I would not be surprised if we see increased terrorism against Americans worldwide for the next 100 years . . .
Until then, it's constant war (insofar that jihad means war. But that's not entirely true. Think of it more like "subjugating everyone by any means. Violence if necessary, but preferably just subjugation")
So no, jihad is not started or stopped. Specific missions are declared (like killing British authors for pointing out obvious contradictions in the quran, like allah having 3 man- and child-killing daughters)
The closest is Iraq, and it's not a functioning democracy but a hybrid regime.
Blowback is going to be the biggest issue here. Ali Khamenei wasn't just the leader of Iran, he was well respected for Shia muslims. While not perfectly analogous, it's close to killing the pope.
Maybe this leads to open revolt which might fully topple to government, that said, I don't think there's a US/Israel endorsed leader or goal for succession here.
For as much as the far right in the US likes to criticize Iran, ultimately their only real complaint about their ‘theocracy with democratic characteristics’ is that it isn’t Christian.
"is the de facto head of state and the highest political and religious authority of Iran (above the president). The armed forces, judiciary, state radio and television, and other key government organizations such as the Guardian Council and Expediency Discernment Council are subject to the supreme leader."
by every definition of democracy, Iran is very close to the worst end of the scale - just as an example https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...
Their government is structured to resist this. There are another 20K Mullah's that succeed in their place. I have no idea how much experience they have or how that works in detail. Most of them at the moment AFAIK are in underground bunkers. I'm waiting for news on those.
The council (50+ members) may elect another leader in his stead, provided the current council can hold on to their seats, which depends on a lot of factors.
> If it falls, will the democracy kick in or a civil war
If the previous Western policy for the region is any indicator, they'd prefer a monarch over democracy. Probably even civil war over democracy, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'd take the Israeli media with a grain of salt and they can still fake this, just like the Iranian media can do as well given that AI exists, it's very easy to fake.
One side is not telling the truth. Only time will tell.
Note that regime collapse, in a major petrostate with a population of 92 million and in the middle of a critical yet volatile region, can be worse than "the devil you know".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfNGVWjglL4
Is there a succession, does the military take over, does it break down into factions? Many interesting questions and points raised.
This should be fun.
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (I and II), Afghanistan, etc. were not technically wars in the sense that there was any form of formal declaration by congress. The U.S. constitution allocates the authority to declare war to congress but, in practice, it's been under the sole authority of the POTUS since long before Trump.
This reallocation of authority hasn't been a huge problem until now. Now you have a POTUS whose motives for starting a war are entirely suspect. It's true that negotiations between Iran and the U.S. would have had significant trust hurdles to overcome. The U.S. and Iran had a deal that granted Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for a halt to Iran's nuclear program. It was working, but Trump is the president who unilaterally broke that agreement in his previous term[1]. Trump has also repeatedly broken his own agreements in his current term. Even his own signature is now completely worthless. What would it have taken to assure Iran the U.S. could be trusted to honour its word with Trump in power?
Moreover, the timing of this war makes it hard to view as anything other than the bloodiest case of "Wag the Dog" of the modern era. Americans need to put this "president of peace" behind bars or he'll just keep starting wars. Once that's done, serious consideration should be given to restoring many of the powers the constitution allocates to congress, including the authority to declare war.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
(1) A declaration of war is not necessary for a war to legally exist, except in the context of specific US laws that might rely on a declared state of war,
(2) Congress constitutional power to declare war is not dependent on the use of special words; every (conditional or unconditional) “authorization for the use of military force” (including the broad but time limited authorization in the War Powers Act) and similar is an application of the Constitutional power to declare war.
Neither the US nor Europe would have cared about Hitler's mass murder as long as he kept it in Germany and didn't disrupt business, his antisemitism was not unusual, and he was generally popular in the US. Stalin got away with it. Mao Zedong got away with it, and his authoritarian regime is a nascent superpower. Pol Pot more or less got away with it. He was deposed by his own people and died in his sleep. Israel has killed tens of thousands Palestinians and the world did nothing to stop it, America funded it. Idi Amin murdered hundreds of thousands of people and died in luxury. How many Russians and Ukrainians has Putin and his invasion of Ukraine sent to the slaughterhouse? Do you think anything is going to happen to him? How many North Koreans have the Kims starved to death or executed? Repercussions for the Armenian genocide? None. History is replete leaders whom the "civilized world" let "get away with it."
The two countries bringing this attack have done as much or more evil than Iran, roughly as recently.
Would be fun to see Ursula before judge in NY soon.
The US has also done this since 1945 (at least) although executive orders have, at times, placed some restraint on the practice.
For example in 2022 Russia tried to take out the Ukrainian president with a "3 day special military operation", that is still going on.
The board of peace means nothing, the USA cannot be trusted since it is a lapdog of Israel (did Epstein have something on somebody), and the president of peace starts his own war, hoping to outdo previous presidents in unprovoked murder and destruction.
All of the above gives Russia political ammunition to justify its SMO, and encourages China to step up its hopes to bring Taiwan back to the family.
And we have been told that AI and climate change are the biggest threats to humanity, ffs.
Do you think people should try to kill the leaders of countries that sell weapons in such circumstances?
I don't trust them because I like them. I trust them because being truthful is in their best interest (and I trust they will always act in their own interest).
The same goes for their (both the Americans' and the Israelis') obsession about Douhet and his Air Power thing, a long-running mistake on Americans' part. So much so that their (the Americans') bases in places like Manama (Bahrain) are now getting pounded by lousy Shaheed drones, with no AD to speak of, none at all. This is a huge fuck-up for the Americans/Israelis, I wonder when will their MSM start to write that reality down.
