Post AvOHCd0pOSc9MjBw4e by Nonilex@masto.ai
(DIR) More posts by Nonilex@masto.ai
(DIR) Post #AvOFFkbXQHa5s9ivE8 by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:35:59Z
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Over the past two decades, the #UnitedStates has used sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomatic negotiations to try to slow Iran’s long march to a #nuclear weapon.At roughly 2:30AM Sunday in #Iran, #Trump unleashed a show of raw military might that each of his last 4 predecessors had deliberately avoided, for fear of plunging the #US into #war in the #MiddleEast.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/us/politics/trump-iran-risks.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
(DIR) Post #AvOFJfNmmNy0ps9s1o by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:37:09Z
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After days of declaring that he could not take the risk that the mullahs & generals of Tehran who had survived Israel’s strikes would make a final leap to a #nuclear weapon, #Trump ordered a fleet of B-2 bombers halfway around the world to drop the most powerful conventional bombs on the most critical sites in #Iran’s vast nuclear complexes.The prime target was the deeply buried enrichment center at #Fordow, which #Israel was incapable of reaching.
(DIR) Post #AvOFcnthLWC6kID6Qa by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:39:29Z
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For #Trump, the decision to attack the #nuclear infrastructure of a hostile nation represents the biggest — & potentially most dangerous — gamble of his second term.He is betting that the #UnitedStates can repel whatever retaliation #Iran’s leadership orders against >40,000 American #troops spread over bases throughout the region. All are within range of Tehran’s missile fleet, even after eight days of relentless attacks by #Israel.
(DIR) Post #AvOFd6OqYRo086vETg by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:40:39Z
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And #Trump is betting that he can deter a vastly debilitated #Iran from using its familiar techniques — terrorism, hostage-taking & cyberattacks — as a more indirect line of attack to wreak revenge.Most importantly, he is betting that he has destroyed Iran’s chances of ever reconstituting its #nuclear program. That is an ambitious goal: Iran has made clear that, if attacked, it would exit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and take its vast program underground.
(DIR) Post #AvOFkBFSvS9DC8uRIu by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:41:59Z
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That is why #Trump focused so much attention on destroying #Fordow, the facility #Iran built in secret in the mid-2000s that was publicly exposed by President Barack #Obama in 2009. That is where Iran was producing almost all of the near-bomb-grade fuel that most alarmed the #UnitedStates & its allies.
(DIR) Post #AvOFkvJzcx6M5VNhkO by jawarajabbi@mastodon.online
2025-06-22T13:42:06Z
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@Nonilex And apparently US bombs are incapable of reaching them too, if reports from Iran are true. So we had this credible threat and now we don't.
(DIR) Post #AvOG2Duvk3bygUuL9U by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:45:15Z
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#Trump’s aides were telling those allies on Sat night that DC’s sole mission was to destroy the #nuclear program. They described the complex strike as a limited, contained operation akin to the op that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.“They explicitly said this was not a declaration of war,” one senior European diplomat said late Saturday, describing his conversation with a high-ranking admin ofcl.But, the diplomat added, bin Laden had killed 3,000 Americans. #Iran had yet to build a bomb.
(DIR) Post #AvOGKvDRUu4qBXTzPs by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:48:38Z
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In short, the admin is arguing that it was engaged in an act of pre-emption, seeking to terminate a threat, not the Iranian regime. But it is far from clear that the Iranians will perceive it that way. In a brief address from the White House on Saturday night, flanked by VP #JDVance, Secy of #State #MarcoRubio & #Defense Secy #PeteHegseth, #Trump threatened #Iran with more destruction if it does not bend to his demands.
(DIR) Post #AvOGWGvN7rvWhMRUzQ by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:50:41Z
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…In essence, #Trump was threatening to broaden his military partnership w/ #Israel, which has spent the last 8 days systematically targeting #Iran’s top military & nuclear leadership, killing them in their beds, their laboratories & their bunkers. The #UnitedStates initially separated itself from that operation. In the Trump admin’s first public statement about those strikes, #MarcoRubio emphasized that Israel took “unilateral action against Iran,” adding that the #US was “not involved.”
(DIR) Post #AvOGgGpSKraVIYRWqW by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:52:29Z
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But then, a few days ago, #Trump mused on his social media platform about the ability of the #UnitedStates to kill Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali #Khamenei, anytime he wanted. And Saturday night, he made clear that the US was all in, & that contrary to Rubio’s statement, the country was now deeply involved.Now, having set back #Iran’s enrichment capability, Trump is clearly hoping that he can seize on a remarkable moment of weakness….
(DIR) Post #AvOGgnc8RPXYynSrAG by JimmyB@mas.to
2025-06-22T13:52:32Z
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@Nonilex the arguments presented of pre-emption are utterly hollow. This was a ‘distract from domestic woes’ show. That’s it.
(DIR) Post #AvOGnCP5BfzRbHPXRA by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:53:45Z
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After #Israel’s fierce retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks that killed over a thousand Israeli civilians, #Iran is suddenly bereft of its proxies, #Hamas & #Hezbollah. Its closest ally, #Syria’s Bashar al-#Assad, had to flee the country. And #Russia & #China, which formed a partnership of convenience with Iran, were nowhere to be seen after Israel attacked the country.
(DIR) Post #AvOGqGusrgK4SvkcNs by Bam@sfba.social
2025-06-22T13:54:16Z
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@Nonilex Because watching how successful the Israeli operation has been, he got FOMO and wanted credit.
(DIR) Post #AvOH8IAQx9SlYccJCS by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:57:33Z
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That left only the #nuclear program as #[Iran’s ultimate #defense. It was always more than just a scientific project — it was the symbol of Iranian resistance to the West, & the core of the leadership’s plan to hold on to power.
(DIR) Post #AvOHCd0pOSc9MjBw4e by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T13:58:20Z
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Along with the repression of #dissent, the program had become the ultimate means of defense for the inheritors of the Iranian revolution that began in 1979. If the taking of 52 American hostages was #Iran’s way of standing up to a far larger, far more powerful adversary in 1979, the nuclear program has been the symbol of resistance for the last two decades.
(DIR) Post #AvOHMd6FvHLiX6V1c0 by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T14:00:08Z
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One day historians may well draw a line from those images of blindfolded Americans, who were held for 444 days, to the dropping of GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on the mountainous redoubt called Fordo. They will likely ask whether the United States, its allies or the Iranians themselves could have played this differently.And they will almost certainly ask whether #Trump’s gamble paid off.
(DIR) Post #AvOHR9q098JRE43Vmy by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T14:00:58Z
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His critics in #Congress were already questioning his approach. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top #Democrat on the #Intelligence Committee, said #Trump had acted “without consulting Congress, without a clear strategy, without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community” that #Iran had made no decision to take the final steps to a bomb.
(DIR) Post #AvOHV6u3027jHYphbs by alexlac51@mastodon.scot
2025-06-22T14:01:38Z
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@Nonilex thanks for all you do...
(DIR) Post #AvOHbSVtZ6uc2kYyfI by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T14:02:50Z
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If #Iran finds itself unable to respond effectively, if the Ayatollah’s hold on power is now loosened, or if the country gives up its long-running nuclear ambitions, #Trump will doubtless claim that only he was willing to use America’s military reach to achieve a goal his last four predecessors deemed too risky.
(DIR) Post #AvOHcUSvnCZKO5fVvk by HarriettMB@beige.party
2025-06-22T14:03:00Z
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@Nonilex Clearly, Trump has forgotten the hasty and undignified exit of all the forces from Afghanistan. There may be a similar event should the USA and it’s allies be foolish enough to put feet on the ground in Iran.
(DIR) Post #AvOHgeGRItsLw3oBHM by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T14:03:44Z
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But there is another possibility. #Iran could slowly recover, its surviving #nuclear scientists could take their skills underground and the country could follow the pathway lit by #NorthKorea, with a race to build a bomb. Today, North Korea has 60 or more nuclear weapons by some intelligence estimates, an arsenal that likely makes it too powerful to attack.
(DIR) Post #AvOHjMUPqUsVg3diO8 by Nonilex@masto.ai
2025-06-22T14:04:16Z
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That, #Iran may conclude, is the only pathway to keep larger, hostile powers at bay, and to prevent the United States and Israel from carrying out an operation like the one that lit up the Iranian skies on Sunday morning.
(DIR) Post #AvOHvZIC4RtirMk8w4 by zombiewarrior@techhub.social
2025-06-22T14:06:27Z
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@Nonilex we can just spend a few trillion dollars over the next thirty years fighting a war of attrition there
(DIR) Post #AvOIEpkr5YHJQ1KtNY by bibliofishy@mastodon.social
2025-06-22T14:09:54Z
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@Nonilex he's betting he can blame Biden for anything that comes. This narrative has already been presented.
(DIR) Post #AvOJuy7mSaetUfiMQi by SteveClough@metalhead.club
2025-06-22T14:28:43Z
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@Nonilex But it also assumes that Iran - who have had years to prepare for such an attack - is not prepared for this, and has not embedded sleeper agents in the US and does not have some sort of plan for retaliation in the case of attack.
(DIR) Post #AvOJyJW3Nq4QhtfAVE by melis@mastodon.social
2025-06-22T14:29:17Z
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@Nonilex wouldn't that line go further back? The hostages were taken not just as a trump card, but also as a retaliation no?
(DIR) Post #AvOKh92PBiBLEzAkFc by ZillaMon@mastodon.social
2025-06-22T14:37:01Z
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@Nonilex Iran should learn from what happened to Ukraine, there are zero security guarantees if it gives up it nuclear goals
(DIR) Post #AvOtZkFsQaXekNgFrE by c_merriweather@social.linux.pizza
2025-06-22T21:08:15Z
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@Nonilex Or Iran can close down the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil supply is shipped. (It may have already done so.) And that can be done with conventional military/naval equipment. That option has always been there, as a backup to whatever else might happen.