“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”
There are rumours circulating online that Azerbaijan may join in if it happens. This is fuelled by the fact that they are currently doing a military build-up on their border with Iran, and they withdrew their embassy staff in Tehran earlier today.
I fully expect the Kurdish separatist groups in Iraq to join in too.
Ansarallah has the opportunity to do the funniest thing of the century.
Tweet update says Polymarket took the bet down after the OG tweet made it viral lmao.
Critical support to all hispanics for being the most principled and least morally corrupt Westerners in 2026 (minus Argentina and El Salvador).
Finally got off my computer after being stuck to it the last 4 days and touched some grass.
Would be nice if China snuck in some drones and anti-air defences as a part of this deal. A “win-win cooperation” as they like to say.
Pahlavi: “I’m in charge of Iran’s future!”
Trump: puts bigly hand on Reza’s shoulder “Do you feel in charge?”
IIRC Iranian state media reported earlier this week the Assembly of Experts was doing the voting electronically and would not meet in-person.
So Israel is definitely lying here.
Only Democracy in the Middle East btw.
“It’s just not as easy as that. Millions of people in Nazi Germany are innocent Aryans just born in Nazi Germany. We can’t just move people around like cattle. The solution will always be to eradicate hate, get rid of Hitler, and work towards a peaceful co-existence.”
That song is gonna need an update by the end of this decade lmao.
Power doesn’t panic.
Essentially the Hitler Youth being raised by their fascist education system.
Probably even more radicalized thanks to social media giving confirmation bias.
What the fuck was the US expecting? You murder their head of state, his immediate family (Khamenei’s daughter, grandson, and son-in-law all died too btw), a significant portion of the senior leadership, at least hundreds of civilians including an elementary girl’s school full of children that were blown up as morning classes started and NOW you expect mercy and concession from the Iranians?
That isn’t gunboat diplomacy, that’s a fucking gunboat massacre. The Yankees have gotten so high off bullying/ extorting/ terrorizing/ killing so many smaller, weaker, poorer nations without any repercussions in the last 40 years they thought they could just easily waltz into Iran and take what they want by force.
I hope the Great Satan gets absolutely humiliated in this war and the amount of pain it has inflicted on Iran gets flung back to the mainland one hundred fold when the empire inevitably collapses.
I don’t really see how that strategy is achieved by attacking a vessel that is known for carrying Iranian oil AND is already sanctioned by the US. If it’s to spite the UAE where the logistics company is based in ok sure, but that still doesn’t explain the reason to attack this tanker in particular. Would this not create an effect of other logistics companies not wanting to work with Iran anymore because they will now be afraid of their vessels being attacked regardless of how much they aid Iran economically?
You have to remember that Iran also needs the strait to export its oil and gas (of which China is a major buyer), and closing the strait for everyone would impact their economy significantly as well.
To recap, Iranian state media have confirmed the killing of the following state officials in the last 24 hours:
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader
Ali Shamkhani, Khamenei’s security adviser
General Abdul Rahim Mousavi, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff
Aziz Nasirzadeh, defence minister
Mohammad Pakpour, IRGC commander-in-chief
The Islamic Republic News Agency have stated more commanders of the armed forces have also been killed and that their names will be announced later.
As to how Iran has handled the command structure since Khamenei’s martyrdom, there is currently a three-member temporary leadership council chosen by the Expediency Discernment Council (who in turn were all appointed by the Supreme Leader as a sort of supreme advisory council) that have been granted the legal powers of the Supreme Leader to govern the country.
The three members of said leadership council are:
As for how the next Supreme Leader will be chosen, this duty officially lies with the Assembly of Experts, yet another powerful council that advises the Supreme Leader and whose members were approved by the Guardian Council, and the Supreme Leader, AND chosen by direct elections every 8 years.
Don’t ask me how this works and which branch/ council has more power than the other, the entire political system of the Islamic Republic is quite confusing for me and I’m still learning.
Was the tanker carrying Iranian oil at the time of attack? If so, why attack it? Which port did the ship originate from? Which port was it headed to? Did the Iranian military warn the tanker not to cross the strait before striking it?
Most importantly, if this was an intentional strike, why not just officially announce the closure of the entire strait instead of leaving it ambiguous where any commercial ship can still pass through?
There are more questions than answers raised by this event.
Short of Russia or China giving some to them overnight, I guess there really isn’t an option to procure nukes completely undetected. They probably have or are in the process of building new nuclear enrichment sites that haven’t been detected yet since the last ones got bombed, but it’s only a matter of time before US/ Israeli Intel picks up on it. Having access to better air defences, again by collaborating more closely with Russia and China, would help deter most attacks on the site except the most advanced stealth bombers.
So it will essentially be a race to get nukes before the US can sniff out where the production sites are and decide to bomb them. They can’t openly say they are building nukes because that would just give the US and Israel full justification to attack them as they are right now. Instead, Iran can help stall time by trying to enter negotiations again while feigning their commitment to no nuclear enrichment by secretly building the weapons under some mountain (severing ties with the IAEA gives them an advantage), but that requires the political will of the Iranian leadership to lie about their intentions. Hopefully the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and the repeated failures of Pezeshkian to secure a lasting peace will motivate the government in this direction.
Honestly after Trump shredded the original nuclear deal in his first term would’ve been the perfect time to start building nukes, and I strongly believe they could have done so largely undetected during the last decade, but the main problem was and still is the political will to do so.
Here’s hoping Iran finally wises up and gets nukes, and will also start more closely collaborating with China and Russia (which was mostly the fault of the Iranian leadership wanting to suck up to the West for the last 2 decades).
Source: https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/176082
I highly doubt this is because Iran is running low on missile stockpiles (it should be noted that their missile bases in the Eastern provinces have barely been used in this war) so what is the reason for this move?
My speculation: It could be Iran signalling a potential off-ramp to Arab gulf states that they will spare them from further attacks if they stop collaborating with the US; in practice I doubt the gulf states have any ability to challenge US presence on their soil without a massive grassroots uprising so I don’t think the current circumstances will change unless the US chooses to pull out completely. If anything, this is just the leadership council making it clear why these gulf states are being attacked and giving justification for future strikes.
It could also be the Iranian military changing their strategy to prioritize US military targets, especially with the rumours that the US will launch a ground invasion soon and Iran is anticipating this.