Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
I did wonder that. Why hit Iran? Why not just get involved in a forever war in the West Bank (Well, it won't be forever, but it can certainly be 'dragged' out for a few decades). Maybe Netanyahu thinks such a war might be over with quick.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Yes quite. There is some weird determination to assert that “bombing made no difference”. Is it a kind of political correctness for military historians? I just don’t get it, because it’s obviously wrong
If you bomb a country into ruins that will lead, in part or in total, to its defeat
The argument against bombing is like saying “you can only knock a man out with a direct punch to the face, uppercuts have no effect”
That may (or may not) be technically true but if you continuously uppercut your opponent smashing his brains against the top of his skull so he becomes cognitively damaged and has blood squirting through his eyes, then he is going to be rather less able to defend himself against the knockout blow
It may have made a difference by soaking up miltary resources but it didn't break the German civilian spirit which was what Harris and others predicted. Of course there's a school of thought that on a more atavistic level Harris just wanted to kill Germans, but he got an awful lot of his 'boys' killed as well.
That’s not what Antony beevor says in “the battle of the bulge” - and he’s a far better writer than max bleedin’ Hastings
It’s a theme throughout the book. The terrible morale on the German side because bombing. The German soldiers were getting letters from home saying “we are sitting in ruins with no bread and hiding from bombs. Son, please surrender to the allies at it means the war will end sooner and it’s better than the red army. Stop fighting”
What’s that if not a collapse in morale?
[swaggering]
Sunil's Antony Beevor collection:
Russia - Revolution und Civil War The Spanish Civil War World War 2 Crete 1941 Stalingrad D-Day Paris after ze Liberation Arnhem Ardennes 1944 Berlin
I am less sure. Aren’t Remain voters exactly the sort of ex-Tory and ex-Labour voters who don’t care about that? They think this country has had enough of experts.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The strategic bombing campaign was a relentless grind in WWII, just like the Royal Naval blockade was.
People can obsess about generalship, operations, and tactics, but it usually comes down to logistics, ultimately. Germany’s logistical position, relative to its enemies, was bad to start off with, but the blockade and bombing made it far worse.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
They may as well.
Get rid of the Iranian regime
It’s just a shame both sides can’t lose.
If one person must be happy, it has to be Salman Rushdie.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
They may as well.
Get rid of the Iranian regime
It’s just a shame both sides can’t lose.
The Israelis managed to kill the head of the Revolutionary Guards. That’s incredible precision and penetration
Because, I really doubt he was lazily sleeping on the sofa in his flat. Iran knew an attack was probably coming. So this guy - as an obvious prime target - must surely have been in some bunker or whatever
Yet they still got him. It is similar to the Hezbollah pager attack
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
The economic and industrial cost of trying to defend against the bombers was a substantial factor too.
Quite. Every 88 involved in air defence of the Reich was not raining down shells on Omaha.
...or Stalingrad. Stalin demanded a "second front", convinced (with some justification) that the Western Allies weren't doing as much as him. Area bombing was a good niche for the Brits to exploit: it used their industrial base efficiently, it ate fewer people, It appealed to the UK's sense of tech superiority, it satisfied the political requirements, they were good at it and it could scale. By 44/45 area bombing had become a well-worn procedure: see https://www.waterstones.com/book/bomber-command/max-hastings/9781529047790
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
I hope there is a prolonged worldwide boycott of Israel. Trade, finance, travel. It's South Africa again.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
The issue that doesn't get discussed is that there were multiple air campaigns against Germany, using multiple technology levels.
Why? WHY? Who benefits from this? Five years after Wuhan and they’re still making new viruses that can kill humanity
If the UN or WHO were useful bodies they would ban this type of work on a worldwide basis.
It’s not gain of function research: the Twitter account has misreported it. It’s research of a virus that is already out there and a major threat. What would be the value in banning such research?
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
Israel is a small country with medium scale regional power capabilities based on massive US military aid.
It’s very good at prosecuting the few operations it expects to carry out, purely in defence of its own position. That option is open to us too. Take the last 10% of most US military production runs and become a regional proxy power. We have, however, rightly rejected that.
Our issue is that we haven’t fully funded that rejection.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
They may as well.
Get rid of the Iranian regime
It’s just a shame both sides can’t lose.
The Israelis managed to kill the head of the Revolutionary Guards. That’s incredible precision and penetration
Because, I really doubt he was lazily sleeping on the sofa in his flat. Iran knew an attack was probably coming. So this guy - as an obvious prime target - must surely have been in some bunker or whatever
Yet they still got him. It is similar to the Hezbollah pager attack
A lot of this must surely be depending on how unpopular the regime is inside Iran itself, and how much help the Israelis are getting.
So they would probably be very foolish to target too many areas that might affect the population at large. Otherwise the info may reduce.
The PB nats will be pleased to hear that Scottish soft power extends far north of Shetland
I have just seen Tunnock’s tea cakes on sale - great big piles of them - in the cafe of this Faroese ferry
Apparently it’s a hangover from the war. So many British soldiers were stationed here, with British snacks and drinks and culture, the locals also got a taste for these (they made a nice change from rotting mutton). Local supermarkets are full of digestive biscuits and HP sauce and marmite and the like
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
The economic and industrial cost of trying to defend against the bombers was a substantial factor too.
Quite. Every 88 involved in air defence of the Reich was not raining down shells on Omaha.
...or Stalingrad. Stalin demanded a "second front", convinced (with some justification) that the Western Allies weren't doing as much as him. Area bombing was a good niche for the Brits to exploit: it used their industrial base efficiently, it ate fewer people, It appealed to the UK's sense of tech superiority, it satisfied the political requirements, they were good at it and it could scale. By 44/45 area bombing had become a well-worn procedure: see https://www.waterstones.com/book/bomber-command/max-hastings/9781529047790
Wasn't Italy the "second front", and D-Day, effectively, the "third front"?
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Yes quite. There is some weird determination to assert that “bombing made no difference”. Is it a kind of political correctness for military historians? I just don’t get it, because it’s obviously wrong
If you bomb a country into ruins that will lead, in part or in total, to its defeat
The argument against bombing is like saying “you can only knock a man out with a direct punch to the face, uppercuts have no effect”
That may (or may not) be technically true but if you continuously uppercut your opponent smashing his brains against the top of his skull so he becomes cognitively damaged and has blood squirting through his eyes, then he is going to be rather less able to defend himself against the knockout blow
It may have made a difference by soaking up miltary resources but it didn't break the German civilian spirit which was what Harris and others predicted. Of course there's a school of thought that on a more atavistic level Harris just wanted to kill Germans, but he got an awful lot of his 'boys' killed as well.
That’s not what Antony beevor says in “the battle of the bulge” - and he’s a far better writer than max bleedin’ Hastings
It’s a theme throughout the book. The terrible morale on the German side because bombing. The German soldiers were getting letters from home saying “we are sitting in ruins with no bread and hiding from bombs. Son, please surrender to the allies at it means the war will end sooner and it’s better than the red army. Stop fighting”
What’s that if not a collapse in morale?
Censors must have been a bit rubbish for a totalitarian state. As you pointed out not long ago, the suicides started after Untergang und toter Hitler. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation, especially if they think miracle weapons are coming down the line.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
I thought they wanted to make peace with the Western Allies, and hold on to Germany's gains in the East?
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Yes quite. There is some weird determination to assert that “bombing made no difference”. Is it a kind of political correctness for military historians? I just don’t get it, because it’s obviously wrong
If you bomb a country into ruins that will lead, in part or in total, to its defeat
The argument against bombing is like saying “you can only knock a man out with a direct punch to the face, uppercuts have no effect”
That may (or may not) be technically true but if you continuously uppercut your opponent smashing his brains against the top of his skull so he becomes cognitively damaged and has blood squirting through his eyes, then he is going to be rather less able to defend himself against the knockout blow
It may have made a difference by soaking up miltary resources but it didn't break the German civilian spirit which was what Harris and others predicted. Of course there's a school of thought that on a more atavistic level Harris just wanted to kill Germans, but he got an awful lot of his 'boys' killed as well.
That’s not what Antony beevor says in “the battle of the bulge” - and he’s a far better writer than max bleedin’ Hastings
It’s a theme throughout the book. The terrible morale on the German side because bombing. The German soldiers were getting letters from home saying “we are sitting in ruins with no bread and hiding from bombs. Son, please surrender to the allies at it means the war will end sooner and it’s better than the red army. Stop fighting”
What’s that if not a collapse in morale?
Censors must have been a bit rubbish for a totalitarian state. As you pointed out not long ago, the suicides started after Untergang und toter Hitler. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation.
Beevor also makes the point that - likewise as a consequence of the bombing - censorship had basically collapsed. The “home front” was in chaos
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
So long as you're underwritten by America.
At the end of WW2 we were the most industrialised nation in the world, even ahead of the US.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
The economic and industrial cost of trying to defend against the bombers was a substantial factor too.
Quite. Every 88 involved in air defence of the Reich was not raining down shells on Omaha.
...or Stalingrad. Stalin demanded a "second front", convinced (with some justification) that the Western Allies weren't doing as much as him. Area bombing was a good niche for the Brits to exploit: it used their industrial base efficiently, it ate fewer people, It appealed to the UK's sense of tech superiority, it satisfied the political requirements, they were good at it and it could scale. By 44/45 area bombing had become a well-worn procedure: see https://www.waterstones.com/book/bomber-command/max-hastings/9781529047790
Wasn't Italy the "second front", and D-Day, effectively, the "third front"?
And the North African campaign - which killed/captured half a million Axis troops, and destroyed 2,500 tanks (among other things).
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Yeah. Apart from the unending outraged shrieking.
'In that case they should probably be a bit less worried about describing every unsympathetic word about them as antisemitism or blood libel. That Israel does that endlessly suggests that they're desperate to get sympathy but are just really shit at it.'
Nah - they are happy to call out what they see as antisemitism or blood libel (although it is usually via Brits - eg Fox, Murray, Hausdorff, Kemp, etc). Why wouldn't they. But the Israelis themselves are not huddled round their laptops wondering how Owen Jones or Theuniondivvie might respond to their latest move.
Yep, with their yellow stars and their tiny paper shredders Israel saves 'they're not giving a shit' for the big stage like the UN. They could probably enter these kind of histrionics for the Turner if they weren't so ridiculous and unselfaware.
You seem strangely obsessed with it all.
I know I can always count on you to be sniffing about any posts on the subject with your tedious ex-military-man-of-the-world-isms. Keep up the good, non-obsessive work.
Not at all - but you are trawling through the internet to find patriotic Israelis who are putting Israel's case. As though they should instead be sending you a personal note apologising for being so transparently un-rightthinking.
I'm pretty sure you are aware that I will happily debate the merits or otherwise of the Israeli action but snarky and dismissive "with their yellow stars" (very Dawn French) comments just seem weird.
Tell me why you think the geo-strategic effects of the Iran strike are misplaced and we can get it on in fine PB stylee.
The PB nats will be pleased to hear that Scottish soft power extends far north of Shetland
I have just seen Tunnock’s tea cakes on sale - great big piles of them - in the cafe of this Faroese ferry
Apparently it’s a hangover from the war. So many British soldiers were stationed here, with British snacks and drinks and culture, the locals also got a taste for these (they made a nice change from rotting mutton). Local supermarkets are full of digestive biscuits and HP sauce and marmite and the like
When I flew with Loganair from Aberdeen to Southend just before the Lockdown in 2020, they gave out Tunnock's Caramel bars during the flighT!
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
It depends what the objective is.
There's an Iranian nuclear facility under a mountain. If they don't want to see a wounded Iran rapidly develop a nuclear weapon that somehow also has to be destroyed - but how?
Do the Iranians have much of a long-range capability left to destroy?
If the remaining risk of Iranian retaliation is to the Strait of Hormuz, should we expect to see Israeli attacks on Iranian naval assets soon?
At the moment I suspect Israel might be nearly done.
Emily Carver and Tom Harwood challenge Labour MP Mike Tapp about his colleague Darren Jones' claim that the majority of migrants crossing the Channel are women and children.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
It depends what the objective is.
There's an Iranian nuclear facility under a mountain. If they don't want to see a wounded Iran rapidly develop a nuclear weapon that somehow also has to be destroyed - but how?
Do the Iranians have much of a long-range capability left to destroy?
If the remaining risk of Iranian retaliation is to the Strait of Hormuz, should we expect to see Israeli attacks on Iranian naval assets soon?
At the moment I suspect Israel might be nearly done.
Although the WSJ is now reporting that Israel is expected to continue strikes on Iran for 14 days, so what do I know?
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
So long as you're underwritten by America.
At the end of WW2 we were the most industrialised nation in the world, even ahead of the US.
Underwritten by the US, though. Took us a generation to make a dent in the debt - and we handed over the Crown Jewels of our technology into the bargain.
But you're not wrong. S Korea and Taiwan became modern manufacturing powerhouses from much less promising beginnings. It requires concerted national will to do so, though; the free market is nowhere near sufficient on its own.
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
Reform should just offer boiler plate economic policy. If they’re to win it will be down to immigration, why give other parties the chance to hammer them on dicey economic ideas and frighten voters off?
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
But overall TheValiant is correct, continual war on the Gazans interspersed with an attack on Iran, Hezbollah, Lebanon or Yemen when questions start to be asked about war crimes in Gaza and West Bank. Presumably current attack is to divert attention from the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution, which blatantly seems to be designed to require those Gazans fit enough to walk several miles to collect a heavy aid package to collect the aid so the IDF can shoot them.
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
It depends what the objective is.
There's an Iranian nuclear facility under a mountain. If they don't want to see a wounded Iran rapidly develop a nuclear weapon that somehow also has to be destroyed - but how?
Do the Iranians have much of a long-range capability left to destroy?
If the remaining risk of Iranian retaliation is to the Strait of Hormuz, should we expect to see Israeli attacks on Iranian naval assets soon?
At the moment I suspect Israel might be nearly done.
Although the WSJ is now reporting that Israel is expected to continue strikes on Iran for 14 days, so what do I know?
Yes, I suspect you’re wrong
It’s highly unlikely Israel hit all its targets in one night. What’s more they now have Iran sagging on the ropes - more vulnerable than ever. Presumably major Iranian generals and politicians are scurrying about in panic - exposing themselves unusually
The Pentagon will be handing over every possible scrap of info to help Israel take them out. The assault will continue
Emily Carver and Tom Harwood challenge Labour MP Mike Tapp about his colleague Darren Jones' claim that the majority of migrants crossing the Channel are women and children.
GB News Trivia: Emily Carver is married to Patrick Christys.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
That is the concern. And it's not as though Iran is going to lose its capacity for developing ballistic missiles - and more sophisticated drones (the latest version of the Shahed being used in Ukraine, for example, is turbojet powered and reportedly cruises at 600kmh, with a range of 2500km).
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
Reform should just offer boiler plate economic policy. If they’re to win it will be down to immigration, why give other parties the chance to hammer them on dicey economic ideas and frighten voters off?
Given Labour came in to power with zero economic scrutiny and didnt even have a plan, why should any other party be held to different standards ?
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
Since they haven't got reactors, they have to go the enriched uranium route.
Which is pain when you can't have a large factory space (a mile or two square) to run it. They will get there, with smaller cascades, but it will take a lot of time. And the rate of production will continue to be low.
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
Reform should just offer boiler plate economic policy. If they’re to win it will be down to immigration, why give other parties the chance to hammer them on dicey economic ideas and frighten voters off?
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
So long as you're underwritten by America.
At the end of WW2 we were the most industrialised nation in the world, even ahead of the US.
And broke and very tired. But what's this got to do with Israel's reliance on the US?
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
Israel has about twice as many combat aircraft as Britain.
Given that per capita measures are popular on here, that's roughly 2 combat aircraft per million population in the UK, and 29 in Israel.
I guess that's one measure of the extent of defence procurement mismanagement in Britain.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
The economic and industrial cost of trying to defend against the bombers was a substantial factor too.
Quite. Every 88 involved in air defence of the Reich was not raining down shells on Omaha.
...or Stalingrad. Stalin demanded a "second front", convinced (with some justification) that the Western Allies weren't doing as much as him. Area bombing was a good niche for the Brits to exploit: it used their industrial base efficiently, it ate fewer people, It appealed to the UK's sense of tech superiority, it satisfied the political requirements, they were good at it and it could scale. By 44/45 area bombing had become a well-worn procedure: see https://www.waterstones.com/book/bomber-command/max-hastings/9781529047790
Wasn't Italy the "second front", and D-Day, effectively, the "third front"?
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
The Israeli attack on Iran looks increasingly audacious and clever. They’ve taken out half of Iran’s leadership. They’ve paralysed Tehran
Unbelievable stuff
“Similar patterns to the Hezbollah attack. This will likely be revealed as one of the largest operations in modern history. Well-protected sites, top regime officials and key scientists are being targeted. The culmination of decades of Israeli intelligence work inside Iran.”
Mossad agents smuggled weapons into Iran and destroyed Iran’s missile capability from within. So now Iran is defenceless and Israel is pounding the nuclear sites. They won’t stop until it is all pulverised
In this instance I am entirely pro Israel. Go Jerusalem. I hope they take out the entire Iranian elite and the Iranian people are liberated
And yet the audacious and clever Israelis can’t employ a single talking head that might get the rest of the world that aren’t right wing lunatics to feel sympathy towards them. I’ll put that in their ‘things they are very bad at’ folder.
They really, really don't care.
Tell me if I've got this wrong.
Netanyahu knows he'll lose power the minute Israel isn't at war. The war with Gaza is 'petering' out, mainly because they've now murdered nearly everyone anyway. So he needs a new war to avoid facing the music. So he attacks Iran. That'll keep a nice long war going. Fuck Iran, and to be fair, fuck his own civilians and military who will also be murdered in the war. At least he keeps power.
Is it more complicated than that?
There's a minimum of two countries between Iran and Israel. A protracted war isn't possible. Iran would very quickly lose almost all it's long-range capability - that it hasn't already lost.
It's in the West Bank that Israel would continue a forever war, if the war in Gaza comes to an end, which I don't see much sign of.
However Israel now has the upper hand, entirely. It looks like they’ve wiped out half the Iranian regime with one blow and crippled Iran’s air defence and ability to counter attack
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
Israel is showing up the fallacy of post-war declinist narratives about Britain. Even in the modern world, power and influence doesn't have to be proportionate to population size.
Israel has about twice as many combat aircraft as Britain.
Given that per capita measures are popular on here, that's roughly 2 combat aircraft per million population in the UK, and 29 in Israel.
I guess that's one measure of the extent of defence procurement mismanagement in Britain.
8.8% of GDP spent on defence, and not a few billion in military aid from the US helps. I'm not sure we can aspire to the former in peacetime, and the latter seems slightly unlikely too.
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
In terms of destroying parental choice because of the class envy of this despicable Labour government maybe, in terms of improving school standards absolutely not
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
well they could just say sod it and take out all the nuclear plants. Massive contamination but you know.
But even that doesn't take out their ability to get nukes: they have more than enough unenriched uranium already. It's the enrichment process that takes the time. And the US and Israel have drive an incredible job slowing down the enrichment process - read Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon, about the creation of a virus whose sole job is screwing up the centrifuges.
But unless you can actually get to that enriched uranium, or overthrow the Iranian regime, then it is just delaying the inevitable.
Bombing Germany in WW2 is actually a great comparison. It was both incredibly effective in diverting resources. But German industrial production peaked in September 1944 - that's three months after DDay, and just eight months before the end of the war.
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
In terms of destroying parental choice because of the class envy of this despicable Labour government maybe, in terms of improving school standards absolutely not
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
My vague understanding is that (for Germany v Soviet Union) is that these deals never really went anywhere. When the Soviets would've accepted one in 1941 or early 1942, Hitler and Germany thought he could still have it all.
By 1943 that had changed and minor feelers put out by Germany were now rebuffed as Stalin thought (rightly) that he could now have it all.
Both sides wanted everything, and both sides thought they could get it at various points during the Eastern front - Therefore neither side was even remotely serious about it.
The German resistance, at least the Von Staffenberg wing, were equally deluded. In the summer of 1944, ie, post D-Day, they thought they could get rid of Hitler and peace out, expecting to be able to keep a maximalist Germany (they accepted they'd lose France and the Soviet Union, but expected to keep Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, Czechia, Austria and Scheswig-Holstein; and leave a rump Congress Poland). That was delusional thinking by them.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
I'm not sure that would have worked in July 1944 though.
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
Reform should just offer boiler plate economic policy. If they’re to win it will be down to immigration, why give other parties the chance to hammer them on dicey economic ideas and frighten voters off?
Hubris ?
This is the level of Reform politicians. I just hope Labour and the Lib Dems keep this sort footage so they can replay it if by then anyone is still taking Reform seriously
I agree that funding promises is the right attack line on Reform. But there is an issue of what the target is. Reform are, as I see it, in a process of moving from a complete unicorn party - low tax, both lots of free stuff and small state, eight trillion efficiency savings, DOGE to discover trillions down the sofa, abolish regulation, global free trade deals, six million newly qualified locals to fill all the vacancies, that sort of stuff - to a party wanting to put forward a programme for government.
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
Where is the evidence that they are "wanting to put forward a programme for government"? At least, a serious one?
Their big, recent announcement was that cutting net zero would fund everything, but they misread (deliberately or out of stupidity, it's unclear) an Institute for Government figure of £225 billion savings as if that meant £225 billion savings to government spending, when most of the money is private expenditure.
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
In terms of destroying parental choice because of the class envy of this despicable Labour government maybe, in terms of improving school standards absolutely not
This Labour government has two types of policies
1. Spiteful
2. Catastrophically bad for Britain
Indeed and of course the likes of Eton can continue on regardless, it is the small private schools of dedicated teachers and middle class parents who have just scrimped and saved to get a good education for their children, some of whom may have SEN and thrive in the smaller classes of these schools, who will be most hit.
It is an unforgiveable move by Starmer and Reeves, for starters as the hypocrite Starmer was privately educated himself!
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
They're not bombing Iran back into the stone age, though.
Sure, they're slowing Iran down. But unless you are actually able to reduce the amount of enriched uranium Iran has, then they get closer every year.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
In terms of destroying parental choice because of the class envy of this despicable Labour government maybe, in terms of improving school standards absolutely not
Bless. You think the Labour party wants to improve school standards. Sweetest thing I've heard on PB all day.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
Putin and the Iranian President and Parliaments are elected, just the Supreme Leader in Iran isn't
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
I'm not sure that would have worked in July 1944 though.
Especially as the Plotters wanted a peace deal with the Western Allies, whilst holding on to their gains in the East.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
Regime collapse is a bit like bankruptcy it starts slowly and then suddenly. The fall out from collapse is the unpredictable bit.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
Also a multi-ethnic state.
Most of Azerbaijan is actually located in NW Iran.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
I have no doubt Iran can go on for some time, notwithstanding the fact that every Iranian I know despises the regime (which does of course come with bias because if I'm talking to them they aren't living in downtown Tehran).
Huge congratulations to Dr Agnes Watson on being elected as councillor for Haughley, Stowupland & Wetherden, joining Cllr Janet Pearson in the 23-strong team running Mid Suffolk.
Has bombing ever led to regime change? It seems overly optimistic to imagine that these attacks on Iran will lead to regime change.
Germany 1945?
facepalm
It’s a perfectly reasonable example. The German war machine was annihilated by British and US bombing from about 1942 onwards. By the end the Germans were literally starving
I’ve just read the history of the battle of the bulge and this point is made repeatedly - that Allied bombing by 1944 had wrecked the German economy and obliterated so many cities and this had led to a collapse in civilian morale (when Hitler went to Berlin to command the counter attack they deliberately drove down the few unruined streets so he wouldn’t be driven to hysterical despair)
One reason the battle of the bulge failed is because the Germans were unable to continue it because the country was so fucked by endless bombing
Now, you can dispute how much the allied bombing contributed to the eventual defeat - compared with the eastern front and then d day - but it definitely helped
Thanks - I haven't the time to explain to people not prepared to think why the bombing won the war. Of course it took armies invading to complete the victory, but you only need to see the state of Germanies economy, war production and inability to move by spring 1945 to see that Max Hastings was wrong.
Max Hastings wrong? Some anonymous dudes called "turbotubbs" and "Leon" are right?
I'm allowed to disagree with Hastings. He asserts that the bombing campaign was a failure, partly I think because it didn't win the war without an invasion, as Harris hoped. Yet he ignores the devastating effects on Germany's ability to fight from 1944 onwards. Just as the Germans needed to defeat the RAF in 1940 if they wanted to invade, so the bombing campaign paved the way for D-day. He also ignored the paralysis of Germans rail and transport. For sure we lost nearly 90,000 killed bombing Germany and spent a lot of coin, but how many lives were saved in the army? Unknowable.
Hitler didn't top himself (ie. regime change occurring - which is how this convo started IIRC?) until the Red Army were within sight of his Bunker.
However people within his regime did try to overthrow him. If they'd succeeded then we'd be having a very different conversation.
Ihr trugt die Schande nicht.
Ihr wehrtet euch.
Ihr gabt das große ewig wache Zeichen der Umkehr,
opfernd Euer heißes Leben für Freiheit, Recht und Ehre.
I doubt it. Most of the plotters wanted to win the war. They were happy in Hitler's good times.
Nevertheless, the umbrella term "German Resistance" (Deutscher Widerstand) is now widely used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance under the Orwellian Nazi Regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, dissident writers and intellectuals living a secret life of inner emigration and who defied government censorship by illegally circulated anti-Nazi samizdat literature like The White Rose, opposition activities of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations such as the Confessing Church, along with the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.
The main one we think of was little Tom Cruse playing Stauffenberg, but there were others. Accepted history contends that Hitler was an asset to the Allies as he made such terrible decisions. There's truth in that. It's also plausible that without him in power Germany would have surrendered far earlier.
There is a theory that Stalin was either willing to cut a deal or (more likely) had his agents in contact with the German resistance tell them that he would cut a deal, if they got rid of Hitler.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
My vague understanding is that (for Germany v Soviet Union) is that these deals never really went anywhere. When the Soviets would've accepted one in 1941 or early 1942, Hitler and Germany thought he could still have it all.
By 1943 that had changed and minor feelers put out by Germany were now rebuffed as Stalin thought (rightly) that he could now have it all.
Both sides wanted everything, and both sides thought they could get it at various points during the Eastern front - Therefore neither side was even remotely serious about it.
The German resistance, at least the Von Staffenberg wing, were equally deluded. In the summer of 1944, ie, post D-Day, they thought they could get rid of Hitler and peace out, expecting to be able to keep a maximalist Germany (they accepted they'd lose France and the Soviet Union, but expected to keep Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, Czechia, Austria and Scheswig-Holstein; and leave a rump Congress Poland). That was delusional thinking by them.
North Schleswig was never annexed by Nazi Germany. The only post-Versailles territorial loss that Hitler didn't seek to, ah, "rectify".
1. Israel has already significantly weakened Iranian proxies that are close to Israel. In the past, such an attack on Iran would see Hamas, Hezbollah and Syrian proxies launch attacks on Israel from close-range. There may still be some of this (e.g. Houthis), but clearly Iran's ability to project power close to Israel is very significantly reduced.
2. Israel and Iran are really far from each other. Over 1,000km at its nearest point. So proper missiles are going to be far more effective than cheap drones (unless launched from close by). That makes it far more plausible for Israel to gain dominance in the air by destroying Iranian launch and air defence capabilities.
3. Iran hasn't *really* been trying to get a nuclear bomb. It's been trying to be close and have the ability to accelerate if needed. There's a very real risk Iran sees this attack as existential and progresses to having nuclear weapons in the next few years. And then the danger to Israel increases dramatically given they have attacked Iran so directly and forcefully.
It strikes me as a "if you come for the king, you best not miss" scenario. If Israel fails to sufficiently impair Iran's nuclear programme from these attacks, then it ends up in a more dangerous place than it started. So I struggle to see how this will be a short-lived campaign. Israel is in a ruthless mood. We see that with the tragic scenes in Gaza and I think we are going to see it in Iran too.
As an aside, Israel cannot permanently prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
They absolutely can “permanently prevent them” by constantly bombing Iran into the Stone Age every time they get near. And eventually they might get a new Iranian regime that does not desire nukes
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
Iran is a multi ethnic state with some large and disaffected minorities. Fun could be had all round with a shaky regime thats unpopular with its own people.
Oh, the Iranian regime is not a popular one. And they need a secret police to keep everyone in line.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
Regime collapse is a bit like bankruptcy it starts slowly and then suddenly. The fall out from collapse is the unpredictable bit.
I agree.
On the other hand, it's far from certain, especially on time horizons that stop the regime getting a bomb.
"The global nuclear watchdog's board of governors has formally declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years.
Nineteen of the 35 countries on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted for the motion, which was backed by the US, UK, France and Germany.
It says Iran's "many failures" to provide the IAEA with full answers about its undeclared nuclear material and activities constitutes non-compliance. It also expresses concern about Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3v6w2qr12o
Comments
Sunil's Antony Beevor collection:
Russia - Revolution und Civil War
The Spanish Civil War
World War 2
Crete 1941
Stalingrad
D-Day
Paris after ze Liberation
Arnhem
Ardennes 1944
Berlin
Astonishing coup de theatre apart from anything else. The Iranians must now be terrified of what comes next as well as almost paralysed
Israel clearly has to press its advantage to the max. This is the moment. They will pulverise Iran’s nuke facilities, further cripple all its air defence, and also try and kill as many senior Iranians - military, scientific and political - as they can. To strike the fear of Jehovah in them and set back Iran’s nuclear plans by a generation
Why would they not? Why stop? They may never get this opportunity again
So we can expect this assault to continue for a while, at least
BBC outraged.
When Belfast council stopped flying the Union Flag the BBC thought it progressive 😂
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5e61drq02o
Get rid of the Iranian regime
It’s just a shame both sides can’t lose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Resistance_Memorial_Center
People can obsess about generalship, operations, and tactics, but it usually comes down to logistics, ultimately. Germany’s logistical position, relative to its enemies, was bad to start off with, but the blockade and bombing made it far worse.
New Clause 1
Ayes 230
Noes 256
Because, I really doubt he was lazily sleeping on the sofa in his flat. Iran knew an attack was probably coming. So this guy - as an obvious prime target - must surely have been in some bunker or whatever
Yet they still got him. It is similar to the Hezbollah pager attack
It's South Africa again.
This would explain why the higher ups in the various plots thought that they would get a deal with Russia really quickly & easily, once they took over. Despite the Allies public unconditional surrender stance.
It’s very good at prosecuting the few operations it expects to carry out, purely in defence of its own position. That option is open to us too. Take the last 10% of most US military production runs and become a regional proxy power. We have, however, rightly rejected that.
Our issue is that we haven’t fully funded that rejection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGnp86-73-E
So they would probably be very foolish to target too many areas that might affect the population at large. Otherwise the info may reduce.
I have just seen Tunnock’s tea cakes on sale - great big piles of them - in the cafe of this Faroese ferry
Apparently it’s a hangover from the war. So many British soldiers were stationed here, with British snacks and drinks and culture, the locals also got a taste for these (they made a nice change from rotting mutton). Local supermarkets are full of digestive biscuits and HP sauce and marmite and the like
Bring back the death penalty.
As you pointed out not long ago, the suicides started after Untergang und toter Hitler. There’s a lot of ruin in a nation, especially if they think miracle weapons are coming down the line.
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/post/1631771/thread
IMO, the UK is not MAGA USA. The plurality/majority while being fond of taxing others and receiving free stuff, do not have an entirely magical, mystical quasi religious Trumpian view of reality. We are not going to vote into government untrustworthy stuff that simply doesn't add up even remotely.
So the attack will have to be on something not yet existing - a Reform 2029 manifesto. This will be a great deal more sensible that Reforms' past or even present. It will be the most scrutinised political documents ever.
Key features will be: High spend (therefore high tax); social conservatism (this is not costly); abolish net zero but acknowledge climate change; border control; gimmicks; and 'it will take time to undo the mess'.
I'm pretty sure you are aware that I will happily debate the merits or otherwise of the Israeli action but snarky and dismissive "with their yellow stars" (very Dawn French) comments just seem weird.
Tell me why you think the geo-strategic effects of the Iran strike are misplaced and we can get it on in fine PB stylee.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/cricket/icc-world-test-championship/south-africa-v-australia-betting-34320359
There's an Iranian nuclear facility under a mountain. If they don't want to see a wounded Iran rapidly develop a nuclear weapon that somehow also has to be destroyed - but how?
Do the Iranians have much of a long-range capability left to destroy?
If the remaining risk of Iranian retaliation is to the Strait of Hormuz, should we expect to see Israeli attacks on Iranian naval assets soon?
At the moment I suspect Israel might be nearly done.
'You can't just lie to the public!'
Emily Carver and Tom Harwood challenge Labour MP Mike Tapp about his colleague Darren Jones' claim that the majority of migrants crossing the Channel are women and children.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/13/israel-attacks-iran-latest-news-nuclear-sites-war/
Took us a generation to make a dent in the debt - and we handed over the Crown Jewels of our technology into the bargain.
But you're not wrong. S Korea and Taiwan became modern manufacturing powerhouses from much less promising beginnings. It requires concerted national will to do so, though; the free market is nowhere near sufficient on its own.
The science is well understood, and technology is constantly evolving. Plus, what's the downside for the Iranian regime?
I would be very surprised if they didn't demonstrate nuclear capability in the next four years.
Yes, I suspect you’re wrong
It’s highly unlikely Israel hit all its targets in one night. What’s more they now have Iran sagging on the ropes - more vulnerable than ever. Presumably major Iranian generals and politicians are scurrying about in panic - exposing themselves unusually
The Pentagon will be handing over every possible scrap of info to help Israel take them out. The assault will continue
And it's not as though Iran is going to lose its capacity for developing ballistic missiles - and more sophisticated drones (the latest version of the Shahed being used in Ukraine, for example, is turbojet powered and reportedly cruises at 600kmh, with a range of 2500km).
"A private school has been forced to close after losing more than a third of its pupils to Labour’s VAT raid. Bishop Challoner School in Kent told parents this week it would close at the end of the term because it was no longer “economically viable”. The Catholic school, which this year celebrated its 75th birthday, said the 20pc levy on school fees meant it was no longer able to retain and recruit enough pupils."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/private-school-forced-to-close-one-three-children-drop-out
Which is pain when you can't have a large factory space (a mile or two square) to run it. They will get there, with smaller cascades, but it will take a lot of time. And the rate of production will continue to be low.
Given that per capita measures are popular on here, that's roughly 2 combat aircraft per million population in the UK, and 29 in Israel.
I guess that's one measure of the extent of defence procurement mismanagement in Britain.
Question is more: does Israel have that level of determination and skill and can they keep it up for year after year
As intelligence failures go, I think the Russian failure over Operation Spiderweb was greater.
I'm not sure we can aspire to the former in peacetime, and the latter seems slightly unlikely too.
But unless you can actually get to that enriched uranium, or overthrow the Iranian regime, then it is just delaying the inevitable.
Bombing Germany in WW2 is actually a great comparison. It was both incredibly effective in diverting resources. But German industrial production peaked in September 1944 - that's three months after DDay, and just eight months before the end of the war.
1. Spiteful
2. Catastrophically bad for Britain
By 1943 that had changed and minor feelers put out by Germany were now rebuffed as Stalin thought (rightly) that he could now have it all.
Both sides wanted everything, and both sides thought they could get it at various points during the Eastern front - Therefore neither side was even remotely serious about it.
The German resistance, at least the Von Staffenberg wing, were equally deluded. In the summer of 1944, ie, post D-Day, they thought they could get rid of Hitler and peace out, expecting to be able to keep a maximalist Germany (they accepted they'd lose France and the Soviet Union, but expected to keep Alsace-Lorraine, West Prussia, Czechia, Austria and Scheswig-Holstein; and leave a rump Congress Poland). That was delusional thinking by them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJSPJEz150g
Conversely, you can watch Tom McTeague's report on Keir Starmer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCHuhUeGrLU (video), https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/06/what-keir-starmer-cant-say (written)
Their big, recent announcement was that cutting net zero would fund everything, but they misread (deliberately or out of stupidity, it's unclear) an Institute for Government figure of £225 billion savings as if that meant £225 billion savings to government spending, when most of the money is private expenditure.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/farage-reform-net-zero-tax-labour-child-winter-fuel-b1229834.html
https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/uk-politics/nigel-farage-proposals-slammed-economists/
When everyone pointed this out to them, they put their fingers in their ears and went la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Everything has to be a deal with that idiot. Most other people use the words 'Unconditional Surrender' but he frames it as a deal.
It is an unforgiveable move by Starmer and Reeves, for starters as the hypocrite Starmer was privately educated himself!
Sure, they're slowing Iran down. But unless you are actually able to reduce the amount of enriched uranium Iran has, then they get closer every year.
But those people expecting a repressive state to collapse just because its unpopular should probably look to Russia.
1. Israel has already significantly weakened Iranian proxies that are close to Israel. In the past, such an attack on Iran would see Hamas, Hezbollah and Syrian proxies launch attacks on Israel from close-range. There may still be some of this (e.g. Houthis), but clearly Iran's ability to project power close to Israel is very significantly reduced.
2. Israel and Iran are really far from each other. Over 1,000km at its nearest point. So proper missiles are going to be far more effective than cheap drones (unless launched from close by). That makes it far more plausible for Israel to gain dominance in the air by destroying Iranian launch and air defence capabilities.
3. Iran hasn't *really* been trying to get a nuclear bomb. It's been trying to be close and have the ability to accelerate if needed. There's a very real risk Iran sees this attack as existential and progresses to having nuclear weapons in the next few years. And then the danger to Israel increases dramatically given they have attacked Iran so directly and forcefully.
It strikes me as a "if you come for the king, you best not miss" scenario. If Israel fails to sufficiently impair Iran's nuclear programme from these attacks, then it ends up in a more dangerous place than it started. So I struggle to see how this will be a short-lived campaign. Israel is in a ruthless mood. We see that with the tragic scenes in Gaza and I think we are going to see it in Iran too.
On the other hand, it's far from certain, especially on time horizons that stop the regime getting a bomb.
Nineteen of the 35 countries on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted for the motion, which was backed by the US, UK, France and Germany.
It says Iran's "many failures" to provide the IAEA with full answers about its undeclared nuclear material and activities constitutes non-compliance. It also expresses concern about Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3v6w2qr12o
(Possibly relevant to this topic.)