Iran - Israel - Gaza Conflict

[73 Reds]

5 minutes ago, Dinar said:

Hamas is rather easy.  Stop all water, food, etc... into Gaza, allow all, except for males between 12 and 60 to leave freely.  Males between 12 and 60 will have to go through POW camps to figure out whether they were members of Hamas in which case they should be tried as terrorists or innocent civilians, in which case they should be allowed to go to a country of their choice or into Syria.

Hezbollah - start by blocking all food and energy into Lebanon.  Then you have to fight a very bloody war, at the end divide Lebanon into northern and southern halves.  Christians get southern half, Sunnis get northern half and Shiites go to Syria; just as losers in every war.

I'm afraid if it were that easy, it would already have been done.  And if you think Western public opinion is bad now, just wait.  Then there is the issue that NO OTHER COUNTRY wants these people and you can't force anyone to take them.

[Dinar]

Just now, 73 Reds said:

I'm afraid if it were that easy, it would already have been done.  And if you think Western public opinion is bad now, just wait.  Then there is the issue that NO OTHER COUNTRY wants these people and you can't force anyone to take them.

It is that easy.  Israelis are afraid of public opinion, but time is NOT on their side.  No other country wants them?   Well, dump them into Syria, how can Syria stop it?  If it is not done now, it will get much worse, and in the next war US will NOT help them.

[73 Reds]

2 minutes ago, Dinar said:

It is that easy.  Israelis are afraid of public opinion, but time is NOT on their side.  No other country wants them?   Well, dump them into Syria, how can Syria stop it?  If it is not done now, it will get much worse, and in the next war US will NOT help them.

Syria would place troops at the border.  It can't logistically be done as much as we might want it.  And withholding food and water will ensure Israel's complete isolation world-wide. 

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

Syria would place troops at the border.  It can't logistically be done as much as we might want it.  And withholding food and water will ensure Israel's complete isolation world-wide. 

Assad has not been able to defeat a bunch of rebels, can he stop Israel's military?  As for Israel's isolation, you are already isolated.  The world will forgive any atrocity if it is done quickly.  Who remembers Armenian and Greek genocide by the Turks?  Who holds Japanese responsible for atrocities of WWII?  Who throws Hitler's crimes in the face of Germany today?  

In any case what is the alternative?  Keep rolling the dice as @SharperDingaan said?  Eventually you will lose, and then all of Israelies are going to be murdered by the victorious Muslim armies!  Either kill and transfer today, or you will suffer genocide tomorrow.  The choice is Israel's.  

[Spekulatius]

5 hours ago, cubsfan said:

The risk as I see it - Kamala wins - and then the anti-Israel administration stands behind the proHamas wing of the democrats. Not good for Israel.

What is your evidence that Biden/Kamala are antisemitic?

[Gregmal]

40 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

What is your evidence that Biden/Kamala are antisemitic?

Yea Kamala is married to a Jew and otherwise nothing I’ve seen from her is antisemitic. Biden is part of the pro Israel old school faction of the party. It’s more the newer and younger democrats that are really bigoted. 

[cubsfan]

33 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

What is your evidence that Biden/Kamala are antisemitic?

 

This administration has been anti-Israel from the beginning. Arming and funding Iran (and proxies) is of course the most obvious. Billions of dollars to terrorists, they thought they could somehow contain. Biden/Harris created a huge mess in the Middle East for Israel.

 

Now they have their lunatic wing to contend with - The Squad and Michigan voters that they can not afford to lose control of - just makes their problem worse.

 

If this administration had not interfered with Israel so much since Oct 7th, the war in Gaza would have ended much earlier.

 

 

[Xerxes]

4 hours ago, Dinar said:

Assad has not been able to defeat a bunch of rebels, can he stop Israel's military?  As for Israel's isolation, you are already isolated.  The world will forgive any atrocity if it is done quickly.  Who remembers Armenian and Greek genocide by the Turks?  Who holds Japanese responsible for atrocities of WWII?  Who throws Hitler's crimes in the face of Germany today?  

In any case what is the alternative?  Keep rolling the dice as @SharperDingaan said?  Eventually you will lose, and then all of Israelies are going to be murdered by the victorious Muslim armies!  Either kill and transfer today, or you will suffer genocide tomorrow.  The choice is Israel's.  

 

https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide
 

 

Assad cannot do much. He didn’t even have operational control over the S-300 that Russians “sold” to them.  

 

That said, would you say the plan that you propose that needs to happen to Lebanese and Palestinian as a permanent fix constitute as genocide as define in the link above ?

 

I get the argument of “do it to them before they do it to you”. But I think you should classify it what it really is, if you agree that it meets the definition. 
 

[Dinar]

@Xerxes, no since I am not calling for killing civilians.  Transfer yes, like has been done since time immemorial, and just this year done by Muslim Azeris to Christian Armenians.   It will also sound absurd, but this will save lives on both sides, since if it is not done, wars there will go on forever will larger and larger casualties.  

[73 Reds]

20 minutes ago, Dinar said:

@Xerxes, no since I am not calling for killing civilians.  Transfer yes, like has been done since time immemorial, and just this year done by Muslim Azeris to Christian Armenians.   It will also sound absurd, but this will save lives on both sides, since if it is not done, wars there will go on forever will larger and larger casualties.  

This has already gone on forever and depriving a population of food & water and trying to force your way into another country to offload tens of thousand of unwanted human beings will absolutely cause larger casualties.  Israel does not need a conflict on a third front.  What do you think might happen to these people if they were somehow deposited in Syria - it would create another version of Southern Lebanon or existing territories with conflicts along yet another border.  Moreover, what do you think happens to people who are wholly unwanted by a terrorist country in which they happen to reside?  I think we were on the right track with the Abraham accords.  From a Middle East perspective, I hope Trump gets another opportunity - it won't happen under any current Democratic administration.   

[Xerxes]

2 hours ago, Dinar said:

@Xerxes, no since I am not calling for killing civilians.  Transfer yes, like has been done since time immemorial, and just this year done by Muslim Azeris to Christian Armenians

Understood.
 

of note: Baku and TelAviv already exchange notes, given that the Jewish state is a close ally of Muslim state of Azerbaijan. 

[Dinar]

3 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

This has already gone on forever and depriving a population of food & water and trying to force your way into another country to offload tens of thousand of unwanted human beings will absolutely cause larger casualties.  Israel does not need a conflict on a third front.  What do you think might happen to these people if they were somehow deposited in Syria - it would create another version of Southern Lebanon or existing territories with conflicts along yet another border.  Moreover, what do you think happens to people who are wholly unwanted by a terrorist country in which they happen to reside?  I think we were on the right track with the Abraham accords.  From a Middle East perspective, I hope Trump gets another opportunity - it won't happen under any current Democratic administration.   

It may cause larger casualties now, but a lot fewer in the long run.  It is easier to defend Golan than Gaza border.   Huge blame lies with the West & the UN for keeping refugee camps.  Tens of millions of WWII refugees integrated into other societies.  

[73 Reds]

2 minutes ago, Dinar said:

It may cause larger casualties now, but a lot fewer in the long run.  It is easier to defend Golan than Gaza border.   Huge blame lies with the West & the UN for keeping refugee camps.  Tens of millions of WWII refugees integrated into other societies.  

No argument but for the reasons stated earlier it won't happen that way.  It would be far more feasible for these people to relocate to Egypt and/or Jordan but that is not happening either - unless or until a whole lot of compensation is put on the table.

[cubsfan]

Hezbollah communications taken out.  Now Shock & Awe starts.

[73 Reds]

11 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Hezbollah communications taken out.  Now Shock & Awe starts.

The shock and awe needs to target the source  - Iran.  It is unforgivable that our present government has allowed Iran to thrive while its abhorrent position as to Israel remains unchanged.  Without funding, these terrorist groups will die a not-so-slow death.  

[Spekulatius]

12 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

The shock and awe needs to target the source  - Iran.  It is unforgivable that our present government has allowed Iran to thrive while its abhorrent position as to Israel remains unchanged.  Without funding, these terrorist groups will die a not-so-slow death.  

Iran isn’t exactly thriving but how do you prevent them from selling their oil. They have plenty of it and there are plenty of buyers for a small discount.

[Dinar]

43 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Iran isn’t exactly thriving but how do you prevent them from selling their oil. They have plenty of it and there are plenty of buyers for a small discount.

That's easy.  Blow up oil tankers and pipelines.

[73 Reds]

12 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

12 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Iran isn’t exactly thriving but how do you prevent them from selling their oil. They have plenty of it and there are plenty of buyers for a small discount.

Iran isn’t exactly thriving but how do you prevent them from selling their oil. They have plenty of it and there are plenty of buyers for a small discount.

They are in much better financial shape now than they were 4 years ago.  We don't have to do business with them or give them money.  We don't have to be a part of a ridiculous nuclear "treaty".  We don't have to buy their oil or encourage others to do so by our own laissez faire attitude toward their terrorist regime.  If we set the right example, much of the world will follow.  The less money they have, the less they are able to supply weapons and cash to their proxies.     

[Spekulatius]

The Iran has more money because crude prices are higher than 4 years ago. The US and Europe does not buy Iranian crude but others do (Chinese, Oman, Bangladesh and who knows who else). The rest of the world does not follow, they sell a commodity and for a discount you can sell almost any commodity on size , somebody will buy it. Russian crude finds buyers too despite being sanctioned by western world, they just have to sell it at a discount. India is a big buyer.

 

The nuclear treaty does seem to not work out. I agree on that but that’s a different issue from above.

 

Edited September 22 by Spekulatius

[73 Reds]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

The Iran has more money because crude prices are higher than 4 years ago. The US and Europe does not buy Iranian crude but others do (Chinese, Oman, Bangladesh and who knows who else). The rest of the world does not follow, they sell a commodity and for a discount you can sell almost any commodity on size , somebody will buy it. Russian crude finds buyers too despite being sanctioned by western world, they just have to sell it at a discount. India is a big buyer.

 

The nuclear treaty does seem to not work out. I agree on that but that’s a different issue from above.

 

They only have so much of the stuff and they have to get it out of the ground.  As @Dinar suggested, their facilities can be destroyed.   If all else fails, that's probably next.  And if that happens, Iran has nothing left.

Edited September 22 by 73 Reds
missed line

[Pelagic]

This is a pretty interesting video on the dark fleet tankers that enable Russian and Iranian crude exports. There are still some levers the west can pull if they want to tighten up sanctions against exports from these countries that would mainly target this fleet of ships and their owners. Also a twitter account mostly devoted to tracking them and highlights some of the ship to ship transfers between dark fleet ships and legal ships that happen at sea TankerTrackers

 

 

 

[Spekulatius]

Looks like the UAE is the hub and the Indians are well knows to buy Russian oil too. Saudis aria is is greenwashing the discounted  Russian oil too, they use it domestically so they can export more of their own.

 

How to prevent his from continuing is a challenge because you would need to effectively sanction UAE, Saudi Arabia and India as well.

 

I also want to point out that both Biden and a Trump have avoided a direct confrontation with an Iran Trump did not respond when Iran shot down an US drone over international waters. So I doubt he would deal much more aggressive with Iran than the current administration.  
 

All these conflict do not seem to change the demand and supply solution for energy in the longer run. In the short run, they leads to disruptions until the flows get rejigged but at the end, the volumes always seem to get to market.

[Viking]

Did the conflict in the middle east not just get kicked up another notch? It looks like Israel has decided the Hezbollah threat in Lebanon needs to be addressed. Are we learning the emperor has no clothes (Iran and its proxies / those who want Israel to disappear)? Or is this simply the ‘calm’ before the storm? It is interesting that financial markets appear to be ignoring the wars in middle east.

Edited September 23 by Viking

[Spekulatius]

A first grader with a map can figure out that there is not going to be a war between an Israel and Iran.

How do you make war with a county ~600 miles away? Sending a couple of drones won’t so much and and sending troops though 600miles through hostile counties isn’t really possible. Iran does not have the air power, they just get 5x what they sent over in return.

 

Hezbollah is on its own, the Iranians pretty much signaled such. There will be some symbolic acts of retaliation and that will be pretty much it.

 

 

[cubsfan]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

Did the conflict in the middle east not just get kicked up another notch? It looks like Israel has decided the Hezbollah threat in Lebanon needs to be addressed. Are we learning the emperor has no clothes (Iran and its proxies / those who want Israel to disappear)? Or is this simply the ‘calm’ before the storm? It is interesting that financial markets appear to be ignoring the wars in middle east.

 

No doubt about it,, Israel has always said once Hamas is defeated, Hezbollah is next.

 

You're seeing the plan in action.

 

#1 knock out all communications (cause chaos)

#2 kill the leaders (most of the Hezbollah top leadership, now dead, more chaos)

#3 unleash Shock & Awe (800 airstrikes today)

 

Israel has complete air superiority and countless spies betraying Hezbollah. It's a deep hole.

 

The only thing that saves Hezbollah now is Iran intervention. And Iran is stalling big time due to their own leaders being killed, along with their terrorist Ambassador to Lebonan being injured.