Iran is firmly sided with China and Russia. China buys all their oil and doesn't want to see US/Israel expand their reach. They are very likely to support Iran.
On their end, Iran has been preparing for exactly this for decades. If anything, the complexity of the globalized market means more weak points to strike. Which in 2026 is cheap and easy with swarms of drones. Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
You should sprinkle in a few other news sources because that’s not what is happening at all.
Iran also has further escalation paths it can take. So far, they have only been targeting US-affiliated targets in the Gulf. You can imagine what would happen if they decide to expand their target list. But I think this will only happen if GCC countries decide to participate.
Everything I've read suggests the US and Israel are stomping all over Iran, and have destroyed their air force, navy, and even anti-air defenses.
I know these news are necessarily biased (e.g. do we know for a fact the three F-15E Strike Eagles were really downed by Kuwaiti friendly fire and none were downed by Iran?), but the chance of credible news of Iran putting up any real resistance is very, very slim.
Iran has been sanctioned for decades. As a result, they do not have a modern airforce, navy, or even air defense systems. So it is completely unsurprising that USIS has complete air superiority. You can rest assured that Iran has planned for this.
Their entire defense strategy post-war (Iran-Iraq war) has been centered around ballistic missiles. More recently, they “pioneered” the use of kamikaze drones (Shahed) and included their use in their strategy. Note that they have aggressively optimized Shahed when it comes to cost, ease of manufacturing, and ease of launch. Shahed drones have seen extensive combat usage in the Ukraine war.
The other “hint” when it comes to Iran’s response is the increasing estimates by the US as to how long this “operation” will last. Initially, it was a few days. Now they are saying 4-5 weeks. Edit: Looks like it could up to 8 weeks..
Long story short, until we start to see significant degradation in launches - both missiles and drones - we simply cannot say that Iran has been defeated.
As far as news sources go, the easy recommendation is Al Jazeera. Twitter/X is also decent, but there is a ton of noise.
It is biased - interestingly less than expected on this topic because Iran is shelling them - but the idea is to read something to counteract Western bias. Asian outlets (non-Japanese) are another good source.
> The US air superiority has completely done them, it'd seem.
They're managing to successfully counterattack with strikes in every country in the region, while the bulk of their central leadership has been KIA. They still control the Strait of Hormuz and very intense naval, land, and air operations will be required to dislodge them.
If this war was started with the goal of the complete destruction of Iran, ground troops will have to go in (President Trump et. al. is already in the media telegraphing the requirement). Iran is a mountain fortress, and the home team (pop. 91 million) holds advantage. This has the potential to become and long and bloody war.
I think people in the US are seriously discounting this. The only thing that Iranian forces have to do is keep lobbing drones. You don't need leadership, heavy industry, or even a lot of drones as long as you keep lobbing them.
It takes very little for them to keep disrupting things which affect the global economy.
Even if leadership changes at the top and isn't killed, why would independent cells of fighters stop?
I think there's a huge possibility that Iran can keep being disruptive longer than the US is willing to spend $$$$$ bombing and intercepting.
One nuance here is where that $$$$ actually goes. The US has a history of diverting a staggering amount of money to the war companies every 2 decades or so. The spend here might be the goal, not the cost.
Well, they've managed to launch and land strikes on every country in the region. "Successful counterattack" is a considerably higher bar than that, IMHO.
Russia isn't moving for obvious reasons (I don't think IRGC planners even expected them to move, Putin has made it clear a 100 times he is out of anything involving Israel). But that said Putin arguably did his job already by destroying Patriot stocks and thus putting US on a timeline in terms of protection.
With China the issue is different: They have a completely different military ecosystem so it's not like they can send them their own stuff. We already saw in Ukraine that running 2 types of equipment along each other is a pain in the ass and strains logistics. China is likely aiding them with satellite imagery instead.
I think China will sit this one out. There's nothing to gain for them with direct involvement.
Any assistance to Iran (like satellite imagery) will have limited effect, and the Chinese know it. In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this. For any rational international actor, there's no sense in becoming involved in a lost fight.
> In my opinion, there's no way the Islamic Republic survives this.
But what if the Islamic Republic isn't a material thing, it isn't a government apparatus, it is actually the ideas and culture of a population under siege? 50-60 million Persians, and another 30-40 million muslims of other ethnicities. They have been embargoed for decades, the message that the US and Israel are evil has seeped into every corner of society there. It will not be so simple to erase that programming and you can expect a large portion of the population to resist to the bitter end. It's been over 20 years of planning to bring the USA to this point, 20 years because it was never a sure bet, and even today it's still not clear who wins. No, I think 4 days in it's too early to call winners and losers.
Russia has their hands full with Ukraine and has failed in the past to protect other allies such as Syria.
China seems wise enough to provide some support to Iran while sitting out of direct involvement in the war. China has everything to lose with war and nothing to gain. If anything, they are signaling "stability" to the Global South -- something from which the US is increasingly drifting away -- and war is the opposite of stability.
> Meanwhile, the US is still carrying out precision attacks with expensive ordnance which they have limited supplies of.
I think they have more than enough, plus Iran faces an even worse situation. Limited stockpiles of their only effective weapons, missiles and drones, and quickly running out. What's worse, by not using those weapons in huge salvoes, they reduce their efficiency... they only work if they can overcome defenses, but if they spend them too fast they lose their only effective weapon.
I think the Islamic Republic will be overthrown, but this requires boots on the ground, and it'll become a quagmire like Iraq or Afghanistan. At some point the US will declare success and leave, and from the ashes of Iran countless warring factions will emerge, an endless insurgency, and possibly the next ISIS. We've seen this happen more than once, no reason to believe this will go a different way.
Russia and China cannot stop this.
Edit: rather than downvotes, I prefer debate. Be better, HN. I realize this is difficult in times of war involving the country where the majority of HN hails from, but I trust you can do it. Engage in rational debate please.
Outlook has been falling apart at the seams for a while now. But I cannot find a email client that supports multiple exchange servers and parses calendar invites in a way that's compatible with Teams. I'm the first to jeet Outlook if Thunderbird will do this but I'm also open to suggestions here.
You spelled 'brands' wrong. We will see a cascade of advertorials and sponsored video content. The low cost to entry and cheap hardware will make video advertising more prevalent in places where we now have stills or even print. Moving images everywhere.
It wasn't just a sunk craft. They sunk a carrier. That's painful. Your wikipedia entry is kind of weird, since it's about Australia and there are no Dutch ships in the list for the last century or so.
Australia has 'sunk' USS carriers in war games also - there are entire books written about how carriers are hard to defend in modern warfare - they're painful to lose but (shhh, don't tell anyone) relativey easy targets in all manner of ways.
The wikipedia entry is about 1400+ ships that were mostly Dutch - from the days of the Dutch East Indies and Spice trades.
It's of interest as that coast was one of the main drivers to develop "GPS 0.1" aka clocks capable of reliable determination of Longitude and one of the (relative to monetary value at the time) largest technology prizes offered.
They stopped stacking up on the West Australian coast once accurate navigation became commonplace but for a while there .. yep, Dutch ships sank themselves.
While your post is informative, it's kind of disingenuous to claim a link between two phenomena when there is none, seemingly because you needed to say something bad about Dutch ships in some way. It's a shame really, because it detracts from the quality of your other links.
> it's kind of disingenuous to claim a link between two phenomena
Which two phenomena?
Dutch ships heading to the Dutch East Indies sinking and the need to accurately measure longitude?
These are very much linked.
> needed to say something bad about Dutch ships
I felt no such need.
It's a simple fact that a comment about Netherland naval ships faux sinking US carriers prompted a remark about the large numbers of Dutch ships famously sunk off our coast here in W.Australia.
It has little to do with the quality of the ships and everything to do with the then inability to accurately reckon longitude.
Of technical interest to anyone with an interest in the evolution of surveying, navigation, timekeeping, colonial expansion, shipwrecks, treasure, etc.
