If you're the Iranian regime, the world is a hostile place. You're surrounded by enemies and potential enemies. In your time of crisis, the friends you thought you had are acting like they don't know you. The situation is one of existential threat. A future reality with your head on a pike is a very real possibility. You don't exactly have many options here, so maybe you play the only move you can make. It's a risky one, but it's at least bold and will be effectuating.
Interestingly, this move also attacks your real enemy: the globalized market. Iran would do well for itself in a world of 1926; in 2026, there's going to be friction.
In a sense, they're not fighting the US/Israel. They're fighting our datacenters. I'm sure the strategy for this conflict was vibe-planned to a large extent. A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society and go live in a Hobbesian state of nature in your local park. That might work for awhile, but eventually, the system will come for you. And that's just neutrality. Pick a fight with capital, and you'll always lose.
Which IMO is why attempting to combat that from the outside is probably fruitless, and a better route is to try and gain control from the inside. Iran (or Russia, for that matter) would be dominant forces if they were integrated with their neighbors. Imagine Russia inside the EU – they'd have as much/more influence than Germany.
But they're outside, increasingly isolated, and thus open to erosion, whether in a hostile war like today's, or just by being outcompeted and culturally left behind.
Edit: By Iran, I'm referring to what's left of the current Iranian administration and military, not the entirety of the Iranian people.
I wouldn’t bet on either approach working. But a good outcome in Afghanistan was always completely hopeless. A good outcome in Iran is merely unlikely.
The US might long for genocide but it'll get bored in a few weeks (look at these drapes!), Israel will not. Bibi has already said he's dreamed of executing a war against Iran for 40 years.
People in the west who talk about “Islamophobia” are often just ignorant about what Muslim countries themselves do to control political Islam. In my home country, where Islam is the official religion, the government banned Islam-associated parties until recently and went around killing Islamists without due process. In majority-Muslim Turkey, political Islam was suppressed—e.g. hijabs were banned until Erdogan came to power. Singapore bans the hijab for certain civil servants. None of that is “Islamophobia”—it’s an effort to make sure that what happened in Iran doesn’t happen in their country.
Projecting American racial politics onto other countries is an extremely bad (and bizarrely ethnocentric) way to try to understand how the world works.
When i talk about Islamophobia, I think about the time when my mom was run off the road by a couple of guys in a truck yelling slurs, or the woman who was stabbed walking home from our mosque, or the bulletholes in our mosque windows, or the weekly bomb/death threats.
You wield your ethnicity like a bludgeon to “win” these types of arguments but you are quite remote from the actual experience of others who look like you.
The point of my story isn’t “I’m from a Muslim country, so I can say there’s no Islamophobia.” My point is that “I’m from a Muslim country, so I know what moderate Muslims have done to deal with political Islam, which is a real threat.”
The explanation is here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seyed-Hosseini-23/publi...
Population grew from 1950 at 20+million to today 80+million; every country quadrupling the population would collapse?
Sounds more like the Taliban than Iran's ex-leadership.
Pete Hegseth is hyper-conservative too. Actually all three of the main combatants are hardline religious groups.
You get downvoted for saying something that's true, and it's not even a defense of the Irani theocratic dictatorship.
Namely: at least some of the support for the war (and for Israel) in the US is religiously motivated. Religious as in "fundamentalist". This doesn't make the US a theocracy, but it does mean many of the decision makers are making decisions based at least partly on Christian fundamentalist doctrine.
There are already some reports [1] of US troops complaining they are being told they've embarked on a mission from God. It boggles the mind.
> "One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”
> "“He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added."
(This was just one report of many).
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran...
Edit: wow, downvotes for quoting a mainstream newspaper with evidence that US policy is at least influenced by Christian fundamentalists, and this without any real argument to counter this, just drive-by downvoting? Sheesh, is this what passes for debate in HN?
The USA's media strategy appears to be aimed at Christian Zionism to justify involvement in Israel's regional affairs. There are many influential Christian Zionists in government and politics in the US. Ted Cruz comes to mind as one outspoken example.
If you subscribe to these beliefs, all of this is perfectly rational, that this war is a signal of the end times, that the faithful should not shrink before the fight, the return of the Christ and millennium of peace are within reach.
There has also been conspiratorial speculation that one of the goals of this war is to incite antisemitism in the United States, to spur the return of the diaspora in America to the Holy Land. Israel needs bodies, if they are to realize the Greater Israel Project. Now this is all conspiracy theory, but it's food for thought.
On their end, Iran has been preparing for exactly this for decades. If anything, the complexity of the globalized market means more weak points to strike. Which in 2026 is cheap and easy with swarms of drones. Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
TL;DR: Capital might very well lose this one.
Given the 12 day war and now, it doesn't seem like they are putting much of a fight. The US air superiority has completely done them, it'd seem.
> Iran is firmly sided with China and Russia.
Doesn't seem like those two will move an inch.
Iran also has further escalation paths it can take. So far, they have only been targeting US-affiliated targets in the Gulf. You can imagine what would happen if they decide to expand their target list. But I think this will only happen if GCC countries decide to participate.
Everything I've read suggests the US and Israel are stomping all over Iran, and have destroyed their air force, navy, and even anti-air defenses.
I know these news are necessarily biased (e.g. do we know for a fact the three F-15E Strike Eagles were really downed by Kuwaiti friendly fire and none were downed by Iran?), but the chance of credible news of Iran putting up any real resistance is very, very slim.
Their entire defense strategy post-war (Iran-Iraq war) has been centered around ballistic missiles. More recently, they “pioneered” the use of kamikaze drones (Shahed) and included their use in their strategy. Note that they have aggressively optimized Shahed when it comes to cost, ease of manufacturing, and ease of launch. Shahed drones have seen extensive combat usage in the Ukraine war.
The other “hint” when it comes to Iran’s response is the increasing estimates by the US as to how long this “operation” will last. Initially, it was a few days. Now they are saying 4-5 weeks. Edit: Looks like it could up to 8 weeks..
Long story short, until we start to see significant degradation in launches - both missiles and drones - we simply cannot say that Iran has been defeated.
As far as news sources go, the easy recommendation is Al Jazeera. Twitter/X is also decent, but there is a ton of noise.
With China the issue is different: They have a completely different military ecosystem so it's not like they can send them their own stuff. We already saw in Ukraine that running 2 types of equipment along each other is a pain in the ass and strains logistics. China is likely aiding them with satellite imagery instead.
Any assistance to Iran (like satellite imagery) will have limited effect, and the Chinese know it. In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this. For any rational international actor, there's no sense in becoming involved in a lost fight.
But what if the Islamic Republic isn't a material thing, it isn't a government apparatus, it is actually the ideas and culture of a population under siege? 50-60 million Persians, and another 30-40 million muslims of other ethnicities. They have been embargoed for decades, the message that the US and Israel are evil has seeped into every corner of society there. It will not be so simple to erase that programming and you can expect a large portion of the population to resist to the bitter end. It's been over 20 years of planning to bring the USA to this point, 20 years because it was never a sure bet, and even today it's still not clear who wins. No, I think 4 days in it's too early to call winners and losers.
they are not?
They're managing to successfully counterattack with strikes in every country in the region, while the bulk of their central leadership has been KIA. They still control the Strait of Hormuz and very intense naval, land, and air operations will be required to dislodge them.
If this war was started with the goal of the complete destruction of Iran, ground troops will have to go in (President Trump et. al. is already in the media telegraphing the requirement). Iran is a mountain fortress, and the home team (pop. 91 million) holds advantage. This has the potential to become and long and bloody war.
It takes very little for them to keep disrupting things which affect the global economy.
Even if leadership changes at the top and isn't killed, why would independent cells of fighters stop?
I think there's a huge possibility that Iran can keep being disruptive longer than the US is willing to spend $$$$$ bombing and intercepting.
Russia has their hands full with Ukraine and has failed in the past to protect other allies such as Syria.
China seems wise enough to provide some support to Iran while sitting out of direct involvement in the war. China has everything to lose with war and nothing to gain. If anything, they are signaling "stability" to the Global South -- something from which the US is increasingly drifting away -- and war is the opposite of stability.
> Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
I think they have more than enough, plus Iran faces an even worse situation. Limited stockpiles of their only effective weapons, missiles and drones, and quickly running out. What's worse, by not using those weapons in huge salvoes, they reduce their efficiency... they only work if they can overcome defenses, but if they spend them too fast they lose their only effective weapon.
I think the Islamic Republic will be overthrown, but this requires boots on the ground, and it'll become a quagmire like Iraq or Afghanistan. At some point the US will declare success and leave, and from the ashes of Iran countless warring factions will emerge, an endless insurgency, and possibly the next ISIS. We've seen this happen more than once, no reason to believe this will go a different way.
Russia and China cannot stop this.
Edit: rather than downvotes, I prefer debate. Be better, HN. I realize this is difficult in times of war involving the country where the majority of HN hails from, but I trust you can do it. Engage in rational debate please.
They're fighting our datacenters. (...) A hyper-conservative regime like this will probably fare (at least in the long run) about as well as you would if you decide to nope out of society
It is important to at least look at things as they are, and not through the prism of orientalism.
Iran's regime is socially conservative. But so is the current US government. There is no sign that they are anti-technology or isolationist.
In the end, that (plus their essential resource flows) only make them a more viable candidate for expansion of capital's machinic assemblage. The force of the market hasn't colonized all of the Earth yet; it yet has many peripheries. There's plenty of room for expansion in, say, central Africa. It'll get there eventually, but right now its focus is elsewhere. The assemblage will always weigh the costs/benefits, then select the next best space to expand into. That's what it's doing here. The goal is to convert some of its surplus value into ingesting a bit of its frontier, and make of it its own.
It explains that one of Iran's goals is to make the GCC (UAE, Kuwait, etc) uninvestable by making them non-safe and choke the Strait of Hormuz. This affects the petrodollar as well as American stock market since the GCC invest much of that oil money back into American companies.
His other videos on Iran, Israel, and America through the lens of game theory are also quite good. It's a side you often you don't hear in mainstream media: https://www.youtube.com/@PredictiveHistory/search?query=iran
He also explains in this video why a ground invasion of Iran is damn near impossible due to the terrains and how Saudi Arabia and Iran are connected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_hbz6loEo
As someone who doesn't know much about the highly complex history, goals of the Middle East and the world, they're informative but I'm also open to people who disagree with this guy. Would love to hear things from all sides.
Warning: The Youtube channel has a very doomish view of this conflict though. He thinks this is the start of WW3.
Granted, most YouTube analyst channels with ~=>500k subscribers usually do deploy exaggerated claims or "one parameter to explain everything" narrative (Zeihan, Varoufakis, Mersheimer, William Spaniel) so you should take their infotainment with a grain of salt. Current trendy buzzword is "Realism" and "Game Theory" so those two term are mired with wish washy handwaving.
Usually, just like tech stuff, the actually valuable insight is not found in the blogs but the source material they refer to, because they have nuances.
A quick tell is that the video's title includes "Game Theory", while only referencing game-theoretical concepts twice in an off-hand comment. In both instances the usage is plainly wrong.
In general, he loves making big assertions without backing them up with evidence or explanations that go beyond hand-wavy examples.
- "The conflict is a game of chicken." Only in the vaguest sense in which any war or confrontation could be called that.
- "The USA is not equipped to handle a war against drones and fanatics". Idk they seem more capable than any other nation save Ukraine given that those two things have been a major feature of their recent wars.
- "Countries that are poor have more energy and are more cohesive". This is just demonstrably false, but he does not bother to explain why he thinks this.
- "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers.
I do share his negative sentiment and outlook about the war, but there are way better critics that don't resort to this type of intellectual laziness.
- "The US wants to break Iran into ethno-states that compete for water until they are all dead." He even admits that this is pure conjecture and hand-waves this as the game-theoretic "optimal" strategy which is completely bonkers.
What do you think of this?
The US probably asked Israel to not betray the agreement, Israel as usual betrayed the agreement, said to the US 'we will attack during the negotiations', probably because it was effective the last few times they did, and the US couldn't force them to stop, so they had to preemptively strike.
From one evil war monger to the next.
Its worked before (see 1980s https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-tanker-war/), and it'll probably work again. Especially as Iran has different values on loss.
The other issue that is less said is that the USA probably doesn't have the capacity to keep bombing in this way. They are using all the fancy missiles first, but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing. This is Russian level stupidity, and shows the danger of letting "true believers" organise things over actual planners who've done this before.
more over, allies can't keep up that level of air defence.
It _could be_ bullshit that iran has a whole load of ballistic and drones spread all over the place, but frankly the US can't afford to find out if thats the case.
Sure the US could escort tankers, but that would mean much higher risk of casualties. Given that the USA is reasonably self sufficient in oil, thats probably a hard sell.
Also, does the US have enough stock of ship born anti-missle systems? Sure it has the expensive stuff, and the Phalanx at last resort, but does the USA have the stomach to have a ship sink? I fear what happens after that.
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
Back to speaking tactically, JDAMs are cost effective enough that I bet they are the only gravity bomb used. I could see using unguided bombs for things like airbase runways but i bet they stick with JDAMs for logistical simplicity.
It is cheap and neither cares about civilian deaths. That is why. Both countries show it both in rhetoric and action. The leadership literally brags about not caring about civilian deaths.
Second, the number of civilians deaths caused by USA was going up due to drones usage. That is prior Trump, in administrations that kind of cared at least a little. And that was at the time when media sorta kinda cared. Nowdays, media do not care at all.
Third, Israel is not just ok with genocide, but wants it to happen. And USA is one of the leading countries in the project of helping them. I am not singling out America here, it is not JUST America. But America is very consistent in that.
You think he - a raging, narcissistic, racist, pedophile rapist - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens? You think He Seth - an alcoholic, "lethalmaxxing", Tate bro with nazi tattoos - gives a single fuck about Iranian citizens?
Its worked before (see 1980s https://www.strausscenter.org/strait-of-hormuz-tanker-war/), and it'll probably work again. Especially as Iran has different values on loss.
The oil market is likely to adapt to disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil. But the Tanker War did not significantly disrupt oil shipments. In fact, Iran lowered the price of oil to offset higher insurance premiums on shipments, and the real global oil price steadily declined during the 1980s. Even at the its most intense point, the Tanker War failed to disrupt more than two percent of ships passing through the Persian Gulf.[x]
This seems relevant to the global stock/oil market overreaction.
This is true, but as with the start of the tanker wars:
> Initially, the Tanker War led to a 25 percent drop in commercial shipping and a sharp rise in the price of crude oil.
currently something like 90% of shipping is stopped.
But your general point about moving around it is valid, assuming that Iran doesn't attack refineries and distribution points. Last time Iran had to use artillery to attack shipping, this time they have better weapons
i'm no geopolitical expert but the most likely outcome of bombing bystanders is more enemies and fewer bystanders.
In the first unprovoked attack they killed an important religious leader of a big part of the population of the area (not only Iran) and a bunch of civilians (160 children in a school between them).
But the assesment is that 'is Iran who is threatening and targeting bystanders'. No surprise that we are in the mess we are.
Iran attacks on the UAE 186 ballistic missiles 812 drones
this article even states that the UAE has been attacked more than Israel itself which, again, blows my mind. The UAE is, wisely IMO, choosing to stay out of it but i mean how much can they take?
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/03/uae-iran-missiles-strike-is...
Global media is reporting B-52s over Iran, which implies complete air supremecy and complete Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses, so this, on the face of it, seems to be untrue.
> but haven't made a safe path to do unguided cheap bombing
Do you seriously believe it? That we're not going to see the US/Israel bombers over Iran?
It was carefully planed for a swift takeover, way, way more than what is happening there, and it still ended up being a cluster fuck. The rebels were the fucking ground groups.
Here, it will probably be Iraqis, like during the first gulf war. Hopefully less people will die, but clearly this is a terrible decision.
As Mark Carney said: "if the middle powers are not in the table, they are in the menu" meaning "if the weak don't unite and resist together we'll be eaten by the strong".
OTOH, does anyone remember the "shock and awe" in the first days of Iraq War? It was pretty much like this. Soon, the orange buffoon might have a "mission accomplished" [1] moment and revert the tendency in the midterms. And then the U.S. gets even more screwed in the long run.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
https://x.com/markjcarney/status/2027721462233141679?s=46
Here is the partial walk back: https://x.com/harry__faulkner/status/2028950225683894395?s=4...
https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060925,00.htm...
Europe largely shifted to a mix of US and Norway following the Russian-Ukraine War in 2022.
Specifically, India and France know this for decades.
If the Kurdish people decided to take up the deal and go against Iran, and Turkey/Azerbaijan decided to follow suite, then it's going to be really messy.
Bahrain always had unrest issues due to it's laggard economy and communal issues - this was why KSA invaded it back during the Arab Spring. Something similar is always on the table for KSA.
> Jordan
Shia are nonexistent in Jordan, and Jordan was much more affected by the decade long Syrian Civil War right across the border and some of it's largest urban areas (especially the Irbid-Daraa area).
> Kurdish people
Kurds are not uniform. The Iraqi and Iranian Kurds tend to be much more socially conservative than their Syrian brethren (Turkish Kurds are somewhere in the middle).
Turkiye also supports the KRG and PJAK as they don't support Oclanism and act as a buffer against Iran.
> it's going to be really messy
No one wants to admit it but that's the whole point. I mentioned this before on HN [0] - no one wants to admit this because it is a bad look, but it aligns with our interests.
What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran?
Jordanian Palestinians tend to be middle and upper middle class now and cornered the Ex-Im business with Israel and the US (most Arab goods in the US are "Made in Jordan" for a reason, and why "Made in Jordan" textiles have become so common now at Costco and Walmart).
Jordan also neighbored a similarly industrial country that collapsed into a decade long civil war (Syria).
> What do you think the possibility of Kurds getting a piece of land from Iran
Kurds are not uniform. The KRG (Iraqi Kurdistan) is fairly socially conservative as is Iranian Kurdistan. They are also extremely pro-America (the US protected the KRG since 1991), pro-Israel (Iraqi Kurdish Jews of the Barzani and Talabani clans are overrepresented in Israeli politics and defense careerists), and pro-Turkiye (they are a counterweight against Apo's PKK).
I think it is likely we will allow a KRG dominated rump state form around Ilam-Kermanshah-Sanandaj-Mahabad. We will likely see a similar thing arise in Iranian Azerbaijan with Turkish+Azeri backing. Iran is already de facto nonexistent in much of Sistan-ve-Balochistan. Iraqi Shia Arab militias will most likely end up backing a rump state in the portions of Khuzestan neighboring southern Iraq and Kuwait.
Thanks, I think along the same line.
What are the Kurds supposed to get in the "deal" to go against Iran? It is pretty much guaranteed they wont get anything except betrayal in the long term, so it must be something "right now".
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/cia-arming-kurds-ira...
And the history is Kurds helping USA just to be abandoned later on. If they settled for some long term promises, they would be stupid. So, lets assume they get something in short term.