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Hacker News Hacker NewsAttributes that distinguish WW3 from previous world wars were IIRC: Contained conflagration, short targeted exchanges, probability of contamination low, material possibility of nuclear escalation. Case in point: North Korea developed nukes without being invaded, and now that they have nukes, other countries are watching and seeing that NK won't be invaded. What lesson do those other countries draw? And what of a world in which many potential belligerents hold nukes? Hiroshima weeps.
I'd like to add an important attribute here: The revolution will be live-streamed, more-or-less. And essentially none of us will know the truth, even the reasons. I predict this fact will not distress many people, such is the state of humanity.
So to the 7 or so decades of stability we and our ancestors enjoyed, here's looking at you, going down me. But Brettonwoods serves the present the least of any time since its creation. Case in point, w.r.t. eastern Africa, the geopolitical bounds of those ~4 countries seems likely meld to a degree. If we are indeed heading into WW3, I expect the world map to be redrawn afterwards, and the only lessons learned is how to win better in future.
And if we are, while disgruntled old geriatrics go at each others throats via their youthful proxies, I greatly prefer the nukes rust in peace.
Reminds me of Blaise Pascal's quote: 'All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room.' Aspiration, you gotta take care man, it just might kill ya.
I have been reading on the topic of shunyata or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism, and have been uncomfortably observing just how much of the artifacts we take to be real and substantial in the world are just "made up". They don't have an inherent reality of their own except what we attribute to them. And yet, made up stories can have very real consequences in terms human suffering.
It ought to be possible to cut through the layers of reifications and simply defuse much of the strife in the world. And yet, we continue to inflict misery on each other unnecessarily.
How exactly attacking Iran make their country great? Murdered million children in Iraq and now they started their terrorism in Iran.
Congrats America!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/feb/27/pakistan-...
It would benefit the entire world to see Iran integrated and engaged internationally.
>White House officials believe ‘the politics are a lot better’ if Israel strikes Iran first
>As the administration mulls military action in Iran, officials argue it’d be best if Israel makes the first move.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/white-house-politic...
"In order to get elected Barack Obama will start a war with Iran"
—Donald Trump, Nov 29, 2011
"Barack Obama will attack Iran to get re-elected."
—Trump, Jan 17, 2012
"Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin watch for him to launch a strike on Libya or Iran. He is desperate."
—Trump, Oct 9, 2012
What even is the plan here if the air assault fails? Boots on the ground? In Iran?
The most salient lesson of the post-Cold War era: Get nukes or die trying.
A nation's relationship to other states, up to and especially including superpowers, is completely different once it's in the nuclear club. Pakistan can host bin Laden for years and still enjoy US military funding. North Korea can literally fire missiles over South Korea and Japan and get a strongly-worded letter of condemnation, along with a generous increase in foreign aid. We can know, for a fact, that the 2003 Iraq War coalition didn't actually believe their own WMD propaganda. If they thought that Saddam could vaporize the invasion force in a final act of defiance, he'd still be in power today. Putin knows perfectly well that NATO isn't going to invade Russia, so he can strip every last soldier from the Baltic borders and throw them into the Ukrainian meat grinder.
Aside from deterring attack, it also discourages powerful outside actors from fomenting revolutions. The worry becomes who gets the nukes if the central government falls.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
My advice for rulers, especially ones on the outs with major geopolitical powers: Pour one out for Gaddafi, then hire a few hundred Chinese scientists and engineers and get nuked up ASAP.
Calling for the people to rise up. You can't bomb your way into regime change. Are we supplying arms to groups?
Is there a plan beyond pointless death and regional chaos the president would like to share?
Not in the sense of "I don't ideologically agree with our decision to do this," but in the sense of, "I do not see how this accomplishes any ideological or practical goal."
What are they trying for? Regime change in Iran? No more Iranian nuclear program? There barely was one before. Keeping Israel safe? It's been an open secret for years that Iran is not a real threat to Israel, because any action it took against Israel would be existential for Iran and its leadership.
A US president who vocally and repeatedly promised he would not start new conflicts keeps starting them, and there's not even a reason. It's infuriating. I have my partisan opinions, but that should not be a partisan statement! It's just disturbing!
Spend down my savings and assets till I have almost nothing to exit tax, exit, and then start working again.
I don't want to fund the bombing of strangers I have no quarrel with.
* the weapons can annihilate the world and extinguish civilization in a few hours
* a massive asymmetry between the enemies in any metric is evident
* the strikes and battles are surprisingly of small scale, targeted and not decisive
Why on earth isn't the diplomacy used to solve the status after an imminent warning to make Iran an extension of Indian ocean with weapons of mass destruction?
I can't think of a better use of US military power in the world than to take out this terrible regime and let the Iranians do the rest. This isn't Iraq or Venezuela. People saying that we can't bomb our way into regime change apparently didn't follow the protests and massacres very closely a couple months ago. Iranians were begging for help so that they could topple the regime.
Israel did not mass bomb civilians, and Iranian agents did not commit sabotage against infrastructure on US soil.
I hope this pattern persists.
A hand full of determined Ukrainians managed to blow up North Stream, some people plunged part of Berlin into darkness for 2 weeks.
Power and data cables as well as pipelines are as vulnerable in the US, as they are here. Maybe even more so.
A regime that truly feared for its existence, might decide to escalate, since there is nothing to loose.
One of the (many) pretexts for the war, at least from Trump seems to be that Iran 'interfered' in US elections. From the Washington post
'President Donald Trump shared an article about Iran seeking to interfere in U.S. elections on his Truth Social account a couple of hours after U.S. strikes began in Iran early Saturday.
“Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States,” the post read, with a link to a piece from Just the News, a conservative website from which Trump frequently shares articles. Shortly after, the president posted another article from the site, albeit unrelated to Iran; it was about the Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor Fani T. Willis.'
Does the US even have a functioning Congress left? Who will even believe such a preposterous lie? Even the most die hard MAGA supporter will find it hard to believe this fabrication.
It's like Trump doesn't feel the need to even maintain the fig leaf of a causus belli. He must truly feel that he is now the king of the United States to be so emboldened.
For more than four decades, the Islamic Republic has been one of the primary state sponsors of terror. Hezbollah is not an organic Lebanese movement — it is an Iranian creation. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are sustained by Iranian money and weapons. The Houthis’ missile and drone capabilities exist because Tehran supplied and trained them. Shi’a militias in Iraq killed hundreds of Americans with Iranian-provided EFPs. Today, Iranian Shahed drones are striking Ukrainian apartment buildings.
This is not passive instability. It is deliberate, systematic export of violence as state policy.
At the same time, the regime has consistently pursued a nuclear capability while publicly calling for the destruction of Israel and “death to America.” Even if one assumes deterrence logic would hold, a nuclear umbrella for Iran would dramatically increase its freedom to escalate proxy warfare across the region.
The downstream geopolitical effects are not hypothetical. Without Iranian drone and missile transfers, Russia’s ability to sustain certain strike campaigns in Ukraine would be materially degraded. Without heavily discounted Iranian oil shipments, China’s energy calculus shifts, particularly under sanctions pressure. Without Tehran’s funding pipelines, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis become far more constrained actors rather than semi-state militaries.
There is also precedent for preventive action against nuclear programs. Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor (Operation Opera) was widely condemned at the time; decades later, most analysts agree it delayed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions. Likewise, Israel’s 2007 strike on Syria’s Al-Kibar reactor (Operation Orchard) prevented the Assad regime from developing a covert nuclear capability. Both operations were controversial in the moment and regarded as stabilizing in retrospect.
Preventing a hostile regime from acquiring nuclear capability has historically proven wiser than managing it after the fact.
Yes, regime change carries risk. So does allowing the world’s most aggressive revolutionary theocracy to entrench itself indefinitely while arming proxies from Beirut to Sana’a to Moscow. The status quo is not stable. It is violent by design.
If a regime that funds terrorism on three continents, arms Russia during a European war, and openly seeks nuclear weapons is dismantled, history is unlikely to judge that harshly.
It will likely judge it as overdue.
I’ve always felt the US won trust and respect with these characteristics. It looks like we are now shifting strategy and I wonder where this will lead to.
Iran could have been contained and Obama was right on his approach. We don't know the details of the strikes, but I hope it doesn't go into a full blown war, but this will be another Iraq like disaster, and american people are getting tired of doing the bidding of Isreal, a country that is already mirred into doing a genocide. This war is already unpopular in pools. Iran's regime is terrible to its people, but this has the potential to be another disaster where countless of people could die.
Does anybody can trust andnegotiate with USA?
I knew it was foolish, but I really was somewhat hopeful that the American regime’s stated doctrinal shift was true and they really were going to fuck right off from the world stage, even just a little. Naturally, we suffer the opposite.
Pre-emptive violence; not even justified with a narrative of escalating threat.
Bleak for anybody who knows their history.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-nears-deal-buy-supe...
Also, the US News media silence on this is noteworthy.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=reuters+cm-302+missile&ia=w...
Wow.
It hurts my heart to see Americans destroying them (and the thousands of lifes).
What a headline. Anybody else have this on their election day bingo card?
Midterms should be a blood bath though, right? Right? (insert Anakin meme).
1. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-rolls-the-dice-o...
people in the Middle East will literally starve
and china will run out of fuel - though they've gone mostly electric
Iran has sophisticated influence operations and will likely flood social media with disinformation designed to deepen political divisions and erode trust in institutions.
This advice serves even if you don’t believe the above. Be deeply skeptical of all viral content in the coming days and weeks, especially anything designed to change your opinions, or provoke outrage/fear. Verify before sharing. Expect deepfakes. Stick to primary sources when possible.
Israel and the US have already shown their cards in Syria. It is not peace they are after, it is regional domination.
However, looking at how the US president has abused power, silenced those who are against the draft dodging crybaby and his league of human trafficking millionaires, I feel this is yet another try to move focus from US domestic probs to something else. I see no honesty or greater reason for this attack or justification for it. While I'm no fan of Iran's autocratic regime, US is slipping towards into being one, as well.
US president has now active war operations in Venezuela, soon lightning the Cuba situation on fire as well, not to forget planning to take Greenland and Canada, too.
That's honestly not bad for the president of peace. Nobel committee should take a look at nominating this guy for a peace prize
On the one hand, Trump is awful for the USA, and the world.
On the other hand, there is a possibility that the freedom-wanting citizens of Iran finally have a slight chance of achieving their goal.
The chance of something truly positive happening seems low. However, as someone who has, for years, watched what happens in Iran via the lens of https://old.reddit.com/r/newiran, I am allowing myself the slightest amount of hope. Iranian people deserve it.
Of course, there is a large chance of this blowing up into something really bad for everyone.
edit: This Ukrainian is currently live streaming with OSINT, and his takes align with many of my actual realist thoughts:
I'm baffled at the lack of calls to boycott the Fifa world cup in US.
And at the double standards applied to Russians and Israelis in their wars of aggression.
I guess Israel can play the "October 7th" card at least which was an insane horror.
And just days ago it was discovered that documents involving FBI investigations into allegations by one or more victims against Epstein and Trump were not released by the DOJ.[2]
I trust Trump still has time to testify to Congress about his connections to Epstein like others have been doing.
Meanwhile yesterday:
>>>the U.S. designated Iran as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” and demanded that the country release any Americans in its detention.[3]
You just can't make this shit up.
1: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/10/trump-epstein-files-jamie-r...
2. https://www.npr.org/2026/02/24/nx-s1-5723968/epstein-files-t...
3. https://au.news.yahoo.com/us-designates-iran-state-sponsor-0...
Is that the same program that was totally obliterated in June 2025 according to Trump?
"Obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before"?
Trump said in the State of the Union [0]:
> in just over the past couple of months with the protests they've killed at least 32000 protestors
And just moments ago Trump says 'tens of thousands' [1]
Is this confirmed or conjecture?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l-iErpskb8&t=1h21m20s
[1] https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/2027651077865157033
I had added it to my `motd`; it would give me a chuckle every time I logged in.
One of the cookies I recall:
A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. [1]
And that's what I think of when I see this absurd new war.
Nor do I even know how to begin to grasp the enablement displayed by Europe as a whole. People constantly cite China’s “human rights abuses” (which seem to pale in comparison to all this) and rightly so, but continue to enable this blood thirsty and power hungry tag team to indulge in flagrant abuses of international law and general morality.
This is a sad day for level headed and empathetic humans across the globe. At which point do we accept that WW3 began quite a while ago? Because it sure as shit did.
Edit: fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion but it’s my truth.
- David LLoyd George, c.1916
The first wars were fought between tribes and then later between kingddoms for power/minor differences and trying to increase influence and alliances. Religion and race and many other discriminating factors are used for both sides to get support of the people, the people who are actually gonna carry the rifle and risk their lives and lose it, this drives the next war to redeem the losses of the first one, to take revenge.
This then creates a community which dislikes the other community and now we are here.
We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to have when we suffer. … If so-and-so’s wickedness is the sole cause of our misery, let us punish so-and-so and we shall be happy. The supreme example of this kind of political thought was the Treaty of Versailles. Yet most people are only seeking some new scapegoat to replace the Germans.
- Bertrand Russel in Skeptical Essays.
Humanity has had a history written with bloodshed but the problem right now seems to me that we don't know how to write future, we lack a vision for other prospects, it seems to me that we jump into the newest Hype on the block and its all so wishy-washy. Contrary to people saying its a western issue, I think its an whole world issue, its just that the west is particularly impacted by it.
Has there been a desensitization in things in recent years?
I know of atleast one leader (King Kaniska) who fought for land (Modern day Orrisa) and won and then saw the bloodshed and screams on the ground and decided to not repeat it and I think he spent later of his life trying to promote peace.
I am sure that there must be other leaders in the history of past as well but perhaps its the problem of history as well which can sometimes glorify wars.
I think the biggest problem right now is being noise. We have created machines so large that humans have lost dignity and are treated unfairly at scale in terms of Renting places at scale owned by shell companies who'd rather have it empty than give you affordable housing. Prices seem to be increasing and I don't think modern social media helps in giving people dignity quite the opposite at times and it's very likely someone is reading this who may have contributed to making the machine.
With this being a political thread, I see comments from both sides[0], I don't think I have too much to add politically to the discussion but perhaps I just wanted to treat out that its best we treat each other with dignity in this thread and in general because I do believe that's the only thing we can do which can bring change. It's gonna be extremely hard for people to treat others with dignity while taking sides which talk about wars killing people, but I don't know what else to say. Iranian censorship for its people but I am not sure if the current idea of America brings me thinking of liberation. One can wish for pure democracies in such regions but its gonna be extremely hard and even grass-roots movements of these can be shut down by intrusive forces whether foreign or govt itself and given that the region is extremely shaky relying on oil which can be extracted from ground leading to a less dependence on people themselves for Iranian govt.s being the reason why they can be so censoring. They have shown enough power to fight massive protests but as I said earlier, the current picture of America don't exactly give me the idea of bringing pure democracy in the region either.
My prayers to the Iranian people who are stuck between a rock and tough spot.
(there are no sides, its a circle, a circle of people who start wars and the people who fight wars)
Without having to wait for the history books to do their thing.
The thing is, as sudden as this seems to the general public, this is something that takes months of planning. Having served in the Navy for eight years, I know that this kind of thing doesn't necessarily happen overnight. That doesn't mean it _couldn't_. The US military certainly does have the ability to plan a strike very quickly.
But, most likely, this was planned behind closed doors. Based on the reports, I bet this was probably planned shortly after Trump took office. It just so happens that it's a good distraction from the Epstein files.
I hate the direction this country's government is taking. It sucks. I just want to leave at some point. I don't want my family to grow up here anymore.
[T]he War Department will not be distracted by democracy building interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation building.
- Pete Hegseth, December 6, 2025[1]
Works out great for Netanyahu though as is customary. He can be PM for a while longer and stave off his own impending trial and imprisonment. If this goes well for Israel, he might even get that pardon that Trump campaigned for tirelessly.
My theory is that Israel has dirt (Epstein files maybe) on Trump and holds him by the balls. The second idea is that this is an obfuscation campaign to have the public opinion forget about Epstein, the state of the real economy, the falling approval rates, or all of the above.
Think about it. If someone actually bombed or invaded the continental US you'd have woke libs cheering for Donald Trump.
The Iranian regime may fall, but it'll be like Iraq. We'll get something like ISIS out of it, or worse, and the place will be a complete basketcase of civil war for 25+ years. Or we'll be there for 25 years in another "forever war." Bravo.
So we're going to war with Iran based on election fraud conspiracies from MAGA?
0: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1161475725227...
> "Epstein files: DOJ withheld documents about claim Trump sexually abused minor"
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/24/epstein-trump-doj-garcia.htm...
Will it even make a single newspaper or talk show this weekend?
I lots of relatively new accounts coming with what seems to me extreme, but altogether pop-culture acceptable opinions
And that's certainly the deathbed of any hopes to a mullah regime change. They will come out stronger than before.
Can we follow the age old adage WWJD?
What would (Xi) Jinping do?
Israel attacked Iran
Israel attacked Lebanon
Israel oppressed and kidnapped Palestinians
World is getting destroyed by couple hundred Israeli and US maniacs, by the way, all of whom are connected via Epstein
> DEATH TO AMERICA
in the streets like blood-thirsty lunatics, something for which there was no equivalent in the US even after 9/11 (mobs chanting "Death to Muslims/Islam"), let alone doing so with governmental encouragement as happens in Iran?
Do they not realize how many Americans aren't pro-Israel and aren't invested enough in the Middle East and its politics, proxy wars, and human rights abuses to want the US to support Israel in military action against Iran, except for their nuclear ambitions, and regularly professed eternal hatred for our country?
If you see a sudden uptick in protests in a country the US/isreal see as an enemy, you can bet its probably just the step in the playbook preceding military action
Israel and the US: You serious?
Iran: Yes.
...
Iran, after being bombed to a slightly earlier point of the Stone Age than they've spent the past ~50 years: We are working hard trying to find the guy responsible for this.
FAFO, as they say. Meanwhile, literally the entire Middle East and the rest of the world besides Russia will be happy to see these clowns gone. Bon voyage.
please, can somebody in the US or Israel have an "are we the baddies" epiphany?
And Iran? Every single time it’s just performance art. I’m already sick of watching it.
Besides, Iran has been heavily sanctioned and blocked by the U.S. and Israel for so many years that its impact on the global economy is basically zero. So what the hell is there to dump over?
Oil prices? Venezuela’s situation has already been dealt with. The U.S. can produce its own oil, Canada still has plenty of oil, and Russia is still selling at bargain-bin prices. Iran and the surrounding major oil-producing countries are barely even moving in sync, and there’s basically no real incentive for anything major to happen to oil. So why the hell would the market drop?
As for all this fearmongering, I’d say go harder. Seriously, make it as apocalyptic as possible, so my gold can moon, I can pick up cheap Taiwan stocks, and short crypto, so I can completely clean out all the people panicking in fear.
I'd think they emit slightly more than a cow's fart.
Maybe it's a good thing that Anthropic will no longer be associated with the US government's attacks in another six months.
PotUS told Iran "Don't shoot the protestors or else." Iran shot the protestors.
Iran chose to FAFO; "Or else" has now arrived.
I don't like Trump and based on past bad experiences I'm not sure it's wise for the US to start a war in the Middle East.
I feel sorry for the civilians caught in the middle, e.g. the ~50 Iranian schoolkids that ate a wayward bomb. People can legitimately criticize the US and Israel for that mistake, but if they do they need to also criticize Iran ~200 times harder for killing tens of thousands of protestors on purpose.
I don't agree with people who think this war is illegitimate or Iran isn't the bad guy here.
Will not one of you try to steelman this decision? Or do you truly, fully believe the entire US government and intelligence complex, supported by roughly 50% of your compatriots, are warmongering baboons?
Iran has been the grown up in the room for well over a decade at this stage and it didn't matter one bit. You cannot appease Israel or the US because that don't want to be appeased, they want to bomb Iran into a lawless wasteland. They could have switched to a secular liberal democracy and it'd make no difference.