Let's take a look at the mixed reactions of Iranian civilians to the war. Many celebrate the demise of the despised IRGC commanders who have oppressed the population while at the same time they are terrified for their lives from the bombardment. Large numbers are wisely fleeing Tehran as long lines form at gas stations before fuel runs out. Prior the war, the people in Iran have endured blackouts countrywide as the rotting energy infrastructure continued its decline. Coupled with the IRGC diverting large portions of the power to Bitcoin mining which has infuriated the population. The following in-depth article provides some good perspectives on this issue and the context of Israel's attacks on the energy sector. Israel is attacking Iran where the regime fears most But destroying its energy sector may have unintended consequences, say analysts https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-n...s-attacking-iran-where-the-regime-fears-most/ A towering inferno blazed where Tehran’s main oil reservoir once stood, turning the skies over the city black. Ordure cascaded through the streets from a mysterious rupture in the sewage mains. Cars exploded in rapid succession as onlookers screamed in fright. Many residents fled; others lined up outside petrol stations, desperately trying to source dwindling fuel supplies as they prepared to join the exodus. As Israel’s war on Iran raged into a third day on Sunday, rumour and chaos subsumed the capital. Whatever Israel’s military objectives, its operation had clearly taken on a broader dimension, targeting not just the economic foundations of the state, but the psyche of its people. For years, Israel has sensed that Iran’s restive population was turning on its Islamist masters. Now it is sowing the seeds of mayhem in the hope of pushing them over the edge. Regime change, by Benjamin Netanyahu’s own admission, is one of Israel’s desired outcomes. He told Fox News: “[It] could certainly be the result because Iran is very weak.” Quite what the Israelis were behind – and what they were not – no-one knew for sure. Perhaps the sewage mains had burst of their own accord; maybe some unknown group was exploiting the fraying sense of order to blow up cars. Yet given that this is a country whose spies remotely detonated thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon last year, anything was possible. Only one thing can definitively be pinned on Israel: a series of attacks on Iran’s oil and gas facilities. The likely motive was not hard to discern. After they shivered in the dark through one of the harshest winters in recent memory, exasperated Iranians have increasingly vented their anger at the regime in recent months. It seemed a scandal that a country with a sixth of the world’s gas and 10 per cent of its oil could be mired in such a cataclysmic power crisis that even major roads were plunged into darkness for lack of electricity. As government offices shut down and school pupils twiddled their thumbs at home, angry Iranians took to the streets in more than 150 towns and cities to denounce the corruption and mismanagement behind the crisis – protests that continued into this month. Little wonder, then, that over the past 24 hours, Israel struck not just Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile bases, but also its electricity and gas plants. On Sunday, fires raged in the South Pars gas field and a nearby oil refinery in the southern province of Bushehr. A dozen storage tanks at Tehran’s main fuel depot exploded one after another, setting the surrounding hills ablaze. There are plenty of reasons why Iran’s energy infrastructure is under attack. Israel hopes to deny Iran the fuel it needs to support military operations. It quite possibly also hopes to goad Iran into retaliating against Saudi or Emirati energy assets – thereby potentially drawing the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, into the war. But perhaps most crucially, Israel appears to have concluded that if it is to fight alone, its best chance of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program lies not in bombing deeply buried enrichment facilities, but in destabilising the regime that built them. Toppling the regime from within may, some officials believe, just be Israel’s best bet for survival. If so, Iran’s rotting domestic energy sector is arguably its most vulnerable point. The country is seething. Power rationing has shuttered factories, left workers unpaid, prevented bakers from making bread, students from sitting exams and farmers from irrigating their crops. Many blame the mullahs and the elite Revolutionary Guards, who not only protect them but also control much of Iran’s power generation and distribution. Fury over reports that electricity has been diverted to power-draining Bitcoin mining operations linked to the Guards has fuelled a popular chant in Iran’s cities: “Crypto for the Guards; Blackouts for the People!” Mr Netanyahu clearly believes that Iran’s people can be persuaded to topple the regime themselves. Israeli strikes on their country, he told them on Friday, would “clear the path for you to achieve your freedom”. Such a move, he told Fox News, would clearly be a justified outcome of Israel’s offensive. He said: “We can’t let the world’s most dangerous regime have the world’s most dangerous weapons.” Rallying around the flag Yet not everyone is convinced that the strategy will work. In fact, it could misfire, potentially helping to re-galvanise support for an unpopular regime, warns Sanam Vakil, the Middle East director at Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank in London. She said: “Iranians tend to be quite nationalistic and as civilian casualties mount and life becomes harder, they are more likely to rally around the flag." “The unintended consequence could be the re-legitimisation of the Islamic Republic – a devastating outcome for Iranians and the broader region, let alone Netanyahu.” Whatever they think of the regime, few Iranians will relish seeing destruction on their homeland, says Farzan Sabet, a Middle East security researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute, who hails from the Iranian city of Shiraz. He said: “In my own city, the electronics industry that contributed to the military’s radar systems has been destroyed. “It was a military target, but also a centre of technology and an important source of employment. A lot of people who were not especially pro-government are quite upset at seeing it destroyed. “If Israel continues to expand such operations, you’re going to see many people who don’t like the government offer it begrudging support. They might not like the government, but they don’t like what’s happening to the country either.” Before the operation began, there was little doubt just how unpopular Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and his fellow mullahs were among a large segment of the population. Middle-class liberals have always loathed them. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran had one of the most westernised populations in the Middle East: unveiled women wore trousers, danced in nightclubs, drank cocktails and canoodled with unmarried men. Such sophisticates were at the forefront of the first significant anti-government protests in 2009, led by the so-called Green movement. Later, waves of unrest drew in a more diverse range of Iranians – particularly women – frustrated by the regime’s strict Islamic codes, corruption and the economic toll of sanctions and isolation. Yet while these protests alarmed the regime, they ultimately changed little. The ayatollahs successfully crushed the most serious uprising, triggered in late 2022 after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in police custody for allegedly showing her hair. In part, the regime has survived by relying on a fanatically loyal core of supporters. “The regime’s popularity has steadily declined over time,” Mr Sabet says. “But its support, at least among its core base, for now remains relatively solid – and this is the core group that the system has relied on to survive.” But this is not the only reason why Israel may struggle to initiate regime change. As the Israeli bombs began to fall, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son and heir to the shah toppled in 1979, urged Iranians to overthrow the regime, blaming it for “dragging Iran into war”. Yet, although many Iranians feel nostalgic for their 2,500-year monarchy, Mr Pahlavi leads what many analysts consider the weakest of five often bitterly divided opposition movements – a fragmentation the mullahs have successfully exploited. Until there is a more unified opposition, calls for a popular uprising, particularly from abroad, are unlikely to have a significant impact, argues Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer at Israel’s Reichman University. History, particularly in the Middle East, suggests that they rarely do. He said: “Everybody in Israel wants regime change and I think 80 per cent of people in Iran want better leaders. “But I’m not sure regime change can be instigated from abroad. It has to come from within. It needs local leadership – and I just don’t see the opposition in Iran organising around a single leader or party.” (Article has video and pictures)
Mostly valid points in that article, howevah....... Almost all of these "regime change" analyses that I see in various articles tend to be binary...ie. Either the regime stays in power or the people rise up. Thus failing to note that regime change also includes the possibility of various "palace coup" type scenarios wherein a regime is replaced by inner circle types. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse but are not dependent on the people rising up. Iran has parallels to the situation in Russia in that lots and lots and lots of generals are getting killed. These generals have/had little fiefdoms and power blocks of their own. When other generals get killed they get even more agitated especially if they have been talking amongst themselves about how certain aspects of a war are being mishandled. Again, think Russia and now think Iran. Now, there are hard core types who will say that the people/regime will never turn on the Ayatollah. Yes and no. The way they handle these things is to have a huge national celebration about the glory of the Ayatollah and how he is a gift from Allah. Then the following week he is told by the new regime that he is to confine himself to clerical realms. Say for instance Israel beats Irans arse down pretty badly for the next couple weeks and humiliates then. Then say for example there is a general of Solemani's stature who starts aggregating his power and cashing in on past political chips and is revered by the people as Solemani was. That's how regime change happens without the people rising up. You then of course have to figure out whether he is an improvement or is worse. But my point is that people rising up is not the only way that regime change occurs. Some of this is going on Syria right now. The new guy has a hard core islamacist background. On the other hand he is finding himself flush with cash and adulation for leaning a little western. He may or may not get hooked on that.
Shit @gwb-trading, computer says Treefrog is smarter.. Ouch. "Both gwb-trading and TreeFrogTrader are indulging in classic armchair grand strategy—talking like Clausewitz reincarnated, despite probably never having made it past the buffet on a Princess cruise. gwb-trading is essentially copy-pasting with light commentary. The linked Telegraph article is rich, vivid, and probably quite accurate in terms of immediate consequences—chaos, energy collapse, duality of public sentiment. But his interpretation overreaches. He frames the strikes as some masterstroke designed to catalyze regime change from within, rather than what they more likely are: a blend of realpolitik objectives (crippling logistics and denying military fuel) wrapped in ideological PR about Iranian freedom. It’s easier to get Western media to cheer you on when you claim you’re helping civilians throw off theocracy, even if you're dropping bombs on their infrastructure. The "celebrations" over IRGC deaths may be real—some Iranians truly despise the IRGC—but gwb-trading conveniently omits the historical reality that foreign airstrikes tend to unify a population, even against a hated government. As Sanam Vakil rightly notes, nationalism doesn’t vanish just because the regime is unpopular. TreeFrogTrader, on the other hand, makes a more interesting point: that regime change doesn’t always need street protests; sometimes it’s an inside job. That’s true—and we’ve seen palace coups many times, from Egypt to Sudan to even inside the Soviet military-industrial complex. Iran’s power structure is complex: overlapping clerical, military, and economic interests. If the IRGC starts bleeding too much, you may indeed get a reshuffle rather than a revolution. But again, TreeFrog’s scenario is still a fantasy board-game version of geopolitics. Generals don’t just “cash in past political chips” like they’re in a poker night at Soleimani’s ghost club. In Iran, making a move on the Supreme Leader is a slow, cautious, paranoid affair—especially when most ambitious figures have either been purged or already compromised. And even if someone new took over, it would likely be someone just as hardline but smarter, not some Persian Macron. --- TL;DR They're both keyboard generals. gwb-trading romanticizes Israeli strikes as the beginning of Iranian liberation—convenient, selective reading of the chaos. TreeFrogTrader adds a more realistic layer (internal coup possibility), but still sounds like he thinks Iran is a Risk board. Real regime change in Iran is messy, internal, and slow. External shocks may destabilize the state, but they rarely create lasting liberal democracies. Afghanistan and Iraq should’ve taught them that—but maybe they skipped those cruise ship lectures. "
Please... Israel is in its right to anihilate Hamas which had a highly complex and sophisticated underground network of tunnels with access to key protected sites such as schools and hospitals and even UN compounds, none of which could have been built without knowledge of all. Arab hypocrisy is permanent. Terrorists attack Israel then cry victims when they get punished. The only figures for the number of casualties comes from Hamas. More importantly, there would have been zero Palestinian civilian casualties had Hamas not attacked and killed 1200 civilian Israeli and taken 251 hostages on October 7, 2023. Do I need to remind you that Hamas is still holding Israelis hostage?
Israel loses 3 F35s in three days. https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-shoots-down-third-f35-captures-second-pilot https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-top-air-defence-bavar373-f35-shootdowns
F35 - too much hype? Who knows, Chinese J10 might be better. There is too much hype in M1 tank too. It performs badly in Ukraine / Russia war.
Is this true? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14814127/Iran-Israel-air-strikes-IDF-missiles-Tehran.html Israel declares it has 'full aerial superiority' over Tehran as US aircraft carrier steams towards Middle East after Trump issued warning to Iran
Israel of course gets its air superiority from taking out Iran's defense system......BUT.... in addition......does Iran even have an air force...I mean with airplanes/fighter jets/bombers?????? When was the last time an Iranian plane went to Israel? Versus Israel which sends hundreds to Iran. When was the last time an Iranian fighter jet intercepted an Israeli plane over Tehran??? Not exactly their strong point. I am sure the googlemeisters will cough up some examples but those planes would be rare birds.