Real World Event Discussions

Khamenei, One of Most Evil People in History, is Dead

POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 2, 2026 05:42
VIEWED: 15626
PAGE 7 of 73

6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, March 6, 2026 10:16 PM

Looks like in just one single week after the initial strike, the approval rating in the aggregate for the movement against Iran has risen to Trump's aggregate approval rating of 43%.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/issues/mi
litary-action-iran

That's up quite a bit from the 25% that Ted's polls were claiming on Monday.

Tick Tock

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

SECOND

Saturday, March 7, 2026 7:30 AM

The Rot Is Real

By Phillips P. OBrien | Mar 06, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-rot-is-real-and-there-is-mo
re

We can already see some early signs of rot in US military and diplomatic capabilities, which have been highlighted by the decision to bomb Iran.

Here is a gift link to the piece. https://tinyurl.com/3js3eh7w

The standard push back was that mistakes are normal in war and that the US committing some of them at the start of the bombing means little. It is, of course, a point worth engaging with, though it completely avoids half the article, which is about the diplomatic rot that the US has brought upon itself.

That being said, what we are seeing in just the first few days of the US bombing of Iran is no normal fog of war. It is unprecedented, I would argue. We have seen arguably the worst friendly fire incident in modern US history, the worst articulations of war aims, the worst economic/industrial preparations for a war, and, tragically, what might very well be among the worst war crimes in US history. To have just one of these things at the start of the war would be a failure, but to have all of them…

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

SIGNYM

Saturday, March 7, 2026 7:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Looks like in just one single week after the initial strike, the approval rating in the aggregate for the movement against Iran has risen to Trump's aggregate approval rating of 43%.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/issues/mi
litary-action-iran

That's up quite a bit from the 25% that Ted's polls were claiming on Monday.

Tick Tock

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

A billion flies eat shit.

Judging a policy should be about more than cheerleading "my side".

On balance, if I think Trump is doing more good than harm, he may deserve support even if I don't agree with everything he does. I reserve the right to judge each action and weigh them. That's why I'm an independent.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 7, 2026 8:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Looks like in just one single week after the initial strike, the approval rating in the aggregate for the movement against Iran has risen to Trump's aggregate approval rating of 43%.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/issues/mi
litary-action-iran

That's up quite a bit from the 25% that Ted's polls were claiming on Monday.

Tick Tock

--------------------------------------------------

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

A billion flies eat shit.

Judging a policy should be about more than cheerleading "my side".

On balance, if I think Trump is doing more good than harm, he may deserve support even if I don't agree with everything he does. I reserve the right to judge each action and weigh them. That's why I'm an independent.

-----------

"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

I'm very much an independent myself.

That's why I voted for Trump 3 times.

And I'm a visionary enough to look well beyond the day to day bullshit that you all allow yourselves to be mired in every day.

As I said 10 months ago and nearly every day since, the world that you all used to know no longer exists.

There is no going back. Not now. Not ever.

And good riddance.

Trump either has a plan, or we all fall into chaos now.

Plans are hard. Chaos is easy.

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 7, 2026 8:57 AM

Perhaps Iran Thought Trump Was Like His Predecessors

https://nypost.com/2026/03/05/opinion/unlike-past-presidents-trump-kep
t-and-delivered-his-promise-to-eliminate-our-enemies/

Quote:
Perhaps we forgot what it’s like when politicians act on their promises.

Perhaps our enemies forgot as well.

For decades, American presidents — Democratic and Republican — have said the theocratic dictatorship in Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.

For decades, those same administrations were strung along by the ayatollahs.

American negotiators — like their European counterparts — sat through years of negotiations.

And every time, the revolutionary government in Iran got closer to the bomb.

Well, not this time.

As Trump envoy Steve Witkoff described in an interview with Fox News this week, even during last month’s negotiations, the Iranians were playing their old games.

The Iranian team sat down opposite Witkoff and Jared Kushner and boasted about how much enriched uranium they had.

The Iranian team wanted America to know they had the capacity to make at least 11 nuclear bombs in a matter of days.

Perhaps the Iranians had become used to weak and ineffectual foreign governments.

Perhaps they thought this administration was like all its predecessors.

Perhaps they imagined this administration in Washington is like all those governments in Paris and London that said they were against crazed fanatics having nuclear weapons but never intended to do anything about it — apart from sitting around another conference table in Geneva.

Lessons learned

Well, now the regime in Iran has finally learned a lesson.

As a Post editorial this past weekend said, Trump’s critics used to like to try to taunt him with the acronym “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out). Now they and the ayatollahs in Iran have learned the meaning of another acronym: FAFO (Fuck Around, Find Out).

How long did the regime in Iran — and its apologists in the West — expect to get away with the same playbook of excuses and lies?

For decades they pretended that one of the world’s most oil-rich countries needed nuclear power only for civilian energy purposes.

They pretended that the regime wasn’t enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Then, as late as recent weeks, they had the gall to tell their US counterparts that the regime did indeed have vast stores of uranium ready to make nuclear weapons — but that this was their right.

They had a choice.

But the ayatollahs decided to learn their lesson the hard way.

To date, the US-led attacks on the regime and its infrastructure have been outstandingly successful.

In the first strikes this past weekend, the ayatollah himself was taken out, along with much of his senior leadership.

In the days since then, more than 2,000 primary targets have been hit in Iran.

Of course, the remaining military and political leadership in Iran has tried to lash out.

But they have done so in the most self-destructive ways possible.

They have attacked American military bases.

And they have attacked almost every other country in the region.

Of course they have fired missiles at Israel — the “Little Satan” to America’s “Big Satan,” in the words of the late ayatollah.

But they have also fired rockets and drones at the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Azerbaijan and even Cyprus, a member of the European Union.

Many of these attacks have been anticipated.

Many of the missiles and drones that the flailing Iranian regime has been firing have been shot down.

To say that the radical terrorist regime in Iran is now weak and isolated is to vastly understate things.

‘Panicking’ regime

Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Iran appear to be preparing for a ground war against the regime in Tehran.

I have been with these groups in the past and they include some formidable fighters.

The remaining regime in Iran would be right to be panicking.

The mission of the government in Washington, DC, i

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SECOND

Saturday, March 7, 2026 4:00 PM

Iran’s regime won’t fall. It was built for this

Iran’s strategy isn’t to defeat the US militarily. Trita Parsi argues that it’s to make the cost high enough, fast enough, to collapse US domestic support before Iran loses. With MAGA turning against the war, oil markets destabilizing, and both parties alarmed by talk of ground troops, Trump urgently needs a face-saving exit. Plus, Parsi believes that Iran’s revolutionary system was built to withstand exactly this kind of pressure.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 7, 2026 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Iran’s regime won’t fall. It was built for this

Iran’s strategy isn’t to defeat the US militarily. Trita Parsi argues that it’s to make the cost high enough, fast enough, to collapse US domestic support before Iran loses. With MAGA turning against the war, oil markets destabilizing, and both parties alarmed by talk of ground troops, Trump urgently needs a face-saving exit. Plus, Parsi believes that Iran’s revolutionary system was built to withstand exactly this kind of pressure.

Wow. Wouldn't you love that, America-hater?

Unfortunately for you, all of the evidence points 180 degrees from everything you just posted in that paragraph.

The entire lineup of that show is made up of ex-CIA, ex-MI6 and other extremely high level elites who are probably really pissed off that the entire managed decline of society over the last 7 decades is way off track right now. Even our "journalist" on board is the daughter of two parents who were in the NHS, is a nepo-baby through and through who has attended some of the most prestigious universities in the UK and appears to be a British equivalent of a US NeoCon.

Parsi is an Iranian with dual Iran-Sweedish citizenship and somehow has permanent residence in the US.

There is zero information on OneDecision on MediaBiasFactCheck or any other outfit that gauges bias, for that matter.

Everyone should completely ignore anything that any of these people have to say regarding any topic.

And as for MAGA turning against the "war" (this is NOT a war)... says who?

I just showed you that support for the action in Iran is almost exactly as high as both Trump's approval rating and favorability ratings on the aggregate.

Those 3 numbers are either a STUNNING coincidence with nearly the exact amount of Independents and Democrats making up the dip in MAGA support for the Iranian actions, or the proclamation that MAGA doesn't support it is a boldface lie.

Approval of Military Action Against Iran: Approve 43.1% / Disapprove 49.2%

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/issues/mi
litary-action-iran

Trump: Favorable/Unfavorable: 42.3% Favorable / 54.7% Unfavorable

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump

President Trump Job Approval: 43.4% Approve / 54.6% Disapprove

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-
rating

In fact, if anything, there's arguably more support for the Iranian actions than Approval/Favorability of Trump himself. Though all 3 have approval/favorable numbers within 1.1% of each other, the amount of people who disapprove of the Iranian actions are 5.4% less than those who disapprove of Trump himself, and are 5.5% less than those who find Trump unfavorable.

What the fuck are you even talking about, dude?

Use your fucking brain for once, or just shut the fuck up.

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

SECOND

Saturday, March 7, 2026 5:05 PM

Operational Excellence, Strategic Incompetence

The president is pointing to the American military’s excellence as though that somehow constitutes a strategy in itself.

By Tom Nichols | March 6, 2026, 9:04 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/iran-strategy-victory-diseas
e/686275/

The war in Iran has reaffirmed two truths. One is that the United States is blessed with the most professional and effective military in the world. The men and women of the American armed forces can conduct missions of almost any size with formidable competence, from special operations to seize a rogue-state president to a large-scale war. The other truth is that the Trump administration, when it comes to strategy, is incompetent.

Strategy is about matching the instruments of national power—and especially military force—to the goals of national policy. The president and his team, however, have not enunciated an overarching goal for this war—or, more accurately, they have presented multiple goals and chosen among them almost randomly, depending on the day or the hour. This means that highly effective military operations are taking place in a strategic vacuum.

Worse, Donald Trump is now pointing to these missions as if the excellence with which they have been conducted somehow constitutes a strategy in itself. He appears so enthralled by the execution of these missions that he has enlarged the goals of this war to include the complete destruction of the Iranian regime, after which he will “Make Iran Great Again.”

This kind of thinking is an old problem, and it has a name: “victory disease,” meaning that victory in battle encourages leaders to seek out more battles, and then to believe that winning those battles means that they are winning the larger war or achieving some grand strategic aim—right up until the moment they realize that they have overreached and find themselves facing a military disaster or even total defeat. It is a condition that has afflicted many kinds of regimes over the course of history, one so common that my colleagues and I lectured military officers about it when I was a professor at the Naval War College. The issue is especially important for Americans, because when national leaders have exceptionally capable military forces at their disposal—as the United States does—they are even more likely to be seized by victory disease.

The Persian emperor Xerxes had it; that’s how he found himself eventually suffering a historic defeat in Greece at the Battle of Salamis. Napoleon had it; that’s how he ended up freezing in the Russian snow after years of brilliant victories over other European states. The French in 1870 had it; that’s how they confidently marched to catastrophes against a superior Prussian army. The Axis had it; that’s how Germany and Japan convinced themselves that their early successes meant that they could quickly defeat the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively.

The Americans caught the same bug in the Korean War, when they chased the North Koreans to the Yalu River, a drive that ended in disaster when Communist Chinese troops streamed across the border and joined the conflict. The U.S. fell prey to this syndrome again in Vietnam, when it poured men and material into the war for years yet remained unable to turn many battlefield triumphs into a strategic victory.

American policy in the Gulf War in 1991 is an honorable exception; George H. W. Bush avoided victory disease, calling an end to Operation Desert Storm rather than marching on Baghdad after achieving his stated aim of rescuing Kuwait. But his son, George W. Bush, chose to fight two wars at the same time. Once again, the men and women of the U.S. military managed to achieve remarkable operational successes, but it took years to stabilize Iraq, and Afghanistan today is back in the hands of the Taliban.

And now Trump seems to have contracted a whopping case of victory disease. He is clearly convinced that previous operations in Venezuela

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 7, 2026 5:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Iran’s regime won’t fall. It was built for this

Iran’s strategy isn’t to defeat the US militarily. Trita Parsi argues that it’s to make the cost high enough, fast enough, to collapse US domestic support before Iran loses. With MAGA turning against the war, oil markets destabilizing, and both parties alarmed by talk of ground troops, Trump urgently needs a face-saving exit. Plus, Parsi believes that Iran’s revolutionary system was built to withstand exactly this kind of pressure.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 7, 2026 7:36 PM

Pahlavi Says Islamic Republic Is Crumbling, Asks Arab States To "Prepare To Recognize And Engage Our Transitional Government"

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/03/06/pahlavi_says_islami
c_republic_will_fall_asks_arab_countries_to_prepare_to_recognize_and_engage_our_tranitional_government.html

Quote:
EZA PAHLAVI: The Islamic Republic has launched missiles at the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar,
Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. It is targeting our Arab neighbors.

These violations of their sovereignty are unacceptable and we condemn them. But this is nothing
new.

This is who the Islamic Republic has always been. And this is why it must end.

For nearly five decades, this terrorist regime has sown chaos and bloodshed across our region.

It propped up Assad, turning Syria into a graveyard.

It planted Hezbollah; as a state within a state in Lebanon.

It armed the Houthis to destabilize the Arabian Peninsula.

It empowered militias in Iraq that undermine Iraqi sovereignty.

It attacked the economic hubs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

None of this has ever been the desire of the Iranian people, but rather that of the regime
occupying our country. Now, however, the landscape has fundamentally shifted.

Assad is gone. Hezbollah has been decimated. The regime’s military nuclear program has been
set back. Its economy is in freefall.

The pillars of this regime’s aggression are crumbling.

The Iranian people have paid the price, in blood, to reach this moment. The regime massacred
at least tens of thousands of my compatriots in just two days. But it didn’t break the people.
Instead, the regime itself is breaking.

Today, history reminds us of our future potential.

Before the revolution, Iran worked closely with Arab leaders — from King Faisal to Sheikh
Zayed to King Hussein to President Sadat.

In Oman, my father helped Sultan Qaboos defend his country against insurgency.

We were true partners then. We will be true partners again.

The Iranian people have called on me to lead the transition after the regime is gone. I have
accepted that responsibility. Part of their great mandate to me is to return our nation and
our foreign relations to normalcy. I will do exactly that.

My commitment is to ensure the transition is orderly, the country is stabilized, and Iranians
determine their future through the ballot box. We will not repeat the mistakes of past transitions.
We will avoid de-Baathification scenarios and maintain as many bureaucrats and public servants
in the transition as possible.

Iranians have made their choice — at an enormous price. Now I ask our friends in the Arab
world to join us. To prepare to recognize and engage our transitional government.

We will rebuild our nation not for expansion, but to serve the Iranian people. We will base
our diplomatic relations, not on exportation of ideology, but on mutual respect and shared
interests. We will reintegrate into the regional and global economy to increase prosperity
for the citizens of all of our nations.

Standing with the Iranian people is not charity. It is a strategic investment in making our
region one of the most stable, secure, and prosperous in the world.

Together, we can build a Middle East our children will be proud to inherit.

Take this new path with us.

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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.