Iran ; explosions across Tehran following Israeli and US strikes, 28 February 2026

[MassGuy]

Snipped by me for focus,

This much seems reasonable to me. It doesn't seem to have such political Trump-focused aims. It doesn't even mention regime change, though I think that is a reasonable part of the aims inasmuch as it's the choices of the current regime, their decisions to facilitate terrorism that have made their country a target.

I'm trying to sort of ignore the lousy messaging coming from the president and the politics of him and his administration and look at it purely from the perspective of perceiving what Hegseth has said here to be the main goals of the operation/war. And in this sense I would see all the years through different presidents and administrations as attempts to avoid this, but with the actions of Iran and their subsidiary terrorist groups over the past 2 years or so, I can see that it's reached a point where Iran can't be trusted to stop supporting terrorist groups, and I can agree that waiting until after they have working nukes is not the best option. Imagine an Iran that says you can't go after terrorist groups that we're supporting, because they're under our nuclear umbrella?

I don't know if better diplomacy could have changed this, I only see that it hasn't.

Now or several years from now, when US losses would be catastrophic. It's pretty clear that Iran had no intention of agreeing to anything remotely palatable, and my concern was that the US would settle for something like that past deal.

You do not mention "regime change" as one of the goals, as we all know how that has gone in the past. Yes, it would be wonderful if the regime did fall, but that's incredibly difficult to do with an air attack and unarmed civilians kept in check by a powerful, brutal regime.

Ballistic missiles are the biggest immediate threat, as if you have enough of them you can deter any further attacks on your nuclear ambitions.

Take them out. Take out the launchers. Take out the generals in charge. Kill the leadership. Hit those nuclear sites again if necessary.

Hopefully you set the conditions for a better deal down the road.

The ability to strike Iran like this was a pipe dream just a year ago (It's beyond a logistical nightmare, air defenses aside). The 12 Day War was proof of concept that this could be done, and those air defenses are really close to not existing at all.

This is the best shot you will EVER have - perhaps the last one.

 

[MassGuy]

"WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed Monday that Washington launched major strikes against Iran over the weekend because it received intelligence that its assets in the region would be targeted in response to an Israeli attack.

“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said. “We were aware of Israeli intentions… and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it.”

It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the US had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first, even though it is widely understood that any Israeli attack on Iran would only have taken place with Washington’s blessing."

Rubio reveals US launched strikes against Iran because of planned Israeli attack

Top diplomat says US understood its assets would be hit by Iran in retaliation for a preemptive Israeli strike, even though Jerusalem seen as unlikely to have acted without Trump's blessing

www.timesofisrael.com

“That’s the question of why now, but this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short‑range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it, because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/2028664327083860398%5B%2F

 

[Arkay]

another thing going on that i think absolutely plays a role is that the american civilian population is as far removed from war, in both space and time, as any civilian population in history. last time we had any significant amount of combat here, in the same place our civilians live (and, more to the point, our voters), was 1865. war is an abstraction to almost all of us. the human costs are almost invisible. that makes it easy, when the possibility of going to war comes up, to say "sure. why not?"

Maybe for the majority of Americans, but not to us in NYC. While 9/11 was not “combat” in the strictest sense, the human costs were ENTIRELY visible. I watched it with my own eyes. I saw the death of my friends. It took my daughter all day to get home and she brought some co-workers with her who couldn’t get home at all.

My students and colleagues were in hysteria all day because many had family who worked in the WTC. We most certainly ARE speaking of civilians.

I’d been to the WTC many times in the past, and since 9/11 I’ve been several times to the memorial.

I know Bin Laden was Saudi, not Iranian, but Iran has sponsored terror as well.

So I may not have witnessed the American Civil War, but what I did see that day WAS a war against America.

You watch people jumping from 100 stories up, you watch 220 stories of buildings collapse, you have dust and objects from the WTC land on your car and your terrace as I did, and you cannot say it is abstract for all of us.

My opinion because I lived through it.

 

[iamshadow21]

Paywalled

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/03/02/iran-war-tehran-live-in-fear-us-bombs-whats-left-regime/

 

[iamshadow21]

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/irans-womens-football-teams-defiant-national-anthem-act-at-asian-cup/news-story/52fce7d19a5392b2d8daf037037cc518?amp

 

[iamshadow21]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/03/01/trump-iran-war-communications-distance/

Does regime change ever work? History tells us long-term consequences are often disastrous

Regime change has long proved tempting to large states. But it rarely goes to plan.

theconversation.com

 

[Sundog]

“That’s the question of why now, but this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short‑range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it, because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/2028664327083860398%5B%2F

And also Iran would be working to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and the nuclear warheads that fit onto them. It had to be stopped and there was an opening. When you get an opening like this, you have to take it.

 

[Amonet]

I don't know how they are going to get around the problem that Iran is uranium rich. They have their own mines.

Unless there is some kind of new non-proliferation agreement put in place, they can start mining again (once their focus is off the current war).

imo

Iran breaks ground for new uranium mine

A ceremony to mark the start of construction of a new uranium mining complex was held at Jang-e Sar in north-western Iran.;

world-nuclear-news.org

Which is one reason why you do need a different regime in place and for Iran to become part of the world. Other countries in the Middle East have managed a transition to this, and Iran needs to move out of the 70s and into the future. Their people deserve better as well as all the potential victims of the terrorist groups.

Iran could have been helping Yemen develop peacefully for the benefit of its own people, but it spent money sending them weapons for use in terrorist acts. And that's not the only example. With the history of Iran, it has potential to be more like India, for a random non-Western example, or Japan. It would be amazing to see them choose to develop along those kind of lines instead of continuing in this route of dreams of destruction through terrorism and impeding their own people from blossoming in they way they can if given the conditions to do so.

 

[Arkay]

And you forget, Israel sends pamphlets saying "get out we are going to bomb you" as if it were a humanitarian action.

I think it’s the most humane thing any military can do, warning civilians to leave so only the military and leadership targets are killed.

It would be polite, wouldn't it, if Bin Laden had sent a message beforehand, “Excuse me please, I intend to wipe out your tallest office buildings which represent what we don’t like about America. Please vacate so I can only destroy empty buildings.”

Or the October 7th Hamas terrorists giving advance notice to the Israeli civilians.

Yes, there are dreadful errors when a school is destroyed, by either side, but I don’t know any other military in the world other than Israel that issues warnings first when it comes to civilians.

JMO

 

[MassGuy]

An incredible read detailing a meeting between American diplomats and Khamenei. It paints a picture of a man who was
obsessively anti-American, highly distrustful, and deologically entrenched. There is just no way that he was making a deal with the Trump administration.

The surreal experience of meeting Khamenei | Brookings

Jeffrey Feltman reflects on his experience as one of the only Americans to meet Iran's now-deceased Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

www.brookings.edu

 

[iamshadow21]

Trump’s crew talks tough, but fails to set Iran story straight

The US president and his combative allies Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio hit the press with strong, but ultimately confusing, messages on the plan for Iran.

www.afr.com

 

[MassGuy]

Can’t wait to learn details about this.

Sources: Israel operated last night in Iran via Mossad and special forces #AlArabiyaBreaking

https://twitter.com/x/status/2028735646731317390

 

[Amonet]

Interesting analysis from Sky News UK

This is the dilemma Trump is facing as war with Iran escalates

This war is asymmetrical. As unbalanced as using Ferraris against e-bikes it's been said.

news.sky.com

Ahead of the war, in highly unusual leaks Pentagon commanders warned the force being assembled in the region would have enough firepower for a week or two at most.

Well-sourced reports claim Gulf states are already begging the US president to end this soon

A multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art Patriot missile for instance will bring down a drone worth only thousands, but doing so indefinitely is not sustainable

They make other points as well, including that they claim some gulf states are angry at being targeted by Iranian missiles and that might encourage them to want to join in direct attacks on Iran.

 

[SouthAussie]

A ⁠magnitude-4.3 earthquake has ⁠struck the Gerash ⁠region in Iran, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake ⁠was at a ⁠depth of ⁠10km (6.21 ⁠miles), ⁠USGS said.

Israel Iran War Live Updates: US Orders Evacuation from Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait as Israel Pounds Beirut, Tehran

US-Israel and Iran War Live Updates: The West Asia conflict expanded to include Iran-backed militias on Monday with an attack by Hezbollah on Israel. Israel struck back against the group in Lebanon while the United States pounded targets in Iran.<br /><br /><b>Top Updates: </b><br /><br...

www.timesnownews.com

 

[iamshadow21]

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard controls a sprawling business empire that dominates the economy | Fortune

That empire includes core industrial sectors like oil and transportation as well as banking, telecommunications, agriculture, medicine, and real estate.

fortune.com

 

[Betty P]

"WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed Monday that Washington launched major strikes against Iran over the weekend because it received intelligence that its assets in the region would be targeted in response to an Israeli attack.

“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said. “We were aware of Israeli intentions… and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it.”

It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the US had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first, even though it is widely understood that any Israeli attack on Iran would only have taken place with Washington’s blessing."

Rubio reveals US launched strikes against Iran because of planned Israeli attack

Top diplomat says US understood its assets would be hit by Iran in retaliation for a preemptive Israeli strike, even though Jerusalem seen as unlikely to have acted without Trump's blessing

www.timesofisrael.com

That’s a fairly convoluted excuse for the action, especially when it put millions of innocent people at risk. Millions of innocent citizens of the U.S. and our traditional allies (NATO) are now stranded in the areas that have come under attack. These are people and families traveling on vacation, business trips, etc. Not gaining the cooperation or giving warning to our NATO allies is a very big mistake, but one we will hopefully correct in the near future, when Trump is no longer in office.

Hegseth is already talking about putting troops on the ground. What a disaster, JMO. How do we pay for another expensive war? I’m counting the days until this is over and sanity can be restored.

 

[Charlot123]

IMO, that is a totally unfair judgement regarding Americans. IMHO
I am saddened for every innocent life lost and feel this war was illegal and unnecessary. JMHO

I agree with the second part of your statement.

About the first one, you see, people in Iraq struggled under Saddham Hussein. It doesn't mean that they understood that US was going to bring them democracy. They saw the people looking differently, speaking differently, driving in on tanks. The response was predictable. Our major weakness is poor knowledge of other languages, and hence, inability to explain why we came.

But Iranians are different. They are smarter and wiser. I think that the sooner it turns into a dialogue, the better.

 

[Charlot123]

another thing going on that i think absolutely plays a role is that the american civilian population is as far removed from war, in both space and time, as any civilian population in history. last time we had any significant amount of combat here, in the same place our civilians live (and, more to the point, our voters), was 1865. war is an abstraction to almost all of us. the human costs are almost invisible. that makes it easy, when the possibility of going to war comes up, to say "sure. why not?"

If only we could ask, "how is this war the advantage to us? Not to our allies - it is their war - but to us? Is our stock market going to be up or down? What happens with the oil if the straits are closed? What is the US gaining from this war?"

 

[SouthAussie]

Reporter is reporting from Doha, Qatar.


'There’s a lot of concerns in the region because it’s not just about US military installations. Now we see energy infrastructure being targeted – two separate attacks, in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

What’s really concerning here is the question of what happens next. If Iran is willing to target Qatar’s LNG infrastructure, the lifeblood of the economy of this country, or Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, then the calculation has shifted definitely.

We have to put into context that this region is one of the biggest contributors to the world’s energy supplies. If this disruption is prolonged, it’s not just going to affect the region here, everybody else is going to feel the consequences.

We’ve seen the strategy of Qatar’s Defence Ministry has shifted towards not just having missile detectors here, we also see jets – that’s one of the reasons that we saw Iranian jets taken down.

This is showing us that the conflict itself is not winding down. It’s escalating and it could have deeper consequences for the region if it’s not stopped soon.'

US bases and embassies attacked as Iran ratchets up Gulf strikes

Iran strikes energy infrastructure across the Gulf as Revolutionary Guard announces closure of Strait of Hormuz.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Betty P]

If only we could ask, "how is this war the advantage to us? Not to our allies - it is their war - but to us? Is our stock market going to be up or down? What happens with the oil if the straits are closed? What is the US gaining from this war?"

The current leadership of the U.S. believes we gain something by having more control over the supply of oil in the world. It’s about their fear of China and their love of Russia. JMO, they’re very confused when it comes to long term strategy, but that’s what happens when corporations start running the U.S. government. JMO

ETA: We’re about to tank the world economy, including our own. Watch for oil and energy prices to rise rapidly as our leaders work to destroy those production and supply lines. Watch as chaos ensues in Iran because there are no opposition leaders or government structure to replace the old one. It’s hard to do regime change when there’s no “new” regime.