The Iranian government has belittled the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli attack on its military sites, but hardliners in the parliament insisted the strikes breached Iranian red lines and required a swift response, preferably at a time when Israel is already enmeshed in Lebanon and Gaza.

The internal Iranian debate on how to respond to the long-awaited Israeli attack turns on whether to treat Israel’s breach of Iranian national sovereignty as too grave to be ignored, or instead to heed the advice coming from the region and from the US to acknowledge the relatively limited nature of the attack and to step back from the brink by not launching reprisals.

In making its decision, the Iranian political elite will have to weigh conflicting political, diplomatic and military pressures. But the initial tone from the government was one of patriotic pride at the performance of the air defences, rather than calls for immediate retribution. Some even claimed that the air defences proved better than Israel’s Iron Dome.

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  • granolabar
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    415 hours ago

    Is there any possible scenario where US doesnt get involved here?

    • @Evotech
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      05 hours ago

      What do you mean, every single rocket Israel send is American.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1715 hours ago

      Both sides taking the off-ramp, returning to the shadow war, and not attacking each other directly.

      • Flying SquidM
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        13 hours ago

        Yeah, this is going back to saber-rattling. Let’s hope it stays there. On both sides.

        • @InverseParallax
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          410 hours ago

          So, the smart move for Iran is to go heads down till they have their nukes ready, which should be soon.

          Israel has their hands full, and honestly probably can’t stop Iran in any meaningful way, what they really want is the US to get deeply involved, which I’m sure is what Trump promised them.

    • AmidFuror
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      815 hours ago

      Both sides continue to launch weak and ineffective attacks on each other.

    • @[email protected]
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      514 hours ago

      Unless there’s boots on the ground in Israel, then US won’t get involved. At most they’ll just support Israel and shield them. This war is way too unpopular in America as it is right now.

      • Rhaedas
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        212 hours ago

        Not enough unpopular to make differences, but it’s definitely a hot topic of discussion, or not talking about, for fear of being labeled. Meanwhile we’re still doing what we’ve always done. It’s almost like it goes much deeper than who is the President…

        • @[email protected]
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          512 hours ago

          It is incredibly unpopular. Over 2/3rds of Americans support enforcing a ceasefire. That number will only go up if American troops start coming under fire. The only reason this isn’t changing much is because a significant majority of Americans are voting Harris just because of how scared they are of Trump. If this race were between two genuine candidates and not what it is now, Harris would have lost a lot more votes.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness
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            111 hours ago

            If any of the two candidates was a real electable candidate (like not even anything amazing, just 2020 Biden level of electable) they’d win by a land slide. Instead y’all have this clown show.

    • @00x0xx
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      111 hours ago

      At minimum, the US will be involved indirectly. US has too much to lose if Iran takes a lead in the war.

      • @InverseParallax
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        10 hours ago

        Is that supposed to be a joke?

        How, in hell, would Iran take a lead?

        Israel has f35s, useful aa defenses, and Iran isn’t on their border.

        At the very worst for Israel, if they aren’t interested it’s a draw, more likely a few f35s drop jdams on important buildings, maybe even destroy power generating if they really want to be assholes.

        Don’t think a few hundred shaheds is going to do it here, 50kg of semtex only goes so far.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 hours ago

      I wish we had an electoral option to tell Israel to get bent.

      Unfortunately both sides are in on the conspiracy.