US strikes on Iran seemingly imminent

[Raze]

There were rumors israel was planning on attacking Iran again, however it was reported Israel indicated to Iran through Russia they would not attack them, Iran agreed to not strike them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/01/14/israel-iran-russia-secret-messages/

However then protests erupted in Iran and Israel seemingly activated sleeper cells, Israeli officials now admit they armed protestors 

It’s reported at least 100+ Iranian security forces were killed and Iran cracked down hard with reports of 500-2000 killed protestors. 

A pro-Israel group is claiming it is 12-20,000 but there is no evidence of this.

Trump said he would air strike Iran if the protestors were fired on and said they crossed his red line and has cut off diplomatic communications with Iran. 

Reports are that currently no one in the White House is telling him not to strike with Rubio (major israel lobby recipient) urging him to air strike Iran.

 

 

However gulf states and Turkey are apparently urging him not to for fear Iran will strike their territory due to their US bases and Irans regime collapse could turn into a failed state and civil war like Syria causing a massive refugee crisis. Most Syrian refugees ended up in the gulf states, turkey, and Europe, Israel accepted essentially none.

Currently Israel is reportedly saying they expect the US to strike however actually cautioned strikes as they fear the regime isn’t currently weak enough that strikes would collapse it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-want-military-action-iran-swift-decisive-sources-say-rcna254076
 

Quote

President Donald Trump has told his national security team that he would want any U.S. military action in Iran to deliver a swift and decisive blow to the regime and not spark a sustained war that dragged on for weeks or months. But Trump’s advisers have so far not been able to guarantee to him that the regime would quickly collapse after an American military strike and there is concern that the U.S. may not have all the assets in the region it would need to guard against what administration officials expect would be an aggressive Iranian response. Those dynamics could lead Trump to approve a more limited U.S. military offensive in Iran, at least initially, while reserving options to escalate — if he decides to take any military action at all, said the U.S. official and one of the people familiar with the discussions.

Polling data finds most Americans are against strikes as of now 

Edited Thursday at 02:15 AM by Raze

[LordFall]

I'm very curious what the airstrikes aim to accomplish, this video breaks down why intervening in Iran is much more difficult than Venezuela.

They can try to kill the leadership or go for the oil fields, those are the two objectives that make sense. What will come after will be chaos though. 

The best case scenario I've heard is Reza Pahlavi coming back to the country as a symbol to oversee a democratic election taking place. 

[Raze]

11 minutes ago, LordFall said:

 

The best case scenario I've heard is Reza Pahlavi coming back to the country as a symbol to oversee a democratic election taking place. 

that is so absurd even trump doesn’t believe that will happen 

[LordFall]

What do you think makes that so unthinkable? It all depends really how far the US is willing to go with their attack on leadership. 

[Raze]

5 minutes ago, LordFall said:

What do you think makes that so unthinkable? It all depends really how far the US is willing to go with their attack on leadership. 

Iran never even attempted to assassinate him because he is so disliked and unpopular. He has next to no on the ground support in Iran. Even his wife publicly cheats on him.

You can’t just bomb a government out of office and install someone like that and have elections.

If it’s a targeted assassination of the clerical leadership the result may be that the IRGC takes over if they are weakened enough.

If it’s a mass bombing that somehow makes the IRGC also unable to grip power then Iran would enter a failed state / Syria situation as all the different groups splinter off.

I’m suspecting it’ll be another semi-symbolic strike that doesn’t change much, even Trump may not be dumb enough to be tricked by his advisors into thinking they can decisively topple the regime with just airstrikes, that’s obviously a ploy by israel to bait Iran into firing back forcing the US to expand the intervention into a full scale war. John Bolton did this exactly insisting to trump to assassinated the general and when they did and Iran fired at the bases tried to get trump to escalate but trump refused. 

Edited Thursday at 04:00 AM by Raze

[LordFall]

This video makes a good point that it's probable that the IDF will try to assassinate Ali Khamenei probably tomorrow. It would basically condemn the clerical regime and benefit everyone in the region including satisfying the people. All the incentives align towards getting rid of him. 

[Raze]

2 hours ago, LordFall said:

This video makes a good point that it's probable that the IDF will try to assassinate Ali Khamenei probably tomorrow. It would basically condemn the clerical regime and benefit everyone in the region including satisfying the people. All the incentives align towards getting rid of him. 

That guy is a CIA agent who repeatedly provides cover for the US a deep state.

Khamenei isn’t the only clerical leader, he is 86 and already has the succession lined up. His death does not automatically remove the clerical power base.

If the clerical regime goes the only powerful enough group to replace it is the IRGC which will likely be even more brutal and extreme, for example Khamenei repeatedly refused to weaponize the nuclear program despite IRGC hardliners demanding it. 

Edited Thursday at 06:35 AM by Raze

[Raze]

Update, apparently delayed after Israel said not to 

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/15/trump-iran-strikes-israel-concern

[Elliott]

A strike group isn't even in the middle east. First photo is June when u.s. hit the nuclear sites. These move at 20mph, by the way, closest one is a week away.

Edited 23 hours ago by Elliott

[Elliott]

Iran seems to be striking U.S. base in Qatar again.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c701xywwxw8o

US and UK pulling some personnel from Qatar military base

1 day ago — The US and UK are reducing the number of personnel at the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, as US President Donald Trump considers whether to take

Edited 23 hours ago by Elliott

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Elliott said:

A strike group isn't even in the middle east. First photo is June when u.s. hit the nuclear sites. These move at 20mph, by the way, closest one is a week away.

 

They don’t need that to strike them. 

[Elliott]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

They don’t need that to strike them. 

They don't strike like that without them. "Need" is a very misleading word to use. Any lone bombers could easily be shot down. They usually don't do suicide missions. Shooting a couple missiles and then running doesn't seem very plausible either. A strike on Iran would be crazy without 2 strike groups let alone none.

Edited 20 hours ago by Elliott

[zazen]

Great breakdown of events. Everyone seems to be bracing for something to happen but who knows when - most of the US assets (ships etc) are around Venezuela in the Caribbean so maybe they need to move more into the region before doing anything as Elliot says. Also 25% of interceptors being depleted in the last 12 day war against Israel is worrying - these are expensive and take time to procure.

The only way the US would do something is if it can guarantee a short shock and awe campaign - get in and get out sort of thing. They aren't prepared for prolonged war as Israel would be without any air defense within 30 days. The only reason Venezuela was done was because they obviously had military insiders bought off allowing for heli's to fly in low without even any attempt at shooting them down which a simple RPG could do let alone other means. Short engagement is what their after rather than entanglement like a Vietnam / Afghanistan.

Saying that - deception and trickery is a hallmark of the current admin like we've seen. So Iran is still on high alert - if those assets are moving in like Elliot says then anything is possible over the weekend. It could be that the protests got cracked down on very quickly shortening the time horizon for them to act upon a distracted state - starlink was shut down (prob via Chinese or Russian tech). I'd be very surprised if anything were to happen though.

This guy breaks down the Iranian situation well:

 

Edited 14 hours ago by zazen

[Elliott]

3 hours ago, zazen said:

Great breakdown of events. Everyone seems to be bracing for something to happen but who knows when - most of the US assets (ships etc) are around Venezuela in the Caribbean so maybe they need to move more into the region before doing anything as Elliot says. Also 25% of interceptors being depleted in the last 12 day war against Israel is worrying - these are expensive and take time to procure.

The only way the US would do something is if it can guarantee a short shock and awe campaign - get in and get out sort of thing. They aren't prepared for prolonged war as Israel would be without any air defense within 30 days. The only reason Venezuela was done was because they obviously had military insiders bought off allowing for heli's to fly in low without even any attempt at shooting them down which a simple RPG could do let alone other means. Short engagement is what their after rather than entanglement like a Vietnam / Afghanistan.

Saying that - deception and trickery is a hallmark of the current admin like we've seen. So Iran is still on high alert - if those assets are moving in like Elliot says then anything is possible over the weekend. It could be that the protests got cracked down on very quickly shortening the time horizon for them to act upon a distracted state - starlink was shut down (prob via Chinese or Russian tech). I'd be very surprised if anything were to happen though.

This guy breaks down the Iranian situation well:

 

The U.S. military is overestimated, by design, just how China and Russia like to bluff about theirs. This is why the U.S. won't take military risks and suicide missions, why the largest strike group in the world went to 3rd world Venezuela. Any exposure of weakness or fragility is huge. The houthis, a rag tag paramilitary have recently shot down American fighter jets, the u.s. denies this and says they fell into the ocean. Iran has a military that the u.s. cannot overthrow.

U.S. used microwaves and mass fake drone deployment to disable Venezuelan defense, would not work in Iran, would get shot down by fighters. U.S. is not prepared to attack Iran even if 2 strike groups were in the area. The June attack used half of the U.S. stockpile of bunker buster bombs.

"Abraham Lincoln" strike group is headed to the middle east. A week out.

The West is not invincible. We rely on sophisticated stuff which is impressive and scary but also a dependency and vulnerability. We do not have infinite supplies.

Edited 10 hours ago by Elliott

[Jannes]

31 minutes ago, Elliott said:

The U.S. military is overestimated, by design, just how China and Russia like to bluff about theirs. This is why the U.S. won't take military risks and suicide missions, why the largest strike group in the world went to 3rd world Venezuela. Any exposure of weakness or fragility is huge. The houthis, a rag tag paramilitary have recently shot down American fighter jets, the u.s. denies this and says they fell into the ocean. Iran has a military that the u.s. cannot overthrow.

U.S. used microwaves and mass fake drone deployment to disable Venezuelan defense, would not work in Iran, would get shot down by fighters. U.S. is not prepared to attack Iran even if 2 strike groups were in the area. The June attack used half of the U.S. stockpile of bunker buster bombs.

"Abraham Lincoln" strike group is headed to the middle east. A week out.

The West is not invincible. We rely on sophisticated stuff which is impressive and scary but also a dependency and vulnerability. We do not have infinite supplies.

The US military has limited ground troups. In this aspect they really arent that strong. 

They absolutely could bomb Iran into the ground if they wanted to. 

The US spents 997 Billion US Dollars on its military a year, Iran spents 23 Billion US Dollar. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Jannes

[Elliott]

12 minutes ago, Jannes said:

 

They absolutely could bomb Iran into the ground if they wanted to. 

It's not really true though, we can't take the losses we would sustain and maintain our defense let alone everything else we're defending in the world.

[Jannes]

5 minutes ago, Elliott said:

It's not really true though, we can't take the losses we would sustain and maintain our defense let alone everything else we're defending in the world.

What losses if you just coordinate strikes on air defenses with bombing afterwards. 

US has a huge technological advantage. 

[Elliott]

16 minutes ago, Jannes said:

What losses if you just coordinate strikes on air defenses with bombing afterwards. 

US has a huge technological advantage. 

Well, obviously the bombs you drop and missiles you fire. The u.s. used half it's bunker busters in June on Iran already.

And Iran would take out all kinds of fighters and bombers, possibly even ships. Iran has a serious military and defenses.

The Economic Times

https://m.economictimes.com

US can spare only limited Tomahawk missiles, likely no major impact on ...

Oct 14, 2025 — The United States could provide Ukraine with only 20 to 50 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Financial Times reports

 

 

 

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org

Tomahawk missile

Tomahawk missile ; $3.1 million (FY1986) · $1.87 million (FY2017) (Block IV); $2 million (FY2022) (Block V); Export cost: $4 million (FY2023) · 2,900 lb (

 

The Venezuela hit was a sucker punch, like the June nuclear site hit. Even the u.s. is vulnerable to such an attack. Like, Luigi can walk up behind a ufc champ, kill him and run to the next state.

Edited 9 hours ago by Elliott

[Jannes]

12 minutes ago, Elliott said:

And Iran would take out all kinds of fighters and bombers, possibly even ships. Iran has a serious military and defenses.

Worth 23 Billion US Dollars ...

12 minutes ago, Elliott said:

Oct 14, 2025 — The United States could provide Ukraine with only 20 to 50 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Financial Times report

 

Obviously you dont give away everything. 

[Elliott]

6 minutes ago, Jannes said:

Worth 23 Billion US Dollars ...

Obviously you dont give away everything. 

Imagine Iran downing say even 1 bomber and 3 fighters, this would be a devastating blow to the u.s. military's reputation, which is the most important part of the u.s. military.

 

NDTV

https://www.ndtv.com

Houthi Group Says Its Attacks Led To Shooting Down US F-18 Fighter Jet

May 1, 2025 — Yemen's Houthi group has said it had shot down a US F-18 fighter jet during an earlier assault on the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman

 

AL-Monitor

https://www.al-monitor.com

US loses second F/A-18 jet in week of Houthi campaign

May 7, 2025 — Two US Navy pilots were rescued after ditching their F/A-18 fighter jet during a landing mishap on the USS Harry S. Truman off Yemen's coast on Monday

 

Are the houthis more sophisticated than the u.s.?

Edited 9 hours ago by Elliott