Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts by multiple orders of magnitude? Russia/Ukraine news is everywhere, Israel/Lebanon, etc, but this one is zipped up tightly.
The platforms/news orgs must all be getting pretty serious orders on reporting, because even Gulf Wars I and II had more getting out.
Iran is not welcoming to Western reporters, so Western press aren't pointing their TV cameras out their hotel windows to show the explosions like in 2003. And locals can't report other than in tiny snatches of text as the internet has been turned off in the country for ages, and one imagines operating a satphone in Iran right now would be a risky endeavor.
> Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts...
Internet access in Iran has been spotty after the massacres in January.
Also, even Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza-Lebanon news and "OSINT" is tightly controlled - the legal, logistical, and technical tools needed to limit access and control of information are well in the reach of any nation now, and even most police departments across much of the world.
Compared to, say, the coverage from Ukraine during February 2022, actual information getting out from the ground is sparser. Or the opening "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, there were Western and international media in Baghdad reporting on it in real time, shooting video from their hotels:
The reason why isn't really a mystery: Iran has never been exactly welcoming to Western media, and internet access there was intentionally shut off after the recent protests. There's plenty of coverage- it's front page everywhere- but a paucity of information.
It's all over social media, but hardly any of that is from Iranians in Iran, it's just people outside it like you and me mostly just yapping. Occasionally you'll hear something second-hand from someone with family in Iran who managed some brief connectivity.
They can't really not talk about it, it's a world war unfolding. It's going to affect every person alive. But as much as it can be, it is absolutely being mitigated in traditional media.
It's because the pro-Israeli-owned news media doesn't want you to see what's happening because it doesn't help the pro-Israel narrative. Sorta like they hide all the daily atrocities Israel has been committing in Gaza over the last 2.5 years.
It took several days for the big news media to even acknowledge that an elementary school was bombed by the US & Israel. You would only have known about it if you followed anti-Israel social media accounts.
Farnaz Fassihi (one of the co-authors) is a known NIAC member who lobbies for the islamic regime in Iran. Unfortunately, NY Times reports the Iran situation using clever words/phrases in favor of the mullah in Tehran.
As a Persian, I fully support this war because to me and millions of others, this is the only way the murderous islamic regime can be wiped off the map once and for all.
To my American friends: Please take a look at almost 9 million exiled Iranians all over the world who regularly protest in support of this foreign intervention.
Not every war is necessary, but sometimes war is necessary. You couldn't negotiate with Hitler, and you can't do that with the mullas either.
> Are you confident this war is targeting a regime change vs causing a failed state scenario?
To the best of my knowledge, yes. Iranian people are the most pro-West people in the middle east. It's in the US's interest to support them for a better future, and we've seen successful examples of this in the past in Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc.
Not every country should be compared to Iraq and Syria.
I hope it's true. Middle east interventions have all led to failed state scenarios so far. And I doubt this administration is smart enough to do whats best for the US. End of day I guess Israel decides the outcome of this particular war. But yeah we will know in a few months.
The problem with being unfree and alive, is one day you suddenly aren't, and you know exactly why and yet still have no idea of the specifics.
The general trend of more freedom==greater lifespan and more healthy children is very clear, but muddying the waters is a favorite tactic of those who'd exploit the lack of freedom for their own benefit.
>The attacks, seen in videos circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times, appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend.
Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon? Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.
I cannot wrap my head around the current crisis except that it serves as a (deniable) mechanism for hindering China’s ability to stockpile oil, thereby stalling an invasion of Taiwan. Total guess.
edit: As a hypothetical. I’m not suggesting Iran has nuclear weapons.
The point the OP is making is not about the justification used by the US Admin, but instead a point about how when a country has nuclear weapons, they are typically not invaded, because you risk those weapons being used. NK developed a weapon and has some degree of safety from direct invasion.
Obviously yes in the form that the comment you replied to refers to--US would be much more careful stringing a country with nuclear weapons. So while the invasion may not be caused by proximity it can be allowed bc Iran doesn't have one.
If you talk to your Asian and South Asian colleagues, the broadly held view among a lot of foreign "non aligned" nuclear countries is that Iran's regime is dumb and stupid because they didn't go nuclear first and instead tried to use it to squeeze the west by threatening to get nukes. The smarter states like India and China sprinted towards getting nukes before forcing the West to the negotiating table.
The middle eastern states are somewhat unique (and perhaps this is what inspired the end of history Western convergence school of thought in the late 90s geopolitical theory) in that they cannot survive without trade/exchange with the West. Your Asian powers like India/Pakistan/China/DPRK are all perfectly happy to be isolationist states to pursue autarchy and nuclear freedom but all of the middle eastern countries (including those like Syria/Libya) want to cosy up and trade with the West instead of going full autarchy. My theory is that it's because they are stuck in the oil resource trap and its just too easy to print money with oil than having to work and innovate.
Then again Iran is fractured internally, there's a lot of traitors within selling out the country to foreign powers. If you have Persian colleagues, ask them about the Iranian "Mossad jokes". They have a lot of funny jokes about the regime and Israeli intelligence.
The world and its countries are only a safe place as long as the US believes no one is doing anything remotely against "American Interests" or they are doing enough to promote "American Interests".
In this century, excluding Nukes (in most cases), no other reason comes even close.
It's much simpler than that. North American oil is suddenly worth twice as much.
Plus it gives an excuse to allow Russia to sell some oil on legitimate markets.
> North American oil is suddenly worth twice as much
That doesn't make up for the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of American capex at risk in the Gulf, for example Exxon's tens of billions of dollars of capex in Qatar's LNG supply chain or Chevron's monopoly as the sole upstream producer in Kuwait and the KSA.
Any potential profit they could have made from North American extraction (which itself is questionable due to the significant processing requirements for North American crude) would itself have been eaten away by losses that have already been incurred in the Gulf.
The ONG industry has very low net margins (around 4% for integrated ONG), which means any shock is catastrophic, let alone a crisis such as the current one.
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon
A nuclear Iran would mean a nuclear KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt, and Oman.
We literally had a war between two nuclear armed states barely 1 year ago (India-Pakistan) [0], and a standoff [1] that almost became a war [2] between two other nuclear armed states (India-China) barely 5 years ago. Additionally Iran and Pakistan had a border conflict barely 1 years ago [3] as well that also almost spiraled
The world is already crazy enough as it is - more states with nuclear capabilities would dramatically increase the risk of an actual nuclear war.
Edit:
> Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.
The PRC has committed to denuclearizing North Korea [4] in order to unlock a trilateral FTA between the PRC, SK, and Japan, which led NK to become closer to Russia in order to build second strike capabilities against both the US as well as China.
At some point, this will force SK and Japan to seriously consider going nuclear, which incentivizes Taiwan and potentially even the Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam to join the scramble - and would cross multiple red lines for the PRC.
India-Pakistan only ended because the US and the Gulf intervened after India struck PAF Nur Khan which is located barely a couple hundred feet from the Pakistani Army's GHQ as a warning about decapitation strike capabilities after Pakistan launched Fatah-IIs.
India and China didn't go to war because Gen Naravanne unilaterally decided against firing artillery at Chinese positions in Rechin La and Russia intervened to mediate between China and India.
MAD is truly mad. What can happen will eventually happen, and the more countries have nuclear capabilities, the harder it becomes to push back against their use, becuase at some point someone will decide to press the button.
Nor does it actually reduce conflict - it instead incentivizes proxy conflicts between states, as can be seen with Myanmar (India and China both meddling), Afghanistan (India and Pakistan both meddling), Syria (Russia versus NATO+), Libya (Russia versus NATO+), etc.
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
No.
> Not sure if North Korea is a good example
It's not in an instructive way. Iran has killed thousands of people outside its borders, directly (e.g. the AMIA bombing [1]) and through its proxies. If we exclude South Koreans, Pyongyang has killed maybe half a dozen people, and those were under Kim Il Sung (the Rangoon bombing in '83 and Korean Air Flight 858 in '87).
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
No. The fanatic muslims in charge of the government in Iran are already targeting civilians (not military bases) in UAE, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, etc.
Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts by multiple orders of magnitude? Russia/Ukraine news is everywhere, Israel/Lebanon, etc, but this one is zipped up tightly.
The platforms/news orgs must all be getting pretty serious orders on reporting, because even Gulf Wars I and II had more getting out.
Internet access in Iran is still tightly controlled, so there's probably much less organic content on social media, etc to report on.
Iran is not welcoming to Western reporters, so Western press aren't pointing their TV cameras out their hotel windows to show the explosions like in 2003. And locals can't report other than in tiny snatches of text as the internet has been turned off in the country for ages, and one imagines operating a satphone in Iran right now would be a risky endeavor.
American/English social media in general are being gutted alive in the past few months.
Yes for sure. It’s not easy to find reporting about the extent of attacks on either side of this war.
> Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts...
Internet access in Iran has been spotty after the massacres in January.
Also, even Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza-Lebanon news and "OSINT" is tightly controlled - the legal, logistical, and technical tools needed to limit access and control of information are well in the reach of any nation now, and even most police departments across much of the world.
Zipped up tightly? This has been all over mainstream news outlets, social media, everywhere.
We are commenting on a submission linked to the New York Times.
Compared to, say, the coverage from Ukraine during February 2022, actual information getting out from the ground is sparser. Or the opening "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, there were Western and international media in Baghdad reporting on it in real time, shooting video from their hotels:
https://youtu.be/m8KimNtB9HI
The reason why isn't really a mystery: Iran has never been exactly welcoming to Western media, and internet access there was intentionally shut off after the recent protests. There's plenty of coverage- it's front page everywhere- but a paucity of information.
It's all over social media, but hardly any of that is from Iranians in Iran, it's just people outside it like you and me mostly just yapping. Occasionally you'll hear something second-hand from someone with family in Iran who managed some brief connectivity.
They can't really not talk about it, it's a world war unfolding. It's going to affect every person alive. But as much as it can be, it is absolutely being mitigated in traditional media.
It's because the pro-Israeli-owned news media doesn't want you to see what's happening because it doesn't help the pro-Israel narrative. Sorta like they hide all the daily atrocities Israel has been committing in Gaza over the last 2.5 years.
It took several days for the big news media to even acknowledge that an elementary school was bombed by the US & Israel. You would only have known about it if you followed anti-Israel social media accounts.
Farnaz Fassihi (one of the co-authors) is a known NIAC member who lobbies for the islamic regime in Iran. Unfortunately, NY Times reports the Iran situation using clever words/phrases in favor of the mullah in Tehran.
As a Persian, I fully support this war because to me and millions of others, this is the only way the murderous islamic regime can be wiped off the map once and for all.
To my American friends: Please take a look at almost 9 million exiled Iranians all over the world who regularly protest in support of this foreign intervention.
Not every war is necessary, but sometimes war is necessary. You couldn't negotiate with Hitler, and you can't do that with the mullas either.
Are you confident this war is targeting a regime change vs causing a failed state scenario?
> Are you confident this war is targeting a regime change vs causing a failed state scenario?
To the best of my knowledge, yes. Iranian people are the most pro-West people in the middle east. It's in the US's interest to support them for a better future, and we've seen successful examples of this in the past in Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc.
Not every country should be compared to Iraq and Syria.
I hope it's true. Middle east interventions have all led to failed state scenarios so far. And I doubt this administration is smart enough to do whats best for the US. End of day I guess Israel decides the outcome of this particular war. But yeah we will know in a few months.
Exactly. I very much doubt Israel is willing to entertain the possibility that a new Iranian government won't have any "animosity" towards them.
“They’d rather be alive than free, I guess. The poor dumb bastards.”
The problem with being unfree and alive, is one day you suddenly aren't, and you know exactly why and yet still have no idea of the specifics.
The general trend of more freedom==greater lifespan and more healthy children is very clear, but muddying the waters is a favorite tactic of those who'd exploit the lack of freedom for their own benefit.
https://archive.is/dA09D
>The attacks, seen in videos circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times, appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend.
You can stop Iran now or try to when it has nuclear weapons.
Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon? Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.
I cannot wrap my head around the current crisis except that it serves as a (deniable) mechanism for hindering China’s ability to stockpile oil, thereby stalling an invasion of Taiwan. Total guess.
edit: As a hypothetical. I’m not suggesting Iran has nuclear weapons.
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon
Is there any chance this invasion has ~anything to do with Iran having nuclear weapons?
The point the OP is making is not about the justification used by the US Admin, but instead a point about how when a country has nuclear weapons, they are typically not invaded, because you risk those weapons being used. NK developed a weapon and has some degree of safety from direct invasion.
NK is safe from invasion because of conventional artillery pointed at Seoul.
That's why they were able to develop nuclear weapons in the first place.
Edited my post above to clarify that I do not believe Iran has WMD.
However, there is now messaging (on social media and on the NYT) from the US far right about how Iran has WMD. Take us back to 2003...
Obviously yes in the form that the comment you replied to refers to--US would be much more careful stringing a country with nuclear weapons. So while the invasion may not be caused by proximity it can be allowed bc Iran doesn't have one.
That doesn't make sense for America to care about this much, given that Iran has no way to deliver nuclear weapons to it.
Nor does Iran have nuclear weapons.
Are we really back in "trust me they have WMDs" territory? How many times we gonna fall for this?
If you talk to your Asian and South Asian colleagues, the broadly held view among a lot of foreign "non aligned" nuclear countries is that Iran's regime is dumb and stupid because they didn't go nuclear first and instead tried to use it to squeeze the west by threatening to get nukes. The smarter states like India and China sprinted towards getting nukes before forcing the West to the negotiating table.
The middle eastern states are somewhat unique (and perhaps this is what inspired the end of history Western convergence school of thought in the late 90s geopolitical theory) in that they cannot survive without trade/exchange with the West. Your Asian powers like India/Pakistan/China/DPRK are all perfectly happy to be isolationist states to pursue autarchy and nuclear freedom but all of the middle eastern countries (including those like Syria/Libya) want to cosy up and trade with the West instead of going full autarchy. My theory is that it's because they are stuck in the oil resource trap and its just too easy to print money with oil than having to work and innovate.
Then again Iran is fractured internally, there's a lot of traitors within selling out the country to foreign powers. If you have Persian colleagues, ask them about the Iranian "Mossad jokes". They have a lot of funny jokes about the regime and Israeli intelligence.
The world and its countries are only a safe place as long as the US believes no one is doing anything remotely against "American Interests" or they are doing enough to promote "American Interests".
In this century, excluding Nukes (in most cases), no other reason comes even close.
It's much simpler than that. North American oil is suddenly worth twice as much. Plus it gives an excuse to allow Russia to sell some oil on legitimate markets.
> North American oil is suddenly worth twice as much
That doesn't make up for the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of American capex at risk in the Gulf, for example Exxon's tens of billions of dollars of capex in Qatar's LNG supply chain or Chevron's monopoly as the sole upstream producer in Kuwait and the KSA.
Any potential profit they could have made from North American extraction (which itself is questionable due to the significant processing requirements for North American crude) would itself have been eaten away by losses that have already been incurred in the Gulf.
The ONG industry has very low net margins (around 4% for integrated ONG), which means any shock is catastrophic, let alone a crisis such as the current one.
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon
A nuclear Iran would mean a nuclear KSA, UAE, Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt, and Oman.
We literally had a war between two nuclear armed states barely 1 year ago (India-Pakistan) [0], and a standoff [1] that almost became a war [2] between two other nuclear armed states (India-China) barely 5 years ago. Additionally Iran and Pakistan had a border conflict barely 1 years ago [3] as well that also almost spiraled
The world is already crazy enough as it is - more states with nuclear capabilities would dramatically increase the risk of an actual nuclear war.
Edit:
> Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.
The PRC has committed to denuclearizing North Korea [4] in order to unlock a trilateral FTA between the PRC, SK, and Japan, which led NK to become closer to Russia in order to build second strike capabilities against both the US as well as China.
At some point, this will force SK and Japan to seriously consider going nuclear, which incentivizes Taiwan and potentially even the Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam to join the scramble - and would cross multiple red lines for the PRC.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_India%E2%80%93Pakistan_co...
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...
[2] - https://theprint.in/defence/nearing-breaking-point-gen-narav...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_con...
[4] - https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/53131
And the conflicts fizzled out because both parties remembered that the other also has a WMD? That was my point above.
Nope.
India-Pakistan only ended because the US and the Gulf intervened after India struck PAF Nur Khan which is located barely a couple hundred feet from the Pakistani Army's GHQ as a warning about decapitation strike capabilities after Pakistan launched Fatah-IIs.
India and China didn't go to war because Gen Naravanne unilaterally decided against firing artillery at Chinese positions in Rechin La and Russia intervened to mediate between China and India.
MAD is truly mad. What can happen will eventually happen, and the more countries have nuclear capabilities, the harder it becomes to push back against their use, becuase at some point someone will decide to press the button.
Nor does it actually reduce conflict - it instead incentivizes proxy conflicts between states, as can be seen with Myanmar (India and China both meddling), Afghanistan (India and Pakistan both meddling), Syria (Russia versus NATO+), Libya (Russia versus NATO+), etc.
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
No.
> Not sure if North Korea is a good example
It's not in an instructive way. Iran has killed thousands of people outside its borders, directly (e.g. the AMIA bombing [1]) and through its proxies. If we exclude South Koreans, Pyongyang has killed maybe half a dozen people, and those were under Kim Il Sung (the Rangoon bombing in '83 and Korean Air Flight 858 in '87).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
> Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon?
No. The fanatic muslims in charge of the government in Iran are already targeting civilians (not military bases) in UAE, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, etc.
Can you imagine if they had nukes?