Iran has decided to attack Israel according to the Jerusalem post

[moonshinegnomie]

Iran has decided to attack Israel, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Monday amid an intense diplomatic push to avoid any further military action that could spark a direct war between the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state.

Iran’s message was delivered to Israel by Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who called Katz to explain that he had received this information from acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri.



https://m.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-813400


The question is does Israel decide to strike first or wait and see. And if Iran attacks does Israel decide to take out the leadership of Iran starting with the ayotollah

[Diraven]

1. Israel taking out the Ayatollah

Would be a crazy escalation. That is not going to happen.

[moonshinegnomie]

3. Netanyahu is as crazy a trump

A sane leader wouldn’t but Netanyahu is trump level crazy

[Polybius]

8. And smarter n/t

[democratsruletheday]

2. so sick of those assholes over there....

Israel, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan....yeah I just lumped war mongering Bibi in with other war mongering countries in the region. Just sick of them all and their BS

[AntiFascist]

4. Netanyahu is a putz who needs to be removed from office

I'm listening to US military aircraft at this very moment performing war exercises in some operation called Bamboo Eagle 24-3.
Netanyahu is purposefully drawing the US into extending his war into a much wider conflict with Iran.
Not only is he putting his own country in harm's way, but now our own active military may soon be paying the price as well!

[Metaphorical]

5. Deliberate provocation

Overall, the Iranians are acting with remarkable restraint, given that a diplomatic ambassador was murdered by the Israelis.

The one very real option I see as a response is the drone-based assassination of Netanyahu.

This of course raises the question of whether the US should do anything if that happens.

[newdeal2]

6. They have their proxies doing most of the dirty work, so I don't think they're all too restrained

And you think an assassination won't lead to direct war?

[Bettie]

7. At this point, it really looks like Netanyahu

has decided he's going to war with someone. Anything to keep his legal troubles out of sight,

[Metaphorical]

12. I think war is pretty much inevitable at this point

The Netanyahu observation was more in jest (very dark humor) than anything.

As to proxies - this is the question of whether Hezbollah gets thrown in to the mix or not. Hamas for the most part are street fighters, Hezbollah is a fairly well trained army. However, it all comes down to how much Syria wants to get dragged into this mess.

There's a lot of irritation with Israel in the Arab world, but not a lot of appetite for all out conflict with them. Also remember that the ultra-Orthodox hardliners (whose kids were generally exempt from military service on religious grounds) had that exemption yanked a couple of weeks ago. I suspect that appetite for war as a consequence has faded pretty dramatically in Israel, and Netanyahu's attempts to stoke the flames of war may have been as much to shore up that coallition as anything.

There's a reason that you guard your leaders. Not all enemies are foreign.

[Elessar Zappa]

11. If they assassinated Israel's leader

then yeah, the US would respond and Iran’s leadership would be annihilated. It would be a very stupid move by Iran.

[Happy Hoosier]

14. So now, even going after Hamas officials is a "provocation."

The Arab world has openly coddled terrorists for too long.

If Iran initiates open hostilities with Israel, I think it would be a grave mistake, both militarily, and politically.

[Iggo]

9. And what does Iran say about it?

[Deminpenn]

10. A country that plans to attack another

country doesn't announce it via diplomatic channels to the government of the country it plans to attack.

The Iranians are not stupid. Their enemy Israel is busy alienating their friends and allies. They aren't going to do anything to help Israel get out of the predicament they created for themselves in Gaza.

[Metaphorical]

13. That's the way I read this as well

Iran can't not respond in some way at this point, but they're not going to get drawn into a regional conflict that benefits no one except Netanyahu himself.

i'm just not sure what that response is going to look like.