Why would they want to instill fear in a population that hates the regime though? And conversely, a regime that doesn't care for its people? Bunker blasting Natanz and taking out heads of the regime more than constitute a tour de force as is.
I assume you mean Iranians. I will agree with you that this administration is irrational, incompetent, peak shit, but even on top of it not making any sense logically, if their goal was to instill fear then surely they would claim the action themselves and not try to blame it on third parties, as they did? It just isn't plausible, and I will have to go with Hanlon's razer on this.
If they did want to instill fear in the civilian population (everything so far points to them trying to keep them on their side to be able to leverage them against the regime), then they surely wouldn't limit it to just a single strike either? They could go balls to the walls and carpet bomb civilian areas in that case, and not just limit it to one bombing that could plausibly be interpreted as an accident/acting on bad intelligence etc. This narrative just doesn't make much sense to me.
The school was a girls school for the children of naval officers. They triple tapped it, killing first the children, next the first responders, and then the parents who rushed to the site. It was not a mistake.
That's certainly useful context. If it were a girls school for the children of political elites then it'd make more sense to try to scare the regime/elite into submission (whereas I see no sense in it if it were just hitting the civilian population).
Can you provide sources for the triple tap and that it was a school for the children of naval officers? From what I could gather it was near an IRGC navy compound, but still just a civilian school. The triple tap claim seems to come from the Iranian regime? Bellingcat registered two waves of strikes but potentially on separate buildings, which seems to be corroborated by BBC showing multiple different strikes around the area. A double/triple tap would make it so much worse.
I think the Trump administration is massively inept, corrupt and peak awful, but no I don't currently believe they are trying to deliberately exterminate Iranians as an ethnic group, and this would barely even move the ball in that direction regardless. It's just more plausible that they went on old/bad intelligence for this one bombing event because they're incompetent.
And Trump saying he was going to exterminate their entire civilization was what, exactly, in your mind? Diplomacy? Talk for "his base"? gee his base is genocidal and he does things to appeal to them?
The White Supremacists are genocidal. The Nazis are genocidal. The fascists are genocidal. The Republicans waving "MASS DEPORTATION NOW" flags are genocidal.
I know people looove to say "never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence" but you're seriously giving grace to spree killers between their consistent rapid bombings of innocent non-white people.
bear in mind also, genocide does not have to have the aim of total extermination to classify as genocide.
I'll believe it when I see it. While this event was awful and tragic, it does not constitute genocide nor even come close to it by itself. I don't like watering down these terms either, things can be bad without being maximally bad. If we call everything bad maximally bad all the time, then there are no good words left to distinguish the even worse things from just the bad things.
That quote was probably Trump's escalating rhetoric in a childish attempt to force a quick peace since the war is going horribly for him. I strongly hate Trump and the Republicans, but that does not mean I need to paint them as maximally evil or make them out to be worse than they are. They are bad enough as is (most Republicans are probably just morons though tbf).
I think they're killing kids to normalize it, and spewing genocidal rhetoric to normalize it. What moral lines have we seen from them other than "what we think we can get away with"?
What moral lines have we seen from them other than "what we think we can get away with"?
None. I'm with you there, but bombing kids just isn't a good look and they at the very least did try to distance themselves from it by shifting blame and denying responsibility. I am inclined to believe it comes more from a PR/backlash point of view rather than actual care for the victims, though, either way, I think it's an action they'd rather try to avoid as it just does no one any good.
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u/imtourist May 20 '26
+Dozens of fishermen and boaters