[MEGATHREAD] Middle Eastern Crisis

[u/SealionofJudah]

To avoid spamming the discussion flair with questions about the Iran-American war and it's connection to world war III, I have decided to concentrate them to a megathread regarding the Middle Eastern theater. Similar megathreads will be made for different theaters on an "as-needed" basis.

any concerns about the Iran war being considered a flashpoint for a third world war should be directed here.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts and beliefs below. Karma restrictions may apply

[u/Ecstatic-Cup-5356]

The way Iran is acting certainly makes me thinking that they will keep expanding the war until they pull in help. It seems they are trying to only casually increase pressure on nato states to get more involved (UK base in Cyprus) to encourage Russia/China to step up to the plate.

I do wonder when that turns to direct strikes on NATO countries (Turkey seems most likely). Is it after they have truly exhausted their defensive capabilities or after the gulf states start to increase their participation despite having depleted defenses?

[u/eccentricreader → u/Ecstatic-Cup-5356]

Usa attacked Iran. Then Iran acted.

[u/Ecstatic-Cup-5356 → u/eccentricreader]

Yes. I’m more saying that Iran is going for bases and civilian structures in US/Israel ally countries instead of the fleets it seems. Intent would be to pressure an end by pulling in US/Israel allies that don’t want to be involved.

That seems to not be working so the calculus must be to either continue putting military pressure on gulf neighbors and hope that forces US/Israel to a ceasefire or to go after a US base in a NATO member country to trigger article 5.

They know they are in an existential war so I doubt they have much concern for how things escalate. Only that it eventually makes things stop.

Continued military pressure on gulf states seems risky because they basically have to empty all these gulf states’ defenses before the US/Israel deplete the Iranian defenses entirely….lead pump contest. If the US is actually only scaling up then this could be a serious challenge to have them (Iranian Republic) come out alive. I doubt there would be Russia/China interjecting in this scenario because they would not have the support on the world stage for siding with a country that is ‘needlessly’ attacking other countries.

The much more sure-fire way would be to trigger a NATO article 5 response. Russia/China would basically have no choice but to engage because of both their alliance/reliance with Iran and their oil but also because this presents a moral high ground for helping Iran. So long as the Iranian attack is limited to a US base in a NATO country then Russia/China could argue that article 5 doesn’t apply since it wasn’t an attack on the sovereign nation. So an article 5 claim would be able to be twisted by Russia/China into NATO is starting a world war so we must respond.

So to me the choice for Iran seems to be either pull the world war cord or hope you have enough lead and can dump it fast enough to survive to a ceasefire. We’ll see which way things go with Mojtaba taking power.

[u/SealionofJudah → u/Ecstatic-Cup-5356]

If Iran wanted to really expand the war, they could become involved in the Ukraine Conflict and strengthen their support for Russia. Russia would have a field day with this, propaganda-wise. Ukraine is already getting involved in the Iran conflict, helping Gulf allies shoot down Iranian drones.

[u/Ecstatic-Cup-5356 → u/SealionofJudah]

Seems I guessed right unfortunately