Will Iran regime fall, or just another umpteenth fail of protesters? (rerun hobbies)

#2 seems to be the choice of fanatical martyrs.

“The Iranians Are Hurting”: “They’re Getting Pretty Desperate, Want To Reopen the Strait” ... https://youtu.be/9z0Q-Bmgl6Q
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9z0Q-Bmgl6Q

Not too desperate if they're unwilling to give up nuclear weapons. There is no negotiating whether Iran gets nuclear weapons. Period.

(Apr 28, 2026 04:03 AM)Syne Wrote: Not too desperate if they're unwilling to give up nuclear weapons. There is no negotiating whether Iran gets nuclear weapons. Period.

The simplest way to deal with nukes in the future is to update the "M.A.D." response with a "Decimation" response. Thats where every country on the planet, no matter allegiance, no matter which treaty or what alliance all mutually agree to destroy the country that should ever launch a nuclear weapon as an act of war.

No fucking country would therefore be stupid enough to launch one in the future and it would undermine the very need for them in defence.

It's just getting countries to take that methodology on board and make sure they stick to it like both their countries and the other countries in the world lives depended on it.

Today (May 4) the ceasefire seems to be breaking down. The proximate cause was the United States announcing what it calls Project Freedom. This is what I've been predicting for some time, US protected convoys through the Strait of Hormuz.

The IRGC-navy predictably declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and also declared an Iranian control area in the Strait that includes a couple of important ports in the United Arab Emirates. (Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah)

The US kind of tested the waters by escorting two US flagged ships out that had been trapped in the Persian gulf since February. Iran fired ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at the ships, but all were successfully intercepted. Iran also sent out six small crewed speedboats, all of which were sunk by US helicopters. Meanwhile, at least two US guided missile destroyers transited through the strait the other way, into the Persian gulf.

Iran isn't just shooting ineffectively at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, they have also resumed firing at the United Arab Emirates. Sirens have been sounding in Dubai and explosions have been heard in the distance. The UAE defense ministry says that the explosions were their air defenses intercepting Iranian missiles and drones. Iran has successfully struck several civilian ships at anchor off the Emirati port of Ras Al Khaimah and has hit the major oil terminal at Fujairah, which the UAE uses to bypass the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. There's a big fire at the terminal and reportedly five Indian nationals working there were injured.

But while Iran shoots at the UAE with its remaining short range weaponry, as yet there have been no new attacks on Israel, Iran's hated enemy. Israeli readiness remains high and some in Israel expect US/Israeli air operations against Iran to resume within 48 hours.

For its part, I think that what would trigger a resumption of US air strikes on Iran would be if they succeeded in sinking/damaging an American warship.

The oil terminal at Fujairah

(May 4, 2026 08:50 PM)Yazata Wrote: The US kind of tested the waters by escorting two US flagged ships out that had been trapped in the Persian gulf since February. Iran fired ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at the ships, but all were successfully intercepted. Iran also sent out six small crewed speedboats, all of which were sunk by US helicopters. ...

U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper described the actions by Iranian forces as “Iran initiating aggressive behavior” on a call with journalists Monday.
...
“You typically see between 20 and 40 small boats in a pack coming out,” he said. “Today we saw six and eliminated them quickly. I think this is an example of the degradation of their capability. That doesn’t mean it’s all gone, but it’s highly degraded.”
- https://www.dailywire.com/news/iran-targ...-ceasefire

The US appears to be flying combat air patrols over the Strait of Hormuz. A mix of USAF air tankers, including KC-46A 'Pegasus' tankers flying out of Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion and KC-135R's flying out of Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia are busy refueling them.

According to CBS news, the two US destroyers that passed through the Strait of Hormuz today from east to west, into the Persian gulf, were the USS Truxtun (DDG-103) and USS Mason (DDG-87). According to these reports the two ships were under almost constant attack by missiles, drones and by small boats. They had US air support overhead the whole time and they report that none of the Iranian fires succeeded in hitting them.

The latest round of (kinda) negotiations has (predictably) gone nowhere.

The Iranian state news agency says that Iran demands reparations from the United States and claims sovereign control over the Strait of Hormuz (and hence the entire Persian Gulf).

And concerning the nuclear issue

President Trump says

Tasnim news (operated by the IRGC) says

---

It's starting to look like the most likely American course of action will be

1. Maintain the blockade of Iranian ports and tight sanctions.

2. Return to Project Freedom, escorting convoys through the Strait of Hormuz. Both British and French warships may or may not participate, both countries are trying to be intentionally ambiguous about that. They are sending ships (the British just one lone destroyer, the French their single aircraft carrier battle group), are talking about "freedom of navigation" but haven't explained precisely what the ships' mission will be. Europeans are being hurt much more than the US by the oil market disruptions, but they hate Trump and don't want to appear to be doing anything that he wants them to do.

3. A return to some kind of bombing campaign. There's talk of a limited and carefully targeted campaign, but I expect it might escalate fast if a US warship is hit by a drone or a missile. The Israelis want a full-scale bombing campaign to bring down the Iranian state, but lack the ability to do it without the United States.

A couple of factoids out of the United Arab Emirates

First, word is leaking out that Israel has deployed a number of its brand new Iron Beam anti-drone lasers to the UAE, along with Israeli soldiers to operate them. It appears that the Abraham Accords has gone deeper than mutual diplomatic recognition and is turning into an actual military alliance between Israel and the UAE.

The Iron Beam was rushed out of prototype testing into production, but has proven reasonably effective. Its advantage is that it strikes at the speed of light and it costs pennies a shot in electricity, which is much better than firing million dollar surface-to-air missiles at each drone. It does have serious limitations, most notably its difficulty penetrating clouds. Rafael, the Israeli defense contractor that makes them, is getting more orders from around the world than it can handle and it has a big order backlog. It says that many of its workers are Israeli army reservists that have been called up. But it's received several billion dollars worth of orders. (I expect the US has probably acquired a few for evaluation, but we are testing our own laser anti-drone weapons.)

And it's become an increasingly open secret that the well equipped UAE air force has been flying air strikes against Iranian positions in the Strait of Hormuz area. I think that it's been happening for some time. There were photos a couple of months ago of delta-winged jet fighters conducting air strikes in southern Iran. The Americans and the Israelis aren't using any delta-winged fighters, but the UAE flies French Mirages. The Wall Street Journal is reporting: