Bubba Raskin

@Ollietoffee @OdohertyI64991 @JohnOBrennan2

@OdohertyI64991 @JohnOBrennan2 and the relationship between Ireland and Israel worsens further and who suffers most? Irish jews who have no culpability for Israel's actions in the Middle East.

Just extraordinary that Israel can interdict and hold the sister of the president of Ireland in international waters. These are peaceful protestors in *international waters*. Can Israel just do anything it wants now?

@BKBPReynoso Coming out in support of a masked mob attacking a Jewish neighborhood is a brave move. Your next opponent is getting a donation. Vile disgusting piece of human excrement.

The sale of illegally occupied land in the West Bank is an injustice that only prolongs any chance of peace for Palestinians and Israelis. Shame on those that allow these sales to happen here in Brooklyn or anywhere else.

@jerrybeatleman @Route2FI $500,000 doesn't make someone rich. Thinking that it does just makes you poor.

@Route2FI This is literally a larp post to pretend like you aren't rich. For some reason even millionaires do this. There's nothing wrong with being rich. Just own it instead of being gay about it

You’re stuck in a weird spot when your net worth is somewhere in the $500k to a $1m range IMO. It’s not small, but it’s not “set for life” either. You clearly notice the money, because it improves your lifestyle. You can pay off debts, spend more freely, and enjoy things like travel or better food. But at the same time, it’s not enough to quit working and live comfortably for the rest of your life due to the massive inflation, and especially if you’re still relatively young.

@SinaToossi The problem with all these kind of statements is that for Iran surrender is what everyone else calls being sane.

👇 A revealing comment from Iranian economist Saeed Laylaz, whose leaked 2021 interview with Javad Zarif on “the battlefield vs diplomacy” ignited a seminal debate inside Iran over foreign policy and the IRGC’s role. Laylaz now argues there is effectively no meaningful deal on offer for Iran: even if Tehran gave Trump everything he wants, it would not fundamentally change Washington’s posture toward Iran. In that context, he says “surrender” amounts to suicide and Iran has no choice but “resistance.” This gets at one of the biggest flaws in the U.S. approach to Iran: diplomacy becomes impossible when the other side comes to believe sanctions and pressure are not meant to change behavior or reach compromise, but to permanently weaken their country and/or pave the way for war. Washington has spent years undermining its own ability to negotiate with Iran. This was not an accident. It was the product of sustained campaigns by hawkish groups and the Israel lobby network in Washington (a la FDD, UANI, WINEP, etc...), which openly pushed policies meant to kill even the possibility of diplomacy, from building a “sanctions wall” against future deals to politically entrenching maximalist untenable demands.

@gonglei89 Sometimes a gif is all a retarded take deserves

A petty gif is not a rebuttal 🙃

@clashreport That's funny. The French actually have a history of withdrawing and surrendering when hit. Including in Lebanon itself.

French Presidential Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon: I asked the general in charge of the UN force: “If Netanyahu invades Lebanon, what do you do?” He answered: “Our orders are to withdraw.” I told him: “Excuse me General, but I do not understand how a peacekeeping force withdraws instead of interposing itself.” If someone hits a French soldier, France hits back.

@AllVentured They didn't "take the worst the US could throw at them" The US/Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military infrastructure. If it was the "worst the US could throw at them" there would be no electricity or a single factory left in Iran.

What possibly makes Iran give up their current situation? They already took the worst the US could throw at them outside of a ground invasion which they would likely welcome to humiliate the US on their turf. The "blockade" seems to incredibly leaky at best. Maybe it eventually applies some pressure but Iran took far worse for years of close to 0 exports under the last Trump admin. Why would it work this time? Every day that Iran can stall without bombs falling on them while the SoH remains closed is a massively asymmetric win for them. The rest of world gets more desperate and Iran's negotiating position gets stronger all while the IRGC regroups. The speed, precision, and strategic intent of the missile strikes during "Project Freedom" showed far greater coordination and control than the chaos at the beginning of the war suggesting that their efforts to regroup have been effective. If the barrage of threats to end their civilization and buildup of military force in the region for a ground invasion has not made them capitulate, what will? I wish I had the answers, but I certainly see no reason why Iran would make a deal here if they have not already.

@websterkaroon In the past few hours? I must have missed it.

@bubbaraskin There allegedly has been at least an attack on Abu Dhabi

Whatever is happening seems to be still ongoing. And every few minutes there's reports of additional explosions. Not just Bandar Abbas. Minab and other places too. I'd guess there's a wide scale bombardment of Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf by the US right now

@laurnorman The longer operation didn't target Iranian infrastructure. Iran thinks the US is deterred from doing so and for that reason negotiates as if it has escalation dominance. The only way out of this is to demonstrate that Iran is wrong.

The question is how will a short operation achieve what a longer and very widespread operation did not achieve?

@Greenwaterbot11 @Fullcarry @BabakTaghvaee1 Are you under the impression that opec is a military alliance?

@Fullcarry @BabakTaghvaee1 UAE left OPEC so in theory they have no coalition and most aligned with the US.

BREAKING: Fighter jets are reported flying over several cities in southern Iran, including Shiraz. It is believed that some of them are Mirage 2000-9EAD multirole fighter jets of the UAE Air Force. They may carry out further retaliatory airstrikes on Iran tonight. #OperationEpicFury #OperationLionsRoar

@citrinowicz @HamidRezaAz Let's make having electricity a central issue in the eyes of the Iranian leadership.

Building on the point of @HamidRezaAz , it is worth revisiting the public statements of Mojtaba Khamenei to understand just how central the Strait of Hormuz has become in the eyes of the Iranian leadership, on par with the nuclear issue or the missile program. From Tehran’s perspective, Hormuz is no longer just a waterway, it is a core strategic leverage. Without some form of Iranian consent, friction in this space is almost certain since sustained friction tends to produce escalation. The idea that the strait can simply be “opened” without coordination with Iran is unrealistic, unless the United States is prepared to seize and hold it militarily. Even then, there is no guarantee that such a move would achieve lasting results. You cannot beat Geography

@NadavPollak Ok but that would get in the way of one of their primary war aims - not to look like bitches.

If Iran will choose not to escalate the situation dramatically my guess is that they’ll probably use drones and maybe unmanned boats to try and target the commercial ships and not US ships. Remember, to interfere with straits transit they just need to show the threat is real and not necessarily hit US forces

@clashreport @andreas_krieg Qatar mouthpiece says something. Safe to ignore.

Dr. Andreas Krieg (@andreas_krieg) | Gulf Security Expert | Institute of Middle Eastern Studies: Only 10% of the UAE population are locals. You can't build a military or staff a civil service with that. So Abu Dhabi's model is to delegate - buy mercenaries & use interlocutors to project power. The approach resembles England in the 1600s - building commercial networks & using locals to project influence. But this isn't just a commercial project. It's about strategic depth & making Abu Dhabi indispensable in the region's key crises & conflicts. UAE, a small state by all metrics, with the ambition of a middle power, generates influence through networks. The network model started in Libya in 2014. It worked in Yemen with the STC, in Somaliland & in Sudan with the RSF. But militias are just the tip of the iceberg. The underbelly is commodity traders, financiers, bankers, PR companies, information networks & bots pushing Emirati narratives. It's a comprehensive, sophisticated & resilient network - remove one node & it doesn't collapse.

@websterkaroon How disingenuous does one need to be to pretend that Tehran was "carpet bombed"? You.

Things that have failed to bring the regime to negotiate in "good faith" (think tank slang for making concessions that aren't in its interests): - Sanctioning Iran's Central Bank - Kicking Iran off SWIFT - Sanctioning Iran's oil - Making Iran's currency collapse - Assassinating everyone from Khamenei to Soleimani to Larijani - Carpet bombing Tehran twice in 9 months - Hitting every enrichment site - Bombing the heart of Iran's industry - Wiping out most of Iran's conventional navy None of that worked. They haven't even agreed to the basic stuff like diluting the 60% enrichment stockpile which are the easier parts, let alone the trickier concessions. Oh no but you don't understand the geniuses at the Brookings Institution have it figured out. The blockade will do what all those failed in. Yea ok. The fruit flies infesting my home are more intelligent than these people ...

@NonzeroPods @robmalley44 The complexity here is that you are dealing with a country that has enriched 400kg of uranium while claiming to not be building nuclear weapons. And wants to negotiate on the basis of this fiction while insisting that uranium is extremely valuable.

"Maybe you hand over the 400 kilograms in increments and you see how the US lives up to its end of the bargain." @robmalley44 on why any US–Iran deal is structurally hard: for Iran, giving up its enriched uranium is an irreversible concession, while sanctions relief can be revoked overnight.

@Zarya03631822 @m4h007 Israel is ready to go. The US isn't at risk.

@bubbaraskin @m4h007 The US only restrained itself from doing that because Iran demonstrated they could do the same thing to Israel and the Gulf.

I don’t believe even going back to JCPOA is an acceptable scenario for Iran anymore. JCPOA was the agreement Iran made to avoid a war. But US never delivered on its side, and together with Israel started a war regardless. War is a continuation of politics through other means. US didn’t achieve its stated objectives: A) Regime change B) Access to HEU C) Destroying Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities D) Cutting Iran’s ties to its allies in the region That’s a strategic defeat already. But Iran has also accumulated gains: Control of the Strait of Hormuz, a fact that the US forces haven’t been able to revert. Now that Iran has borne the cost of war, and has strategically won the war, why should it accept JCPOA as the baseline state? It doesn’t compute

@fidelisanumole @m4h007 The US isn't in the region

@bubbaraskin @m4h007 And you think Iran can't do the same to those in the region?

@zeteo_news @RepSaraJacobs @mehdirhasan I'll do the fact check on myself myself lol.

@zeteo_news @RepSaraJacobs @mehdirhasan Sad that there is such an ignorant congresswoman. There is no free healthcare in Israel. All Israelis are obligated to pay for health insurance coverage out of their paychecks. The government determines what gets covered and you pay for private on top of that.

“They get free health care [in Israel]. We don't have free health care here… We should be spending the $4 billion we send them [for Iron Dome] to do that here.” Congresswoman @RepSaraJacobs tells @mehdirhasan the US should not fund Israel’s Iron Dome.