The weird thing is: Iran seems to be acting like the war is ending, and that their peace plan has been accepted, and yet now it's the Trump administration that says it's all fake news. In the past the Trump administration has claimed the war was ending and Iran said (truthfully) it's all fake news.
It makes me wonder if something has shifted with the internal power dynamics in Iran, and the civilian government at least is worried about being ousted if this continues. The usual reason why you would lie about peace being around the corner is to placate the citizenry and prevent them from revolting.
Also relatedly, Trump is now doubling down on U.S. demands and threats of more military action. This is what you do if you sense your opponent is weak. Does U.S. intelligence know something we don't?
It could be a trust-building move, open up a little and see if it's reciprocated, although if it's a trust-building move the right response is probably not to threaten to obliterate them, or to launch more military strikes.
Although this conflict has seen both sides consistently choose the wrong response in basically every situation, which is why it's still going on.
Yeah, it's not even clear what the true motivation is from the US side.. "get the Uranium out" by itself doesn't make sense, because (a) they can just enrich again (or even be supplied directly by Russia/NK) and (b) even if they build nukes they'll never be able to reach US territory. If they wanted to destabilize the regime, they would have needed to actively push an alternative group or leader. If they wanted to pressure China/EU by stressing global markets, I'd say it was mildly successful - though incredibly short term.. I suppose it may be a mix of all of those (and maybe more). But I'm lost as to what the overall goal and strategy is here, it feels extremely haphazard.
There are many reasons to lie about peace being around the corner, it is the default norm. It is in part to place the blame of further conflicts on your enemies, i.e. I wanted peace but clearly they did not.
There is a conflict of narratives and one way to help push your narrative is to act like it is the reality on the ground. Unless the US is going to send in a ground army or nuke Iran then all we have at the moment is a pointless stalemate and the longer this goes on the more people will be upset at Trump and Israel for creating this situation.
No, the regime has been very publicly saying 'there is no deal', more so than US Admin who keeps hinting 'a deal' or 'imminent' or '95% of the way there'.
"Trump is now doubling down on U.S. demands and threats of more military action. "
No - he's been backing down over and over for weeks. There limited strikes today.
The US Admin is wary of escalation, Tehran knows it (or seems to be acting as though they believe that) and are dragging this along.
No, Iran is acting like time is on their side. Because it is. The iceberg the rest of the world is about to hit in the coming month or two is strategic reserves of crude oil as well as refined petroleum products (eg jet fuel, gasoline, diesel) being drained. That's going to be a whole new level of suffering.
Trump is doubling down on Israel's demands. That's the true stumbling block here. Israel wanted this war. They still do. Israel thinks they can turn Iran into a failed-state like Somalia.
Trump is also the least reliable indicator of what's going to happen becausee, as we all hopefully know by now, he just rants stream-of-consciousness like. The Joint Chiefs, the intelligence community and allies all knew this was doomed to failure. Closing the Strait of Hormuz has been historically modeled in terms of military exercises and capability for decades. It was unproven prior to this war if the US could reopen the Strait. Well, now we know. Congratulations, everybody, the system works.
I don't know what increased Internet traffic from Iran means. As was proven last year though, Israel used that access for intelligence and assassination purposes (ie to identify target locations, particularly through the large number of of Afghan refugees that were in the country at the time, allegedly [1]).
There is no grand strategy. There are no cards left to play by the US short of the use of nuclear weapons. I mean that literally. The uS has lost but unwillingness to break with Israel has stopped the administration from admitting it publicly.
> The iceberg the rest of the world is about to hit in the coming month or two is strategic reserves of crude oil as well as refined petroleum products (eg jet fuel, gasoline, diesel) being drained.
It's not clear to me that the "world" will come down on Iran's side on this one. On the one hand you have a country that is purporting to violate international norms by establishing a toll on the straight of hormuz and is shooting at or is threatening to shoot at the "world"'s ships, on the other hand you have a country that violated international norms by invading another country (ho hum, everyone does this) but isn't shooting at or threatening to shoot at your ships (mostly just iranian or dark ships). When the oil reserves run out, do you side with the bad guys that are making a token effort at helping to get oil to you, or do you side with the bad guys that are preventing oil from getting to you?
> Also relatedly, Trump is now doubling down on U.S. demands and threats of more military action. This is what you do if you sense your opponent is weak. Does U.S. intelligence know something we don't?
Hasn’t he done this every week since it started? He constantly bounces between “we’ve almost got a great deal” and “we are going to ABSOLUTELY OBLITERATE IRAN1!!!1!”
I don't think the current regime has changed their policy out of the goodness of their hearts, or for the concerns of the citizenry. If I were to hazard a guess, I'm guessing it is so their army of digital burglars can wreak havoc on US sites, in retaliation for the bombings by the US. So I guess we can only expect more ransomware and more digital mayhem.
Thanks for reminding everyone of the obvious. You'd think it wouldn't be necessary.
The popular theory that all Iranian internet was shut off like Johnny pulling the plug out of the socket in Airplane is simplistic and beyond ludicrous.
I still kinda suspect we'll see a spike in pro-hamas propaganda in the west, even though most of it so far has come from government sanctioned iranian actors.
Insofar as it being regular citizens expression their opinions, yes, even if we might not agree with them. I wouldn't call that "pro-hamas propaganda".
I'm not a fan of the Iranian government at all but this is pure Iran Derangement Syndrome. If you thought about this for half a second you'd realize that their "army of digital burglars" has had internet access the entire time. No state, and especially not one that specializes in proxy warfare, is going to intentionally cripple its actors with the highest damage to plausible deniability ratio.
It's the middle of the night in the region, so I don't expect very many human internet users from Israel or Iran right now. This may also explain why so much of the traffic coming out of Iran is flagged as bot traffic.
I agree that a significant portion of urban middle class Iranians have been online the entire time, but it's a group that is roughly analogous to the people in China who go out of their way to use a VPN.
The more important aspect is that the regime now feels certain enough that they have killed enough of the internal opposition so that the security forces can handle rest even with open comms.
I've been able to talk to every dev I know in Iran this whole time and none of them are state affiliated, just regular open source contributers. Don't trust 5 eyes (this includes CF) and what they say about Iran. There have been Iranians on twitter this entire time also that are completely normal citizens.
Israelis and US news sources will tell you Iran is strangling their people of internet and then upload 300 videos a day from inside Iran allegedly from bystanders filming strikes or whatever.
Its wild how brainwashed western tech people are. If I were a world leader though, I'd probably cut my citizens off from the Western Internet. The original patch for the ARMY psyops division is literally a ghost holding its hand out from way above with electrical signals pulsating from its hand. Which is really future thinking considering this patch is from the 40s-50s. Look up "Army PSYOPs ghost patch". I always say Starlink should change its logo to that.
Don't fall for the trap where the US and Israel paints Iran as some authoritarian censor. The US is far more authoritarian, we have the largest prison population in the world and the most corrupt leaders on earth. Also, Iran hasn't been committing a genocide. I would love to see evidence for the thousands of executions they allegedly did, still haven't seen a single bit of video evidence for that other than 400p 10 second clips of random bags on a ground.
"Don't fall for the trap where the US and Israel paints Iran as some authoritarian censor. The US is far more authoritarian"
This is total delusion, honestly, it's why people in these systems will remain trapped for a long time.
America has many problems but when people in places like Iran start on this bandwagon, it's evidence of inability to just weigh reality in the face of emotional rhetoric.
Nobody is suggesting that Iran is 'committing genocide' - that's just something you made up, however, they have been killing protesters, this is very real.
From Amnesty [1] (not exactly a pro US voice)
Human Rights Watch [2]
Amnesty and HRW indicate the state murdered at least thousands of protesters, and HRW has considerably more than that under investigation, there is plenty of evidence.
There are 2000 drones that hit UAE and you hardly see a video, why? Because UAE officials are brutally oppressive about this. They threaten people with imprisonment and expulsion for any 'leaks' and they've been forcing social media personalities to push propaganda. That's just UAE, Iran is even more assertive.
Press freedom index [3]
Iran has a ruthlessly oppressive regime, not even comparable to that of the US.
It makes me wonder if something has shifted with the internal power dynamics in Iran, and the civilian government at least is worried about being ousted if this continues. The usual reason why you would lie about peace being around the corner is to placate the citizenry and prevent them from revolting.
Also relatedly, Trump is now doubling down on U.S. demands and threats of more military action. This is what you do if you sense your opponent is weak. Does U.S. intelligence know something we don't?
Well, yes probably.
Although this conflict has seen both sides consistently choose the wrong response in basically every situation, which is why it's still going on.
There is a conflict of narratives and one way to help push your narrative is to act like it is the reality on the ground. Unless the US is going to send in a ground army or nuke Iran then all we have at the moment is a pointless stalemate and the longer this goes on the more people will be upset at Trump and Israel for creating this situation.
"Trump is now doubling down on U.S. demands and threats of more military action. "
No - he's been backing down over and over for weeks. There limited strikes today.
The US Admin is wary of escalation, Tehran knows it (or seems to be acting as though they believe that) and are dragging this along.
He does this every day even if hes not at war. He threatens to nuke canada and destroy the EU. You literally can never take him seriously.
Trump is doubling down on Israel's demands. That's the true stumbling block here. Israel wanted this war. They still do. Israel thinks they can turn Iran into a failed-state like Somalia.
Trump is also the least reliable indicator of what's going to happen becausee, as we all hopefully know by now, he just rants stream-of-consciousness like. The Joint Chiefs, the intelligence community and allies all knew this was doomed to failure. Closing the Strait of Hormuz has been historically modeled in terms of military exercises and capability for decades. It was unproven prior to this war if the US could reopen the Strait. Well, now we know. Congratulations, everybody, the system works.
I don't know what increased Internet traffic from Iran means. As was proven last year though, Israel used that access for intelligence and assassination purposes (ie to identify target locations, particularly through the large number of of Afghan refugees that were in the country at the time, allegedly [1]).
There is no grand strategy. There are no cards left to play by the US short of the use of nuclear weapons. I mean that literally. The uS has lost but unwillingness to break with Israel has stopped the administration from admitting it publicly.
[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckglp8epg11o
It's not clear to me that the "world" will come down on Iran's side on this one. On the one hand you have a country that is purporting to violate international norms by establishing a toll on the straight of hormuz and is shooting at or is threatening to shoot at the "world"'s ships, on the other hand you have a country that violated international norms by invading another country (ho hum, everyone does this) but isn't shooting at or threatening to shoot at your ships (mostly just iranian or dark ships). When the oil reserves run out, do you side with the bad guys that are making a token effort at helping to get oil to you, or do you side with the bad guys that are preventing oil from getting to you?
It's interesting to see how far they think they can get away with this, but they are not in an easy situation.
Soldiers and civil infrastructure don't last on $0.
That money stops is the 'most likely thing' that will cause a real revolution.
Both sides are hoping for 'regime change' by embargo it seems!
Hasn’t he done this every week since it started? He constantly bounces between “we’ve almost got a great deal” and “we are going to ABSOLUTELY OBLITERATE IRAN1!!!1!”
The popular theory that all Iranian internet was shut off like Johnny pulling the plug out of the socket in Airplane is simplistic and beyond ludicrous.
I think we should shut them down. NK 2.0.
I agree that a significant portion of urban middle class Iranians have been online the entire time, but it's a group that is roughly analogous to the people in China who go out of their way to use a VPN.
Israelis and US news sources will tell you Iran is strangling their people of internet and then upload 300 videos a day from inside Iran allegedly from bystanders filming strikes or whatever.
Its wild how brainwashed western tech people are. If I were a world leader though, I'd probably cut my citizens off from the Western Internet. The original patch for the ARMY psyops division is literally a ghost holding its hand out from way above with electrical signals pulsating from its hand. Which is really future thinking considering this patch is from the 40s-50s. Look up "Army PSYOPs ghost patch". I always say Starlink should change its logo to that.
Don't fall for the trap where the US and Israel paints Iran as some authoritarian censor. The US is far more authoritarian, we have the largest prison population in the world and the most corrupt leaders on earth. Also, Iran hasn't been committing a genocide. I would love to see evidence for the thousands of executions they allegedly did, still haven't seen a single bit of video evidence for that other than 400p 10 second clips of random bags on a ground.
What are CF & 5 eyes?
This is total delusion, honestly, it's why people in these systems will remain trapped for a long time.
America has many problems but when people in places like Iran start on this bandwagon, it's evidence of inability to just weigh reality in the face of emotional rhetoric.
Nobody is suggesting that Iran is 'committing genocide' - that's just something you made up, however, they have been killing protesters, this is very real.
From Amnesty [1] (not exactly a pro US voice) Human Rights Watch [2]
Amnesty and HRW indicate the state murdered at least thousands of protesters, and HRW has considerably more than that under investigation, there is plenty of evidence.
There are 2000 drones that hit UAE and you hardly see a video, why? Because UAE officials are brutally oppressive about this. They threaten people with imprisonment and expulsion for any 'leaks' and they've been forcing social media personalities to push propaganda. That's just UAE, Iran is even more assertive.
Press freedom index [3]
Iran has a ruthlessly oppressive regime, not even comparable to that of the US.
[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...
[2] https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/iran
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index