International events

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

An Arab country - especially one that has so many Palestinians - helping Israel in any way is a pretty big surprise for the world of the 80s and the 90s. Even Egypt doesn't seem that cooperative by comparison.

I suspect Egypt would respond in a similar fashion if Iran infringed on their sovereignty.  It’s important to remember both are adversaries to Iran and its influence in the region as well.

[Spockydog]

41 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

One thing I'm still a bit surprised about is Jordan responding and shooting down a number of the drones. Imagine thinking Jordan would aid Israel back in 1980.

 

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

I suspect Egypt would respond in a similar fashion if Iran infringed on their sovereignty.  It’s important to remember both are adversaries to Iran and its influence in the region as well.

Maybe? Still, it's a pretty interesting thing. Egypt has had relatively normal relations with Israel for a while, but Jordan was longer in coming and has had significantly worsening relations in the last few years. It would have been very easy for them to just not worry about it and let Israel and the US deal with it. I don't agree with @Spockydog's video garbage above - it isn't just about power, or at least not in the way he thinks; Jordan can do this because the populace of Jordan does not hate Israel so greatly that they must oppose them at every single turn. And that's even with the Palestinians being abused. 

This kind of normalizing or even helping Israel has in the past literally resulted in the populace overthrowing the government. That isn't the case today. 

[Werthead]

I think it's much more about the very, very real fear, distrust and outright hatred of Iran amongst a lot of Arab countries (especially in the Sunni-majority ones, which is just about all of them, bar Iraq and Azerbaijan). That fear and distrust has, in some cases, matched or far exceeded that of their concerns over Israel.

Saudi Arabia bailing on the Arab cold war towards Iran seemed to take the heat out of that for a bit, despite it being more of a truce of convenience than any actual growing warmth between the countries (once both Iran and Saudi realised they'd gone as far as they each could in Yemen without basically launching full-scale invasions, so it was in their mutual interest to back down; the government forces and the Houthis have been less keen on peace), but it's been coming back into vogue more recently.

It's quite startling how much that enmity is in play right now, even with Israel bombing Gaza, which the Arab street particularly utterly loathes. But even in the best of times, the Arab countries and Iran have only a very tenuous "enemy of my enemy is my friend," thing going on, and in fact I've seen some commentary that there is concern about Iran winning a war against Israel and being so energised that its ambitions grow from there. With Israel and US influence gone from the region, Iran has a clear path of influence and power extending right across the northern flank of the Arab sphere of influence (effectively an Iranian empire comprising its already massive, well-populated territories plus Iraq, Syria and Lebanon), which is something they very much do not want to deal with (and Türkiye would obviously have big problems with that as well).

The three-way balance of power in the region between the Arab countries, Israel and Iran and its proxies is a finely-balanced thing, and one of the reasons why it's even vaguely plausible Iran did have something to do with 10/7 is because how that balance was shifting dramatically towards an Arab-Israeli détente, recognition and possibly even alliance, which would be vehemently against Iran's interests.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Maybe

Jordan’s been a relatively pro-west regime pretty much since 9/11, at least.  And of course they’re more stable than Egypt.  Plus, their current queen used to work for Apple!

[Werthead]

Just now, DMC said:

Jordan’s been a relatively pro-west regime pretty much since 9/11, at least.  And of course they’re more stable than Egypt.  Plus, their current queen used to work for Apple!

Their current king was on Star Trek: The Next Generation!

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

Their current king was on Star Trek: The Next Generation!

Right?  Not to mention the history with Lawrence of Arabia.

But yeah, as emphasized, it’s mostly cuz they’re more scared of Iran than they are of Israel.  And rightly so.

[karaddin]

Seeing statements from both the Minister of Defense and the IDF Chief of Staff that they'll be retaliating so this is going to be wonderful.

[DMC]

Biden needs to publicly and significantly break with Bibi if the latter is going to pursue escalation.  I’ve defended Biden’s tack up til now - and I think rightly so - but enough is enough.

[karaddin]

The accompanying statement from US officials sounds like they've already resigned themselves to being unable to talk Israel out of it and have switched to mitigating the damage which really isn't promising

Quote

US officials said on Monday that some form of counter to Iran’s attack, which involved more than 300 missiles and drones, was almost inevitable, but the Biden administration was still hoping it would be a limited counterstrike and not aimed at Iranian territory.

Quote

"We respect that that’s a decision the war cabinet, the prime minister, have to make. We know that they live in a very tough neighbourhood,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told CNN on Monday. But he added that Joe Biden had “also been very clear that we don’t want a war with Iran. We don’t seek to widen and broaden this conflict. We don’t want to see things escalate.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/israel-will-respond-to-iran-missile-attack-idf-chief-of-staff

I feel like the only message that could actually punch through would be saying you're on your own if you start a full blown shooting war, and backing off on your messaging already really doesn't inspire confidence that you'd hold to that bluff.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I feel like the only message that could actually punch through would be saying you're on your own if you start a full blown shooting war, and backing off on your messaging already really doesn't inspire confidence that you'd hold to that bluff.

I dunno, I’ll reserve judgment.  If Israel engages in a largely symbolic response and the US slaps their hand that still might be an out for all parties involved.

[karaddin]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I dunno, I’ll reserve judgment.  If Israel engages in a largely symbolic response and the US slaps their hand that still might be an out for all parties involved.

Yeah I don't think I worded that the best, I still don't think (or at least hope) escalation to war is inevitable, but if Israel does what you're saying here it will be because that's the course of action they chose/were softly persuaded into - I don't think Biden can force them into backing down if they're set on escalation if this is the rhetoric we're seeing.

[DMC]

Just now, karaddin said:

Yeah I don't think I worded that the best, I still don't think (or at least hope) escalation to war is inevitable, but if Israel does what you're saying here it will be because that's the course of action they chose/were softly persuaded into - I don't think Biden can force them into backing down if they're set on escalation if this is the rhetoric we're seeing.

Sure, I dunno.  Bibi almost certainly feels he has to do something.  Biden should be on the horn convincing him if you have to, just blow up some buildings and hopefully that’ll be that.

[Kalbear]

Thanks, @Werthead. And yeah, I've known that for a while - but it is still a remarkable change in things from when I grew up. For all the talk that people and nations don't change I think it is an interesting sign of how things can evolve.

Like, say, the US telling Europe to fuck off and go away from NATO.

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

And yeah, I've known that for a while - but it is still a remarkable change in things from when I grew up.

I don’t think you’re old enough to remember the future king of Jordan marrying a British staffer on the set of Lawrence of Arabia.

eta:  sorry, he was actually king at the time.  I meant mother of the future and current king.

Edited April 16 by DMC

[House Balstroko]

Just a couple of quick points. 
 

@kissdbyfire Iran has already attacked Israeli diplomatic missions, which includes embassies in the past. Claiming that they should retaliate now is utter nonsense. This doesn’t mean that I think Israel should expand the engagement right now, as it risks creating a disastrous situation for all parties involved. 
 

@Werthead Just as there is tremendous mistrust/dislike of Iran in large parts of the Arab world, there is equally lots of dislike of Arabs amongst Iranians. In fact, within the diaspora, you will find some of the staunchest supporters of Israel. 

[ljkeane]

6 hours ago, House Balstroko said:

Iran has already attacked Israeli diplomatic missions, which includes embassies in the past. Claiming that they should retaliate now is utter nonsense.

Iran hasn’t attacked Israeli diplomatic missions. Groups with varying degrees of association with Iran which may have been acting at Iran’s direction have attacked Israeli diplomats and/or embassies. Just like Israel has more than likely assassinated a fair number of Iranian government officials and scientists but there remained a degree of deniability.

A direct attack by the Israeli military on, effectively, Iran is a different matter. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, House Balstroko said:

Just a couple of quick points. 
 

@kissdbyfire Iran has already attacked Israeli diplomatic missions, which includes embassies in the past. Claiming that they should retaliate now is utter nonsense. This doesn’t mean that I think Israel should expand the engagement right now, as it risks creating a disastrous situation for all parties involved. 
. 

So if a country has attacked a diplomatic target in the past it's just open season on their own consulates and embassies for ever after?  This is a very weird position to take-- what's the logic here? The Buenos Aires bombing you mentioned was over 30 years ago. 

Even if it was conducted by the Iranian government instead of a Lebanese group with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, I don't see any logic in saying that some how we can't expect a country to retaliate to a consulate bombing because they bombed an embassy 30 years ago.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

A heart breaking loss of cultural relics as awful fire roars through a Copenhagen landmark.

"Spire collapses after fire rips through Copenhagen’s old stock exchange"

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/16/style/copenhagen-old-stock-exchange-fire-intl

"Denmark’s Deputy Prime Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, called the fire “our own Notre Dame moment,” referring to the blaze that destroyed the roof and spire of the Paris cathedral, five years ago almost to the day."

Edited April 16 by DireWolfSpirit

[Ran]

Heartening to see members of the public joining efforts to save the artworks in Børsen, though. I think I read that they were able to save quite a lot, between the efforts to contain the fire and the efforts to get things in danger to safety.

Shame about the spire, though. Such an awesome design.