On 5 March, a post appeared on the X account of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, managed by his staff after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 28 February. The tweet featured a stark piece of propaganda: a gleaming, oversized missile arcing across the sky as a city below is engulfed in flames. The caption read: “Khorramshahr moments are on the horizon.”
The Khorramshahr missile, Iran’s most advanced ballistic missile, is believed to be capable of carrying a cluster warhead dispersing up to 80 submunitions. Since that post, it has come to loom large in Israeli threat assessments, a persistent concern for a country equipped with a multi-layered missile defence system that is widely regarded as the world’s most sophisticated.
The latest attack using cluster munitions occurred on Sunday, when an Iranian ballistic missile struck central Israel, injuring 15 people.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, roughly half of the missiles launched from Iran since the escalation have carried cluster warheads.
The Guardian, which reviewed the impact of dozens of Iranian strikes alongside statements from Israeli officials, has identified at least 19 ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads that penetrated Israeli airspace and struck urban areas since the beginning of the war with Iran on 28 February. Those attacks have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens, reflecting a broader shift in Iran’s tactics that appears to have exposed a vulnerability in Israel’s air defences. Since the start of the war, Iran’s cluster munitions – which disperse dozens of bomblets mid-air – have tested Israel’s highly advanced, multi-tier missile defence network, including Iron Dome, which is designed to counter threats across ranges, altitudes and speeds, exposing gaps that interception alone has struggled to close.
I’ll never be okay with targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure, but what the fuck did they expect to happen? This is on the Israeli government. They didn’t need to start this war.
They got way too comfortable killing non combatants and lightly armed Palestinians. They made the blunder every major military power seems to have made in the past century of greatly overestimating their own ability to wage war. Just because you’re good at handing out beatings or doesn’t mean you can win a war.
Boo hoo. Maybe Israel will learn to stop attacking other countries all the time. Wait, no they’ll just play the victim as usual…
support for attacking Iran is very high. so they have baked the cost into their calculations I’m sure.
It is only high because of their constant propaganda teaching their citizens to hate human beings that are not them. It is actually pathetic they abuse their civilians like this under a state of constant stress and war.
they have access to the internet.
The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Gaza, Beiruit, Tehran, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
I guess a few billion dollars from America doesn’t buy what it used to in defense tech.
I mean nobody in their right fucking mind would expect the Iron Dome to be impenetrable. Maybe the Israelis are so high on their own supply (media propaganda) that they actually believe Iron Dome to be 100% safe but it’s not.
Fundamentally, the question is what does it cost to launch a missile and what does it cost to intercept one? If it costs $10k to launch a missile but $30k to intercept one, then the economics is on the side of the attacker; Meanwhile if it costs $100k to launch a missile but only $30k to intercept, then the economics are on the side of the defender. That’s what you have to look at.
And the issue is that even if Iron Dome would catch most missiles, some still make it through, and what is the cost of that? The damage they do.
Who would have thought that ignoring international law, treaties, and conventions would encourage your enemies to do the same? It’s almost as if limiting yourself to limit those who would do the same to you makes sense. Pesky laws.
It’s also noteworthy that neither country, to my knowledge, agreed not to use cluster munitions.
Even if Iran would have agreed to it, after having the US and Israel bomb civil infrastructure, as well as committing other war crimes, they have a right to defend themselves. And so far every answer has been proportional, maybe even less than it could have been.
I thought the right to defend was reserved for attackers, based on usa and israel claims.
Iran War: Special Edition, where it’s been crappily edited to show Iran shot first. “Maclunkey.”
Defense = preventive attack, unless it’s the “bad guys”
after having the US and Israel bomb civil infrastructure, as well as committing other war crimes
That was the point of my first paragraph. Israel not participating in the CCM was just a bonus. I was aware there were international agreements not use to cluster munitions and I looked into it because I was curious.
Irans strategy seemed to be to degrade air defenses in Israel, then use their newer munitions when ammo supplies dropped.
My question is how the fuck did anyone in Israel and the US become so fucking stupid that they wouldn’t assume what is essentially counter-battery, and why didn’t they stockpile munitions for the counter attacks? Like, I’m not surprised that both parties had the hubris to believe Iran would fold after 5 days of fighting. But how did professional men at arms not consider this scenario?
Trump pulled a Stalin and purged all his competent generals. He surrounds himself with yes men. It’s the fatal flaw of all authoritarian governments. Turns out it’s a really bad idea to give one person absolute power and to never question their decisions.
Without a doubt. I just have to spell things out sometimes for my own psychological health.
All the competent professionals got fired and replaced with sycophants…
Oh, I’m well aware. I’m just… baffled by this shit.
It’s almost comedic how predictable this shit is, if it wasn’t so tragic…
Absolutely. It’s pants-on-head ridiculous.
There was little enough concern when Israel was carpet bombing all their neighbors and causing mass casualty events of innocents daily-- all to steal land, but when a few missiles get through to israel and harm a comparitively tiny number of people, the news is all panic. This all goes to show that the only thing Israel respects or cares about is deadly force visited on them.
Talking with them in any other format is a waste of everyones time. They are so self centered and tribal, they can only understand blunt force. Just for starters they deny every other human basic human rights and dignity. Thats incompatible with every other human on the planet.
It’s fascinating (in a horrific kind of way) that literally all participants in this war are monstrous. Seriously, there are no good guys. This is turning into WWIII, but I always figured that when it happened, there would be clearly identifiable victims and aggressors.
How naive of me. Everyone involved is victim and aggressor simultaneously.
America/Israel attacked Iran unprovoked using diplomatic negotiations as cover, negotiations in which Iran apparently agreed to every demand. If this isn’t a war of aggression, I don’t know what is. Your opinion of the Iranian government doesn’t change that.
I don’t see how the US is anything other than the aggressor. Both Iran and Israel suck and they have no concern for human life, but I can see how they can claim to be victims. Not the US.
How can Israel claim to be the victim in this war against Iran?
When don’t they?
Israeli people are victims, Israel isn’t.
82% of Israelis say there are no innocents in gaza.
https://zeteo.com/p/its-not-just-netanyahu-a-lot-of-israelis.Half want every palestinian genocided. Israelis arent victims.
Victims in what way? They’re only taking an infinitesimally fraction of what they’re dishing out. A serial killing getting scratched every now and then isn’t my idea of victimhood.
No yours, but it is theirs.
Well Iran has been attacking them for decades through Hezbollah and Hamas. It’s not like they’ve been keeping to themselves playing Rummikub in this conflict
What a load of one sided crap. Israel has been the aggressor in the region since the nakba. This nonsense started when the ottoman empire retreated in the early 1900s, and its always been the zionists pursuing terrorism, murder and land theft since day 1-- uninterrupted. Endless fountains of blood on their hands for their greed.
Well that’s a slight diversion from how Iran is involved but
Even if you ignore the systemic discrimination under the Ottomans, that’s incorrect
It is correct. Your own link for the incident you cite was after Balfour in british controlled palestine. The cause is unknown as your link states. or are ypou trying to blame zionism and the rejection of human rights of the palestinians on the british?
You claim that israel/zionists were the only ones that incited violence. My link is part of the more nuanced history of jews inside the dissolving Ottoman empire first escaping discrimination, then looking to create their own state, then being joined by refugee migrants from Europe, and then local muslim fundamentalists turning violent against them because they wanted to make sure islam remained the privileged religion on all of the land
That’s a lot more nuanced than what you posted above, sadly in line with many other lemmings who choose to simplify all of that history into “the jews jumped from their boats guns blazing”
Iran has been arming resistance to Israeli colonialism for decades, but that does not in any way make Israel a victim. Palestinians and Lebanese have the right to defend themselves, and Iran has the right (and, like the rest of the world, moral duty) to help them defend themselves.
Can you explain how the Lebanese are defending themselves when they’re firing rockets over the border into Israel?
Do… do you know why Hezbollah was even founded? For a hint, here’s a literal former Israeli PM on the topic:
In 2006, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak stated, “When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.”
Yeah, two reasons actually:
1: beat back the Israeli’s (who invaded because the PLO was attacking them from Lebanon)
2: to tilt the Lebanese civil war in favour of the Shia sect
But neither seems like a valid reason to keep attacking Israel today
You’re actually a Hamas apologist. Wow.
TF do you mean “apologist?” Hamas being a (and, in fact, by far the biggest) Palestinian armed resistance organization and the fact they do a lot of evil shit are two facts that can be true at the same time. That doesn’t mean supporting Hamas is victimizing Israel.
It kinda does tho. Hamas, in one form or another, has been attacking Isreal for many decades. Isreal has been attacking Gaza and Lebanon and other Arab countries for decades too. They’re all victims of each other and a product of an unfortunate history. There have even been some serious attempts at peaceful resolution, which always get fucked up by one side or the other, or usually both. Yes I 100% agree that isreal’s actions are unacceptable and horrific. But they are also victims. Just like the people of Gaza could have voted for a government that strived for a peaceful solution, but chose a violent one - but they are still victims of the result.
you’re actually a zionist supremacist/terrorism and war crimes apologist. Even bigger Wow. Why not stand on the side of universal human rights for all, eh? Maybe if Israel did that just once they’d have some legs to stand on. But they keep raping and killing women and kids, and keep stealing land, dont they. So yeah, that gets people pretty mad, including Hamas, yeah. Funny how that works.
Would you be so silly to claim Hamas has no reason to seek violent redress for what Israel has done to them? I’m shocked its not 1000x worse than what Hamas and Hezbollah are doing. Did you really think there would be no paybacks?
Because I say both sides are bad for continuing the violence over the last decade? And I specifically called out Isreal on its atrocities? Wtf? Are you really that ignorant and closed minded?
Just what is it that you find so appealing about genocide, fasicsm, and pedophilia? It boggles the mind.
Can you not read? Just because an opinion isn’t 100% aligned with your personal brainwashing, doesn’t mean it’s diametrically opposed. What you did is called a ‘strawman argument’. Try looking that up and learn why it makes you an idiot. No offense.
And Israel have been attacking them…
Uh, yeah. Thats the point. They’ve been attacking each other for decades.
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Fair point.
Citizens are generally more victim than aggressors. Maybe given the genocidal rhetoric common in Israel currently that is not so much the case as one would expect, and USA citizens have an oceanic buffer.
How is this turning into WW3?
It still seems like a relatively small scale war. There’s no big allies for Iran. There’s no attacks on the US beyond military bases and ships really. There’s a global economic impact, but that doesn’t constitute a global war imo.
Could this change? of course, but so could the ukraine war.
I can’t imagine the Iran war’s death count is even remotely close to the genocide in gaza that is still ongoing.
Finally, some good news.
Cluster bombs hitting civilians is good news to you, I guess?
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I agree. Every time an Israeli is killed the world becomes a marginally better place. I would LOVE to see the entire country and all its people wiped off the fucking planet. Ahh, the dream of justice.
A giant mass grave that fertilizes the rebirth of Palestine.
You can make that case for adult Israelis who are in favour of this war, but there are children in every country who are innocent. If you’re hoping for their deaths, you’re no better than the IDF who kill and torture children.
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People seemed to think Iran was Iraq/Afghanistan.
It ain’t and it took us 20 years to get out of there.
