown me several videos which made it sound like the regime had already collapsed.
No that is stupid - the CIA is paying people to protest, they want it now.
And even the CIA can't get a reaction.
Why put it under a mountain if you're not going to use it for weapons?
The only nuclear reactor in Iran was not bombed and is still in operation. If it had been bombed there would have been a large release of radioactive material. The U.S. bombed enrichment facilities that increase the percentage of U-235 in the Uranium by removing the much more common U-238,
I don’t know whether the reactor in Iran is even connected to the power grid. Iran has all of the natural gas it needs to supply the country with electricity.
Thank you for such a low-key post. Very refreshing after watching nearly everyone in an uproar for a week straight.
For decades, Iran's nukes were the world's slowest moving crisis. But now, after many years of Nothing Ever Happens, something did happen.
Well, Stuxnet happened.
And multiple Israeli strikes and Assassinations of nuclear scientists. Stuff happens, it just depends what you pay attention to.
I like the sentiment there but disapprove of the passive sentence construction;
Nothing Ever Happens is a pretty bad model for the Middle East.
Strike was a win-win for Iran and the US. Schrodinger's strike if you like. Both sides can claim the best version of themselves.
We weren’t even sold a bill of goods on this one. All it took was Bibi telling Trump to jump and he faithfully complied. Now Trump’s endorsing regime change.
Leave the mullahs in place, you're just rewinding the tape. Oceans of oil and a captive customer (China) assures the program will restart soon and progress more quickly than before (lessons learned, organization, experienced personnel).
Trump says Iran wouldn't negotiate.
But Israel murdered the negotiators - and Trump laughed about it.
No one can negotiate with USA again - in fact no one can find volunteer negotiators to turn up to the meetings.
This is the US world - not so much Trump but the World of the ultimate loser who knows the wrorld has turned against him.
In parallel, US has weaponised its biggest Economic weakness, the deficit, as a tool for Economic war. Desperate measures.
"I'm starting to feel like Trump's bombing of Iran's nuke sites was just to create an excuse for Israel to stop fighting. Israel can't afford war losses anymore, but Netanyahu won't call a ceasefire, scared he'll be labeled a coward. Truth is, Trump's strikes didn't really hurt Iran much - just a big SHOW."
This is a quote from some one on
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/shayrat-redux-trumps-invisible-fleet
I entirely agree. Israel seems to have gotten hurt much more than Iran so far, with much less tolerance to pain. And apparently not a single shot was fired at the US bombers - sounds like an agreed slap on the wrists. We have seen Trump do this before.
The current situation? No, not really, too much bloviation to sort the wheat from the chaff. I was drawn back to the history of this long struggle between Islam and the West or Christendom as it were. When negotiators were sent to Vlad of Transylvania from the Sultan of Constantinople, they committed a diplomatic faux pax and failed to remove their head coverings upon meeting Vlad. Showing respect for their traditions, he had the hats nailed to the heads of the negotiators and after severing such heads sent them to the Sultan with his regards.
After following this history, in books for 2000 years, this chapter is interesting but just another chapter to be followed by many more. My ultimate opinion, 2 days after, Vlad strikes a blow but the ultimate war, so long developing, is being lost, BBC article after NYT article.
An informed thread by Jeffrey Lewis. The first tweet summarizes: "Why am I so unimpressed by these strikes? Israel and the US have failed to target significant elements of Iran's nuclear materials and production infrastructure. RISING LION and MIDNIGHT HAMMER are tactically brilliant, but may turn out to be strategic failures."
https://x.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1936955686174466551
Given that we only see reports that US sources *say* we destroyed everything, I'm guessing we didn't. But, that and $5.00 will get you coffee at Starbucks.
Hypothesis: In the UN Security Council Russia and China tell Israel and Iran to knock it off. The USA agrees to not disagree.
I'm still hoping for a comeback by Reza Pahlavi. I noted earlier that the Shah's son is still around at 64, is an alumnus of USC, and his children were born in the United States. While his wife is also Persian, she is an alumna of George Washington. Therefore if we need to install a new leader, we have someone tanned, rested, and ready.
https://x.com/PahlaviReza
Does Kermit Roosevelt have any heirs? I guess I could google it.
Theodore Roosevelt V is still alive at 82. He is a Harvard alumnus and MBA and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Meanwhile his cousin Kermit IV is a 53-year-old Yale Law alumnus and is currently on the faculty at Penn Law.
Yeah just looked him up. I wonder if he knows Amy Wax.
They've been on the same faculty for 25 years and there are only 103 members; I would be stunned if they didn't know each other, at least in passing. Also, clarifying my previous post, TR V is a generation older than KR IV, as the president was a Jr.
If one wants an analysis, the everyone should be looking at what is not discussed.
1. Force projection. Iran cannot project militarily much past its own borders. Iran's military reach is what can be reached with a mid-range ballistic missile.
2. Powell doctrine. No one is asking why military force was used, one is the end goal, and how victory will be defined. So Americans is once again on the path of doing military things until its political leaders and population get bored again.
3. Air dominance. After three years of war, Russia never achieved air superiority over the Ukraine. Yet, Israel managed to achieve it one the first day. For any second or third world country, spending money on jet fighters seems to be a waste of money.
The most impressive thing is that Israel did it using flying sparkle ponies! Wowee wow wow! 🦄✨
They use almost all U.S. manufactured aircraft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Air_Force
It is amazing how much the global aircraft manufacturing industry has consolidated.
Israel does not have control of Iranian airspace. This is a fairytale.
One the first day of attacks, the Israeli Air Force flew manned aircraft into Iranian air space. Iran seems incapable of stopping those manned flights, seems to have zero plans of using their own air force in air-to-air combat, and seems unable of hitting anything with a surface-to-air missile.