The Middle East War

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Because the Egyptians didn’t want to actually end Israel, and the Israelis realized this and settled for peace because the next round may not have gone as well. 

The specific reason why the Israelis concluded it might not go well in the future was the Egyptian army.

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Because they didn't fight other Arabs. They fought Israel, which valued peace and prosperity more than war. I know there are people who might call Israel a colonialist or imperialist state, but they're idiots. Israel is the exact antithesis of that.

I think in 1973 what the Israelis valued the most of all was their ability to do basic math, that given the exchange rate in the Sinai in 1973, that a nation of 3.3 million would eventually be overwhelmed by a nation of 37 million.

[urbanoid]

The US wanted to flip Egyptian allegiance and so far it has worked for almost half of the century. Both sides got gibs from the American taxpayer. What's not to like for either one?

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

The US wanted to flip Egyptian allegiance and so far it has worked for almost half of the century. Both sides got gibs from the American taxpayer. What's not to like for either one?

The argument was made that "Arab" armies cannot fight.  That certainly may be true as a general rule of thumb, but the Egyptians in 1973 were an exception.   They were not as good as the Israelis, but they were a near pier opponent, relatively better than anything the Arabs had fielded before or since.

[crazyinsane105]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I think in 1973 what the Israelis valued the most of all was their ability to do basic math, that given the exchange rate in the Sinai in 1973, that a nation of 3.3 million would eventually be overwhelmed by a nation of 37 million.

Egypt has about 100 million now, so it’s in Israel’s best interest to make sure Egypt is in good terms 

[crazyinsane105]

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

The US wanted to flip Egyptian allegiance and so far it has worked for almost half of the century. Both sides got gibs from the American taxpayer. What's not to like for either one?

Egypt, along with most other Arab countries, don’t seem as concerned about ‘liberating’ Palestine as long as the Israelis don’t do the following:

1. Expel Palestinians or Israeli Arabs into their country 

2. Israel expanding it’s territory into Jordan or Egypt

3. Any type of alteration to the third holiest site in Islam 

Anything less than the above three is deemed acceptable and won’t evoke much response from the Arab world, beyond some rants at the U.N. and some Twitter posts. 

[Colin]

Egypt main concern is water, food and electricity. They may go to war, but not with Israel. Their southern border and perhaps Yemen (again) as the impact on the canal is significant. 

[Markus Becker]

14 hours ago, TrustMe said:

 

Egypt's military is still originated on Israel.

It's main Corps is is in the Nile Delta facing Israel with several special opps engineering brigades ready to through bridges over the Suez Canal.

They are probably stationed there because of long established infrastructure and there are not insignificant militants on the peninsula.  

[Mighty_Zuk]

5 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Egypt has about 100 million now, so it’s in Israel’s best interest to make sure Egypt is in good terms 

As if population size was ever a factor.

[Markus Becker]

Agent Eli Copter strikes again! 

[Mighty_Zuk]

33 minutes ago, Markus Becker said:

Agent Eli Copter strikes again! 

Probably a fake. Heard reports of his plane being downed. So far no proper MSM picked it up. 

[crazyinsane105]

18 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

As if population size was ever a factor.

If Lebanon had a population size similar to Egypt, and a land area roughly similar in size, how many recruits would Hezbullah enjoy? Population is a massive factor. It’s better to be in a near constant state of war with a tiny country like Lebanon than a country like Egypt. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

4 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

If Lebanon had a population size similar to Egypt, and a land area roughly similar in size, how many recruits would Hezbullah enjoy? Population is a massive factor. It’s better to be in a near constant state of war with a tiny country like Lebanon than a country like Egypt. 

In the absence of an Egyptian state, and transformation of Egypt into a terrorist state, the average Egyptian would quickly learn just how unpleasant it can be when one does not shield their energy and water infrastructure, and lets their ports get blockaded.

[urbanoid]

Well, they clearly targeted Mossad operatives - by recruiting them. 

 

[Colin]

Apparently the IDF is entering Lebanon right now

 

[rmgill]

On 9/27/2024 at 9:17 AM, TrustMe said:

If one sentance sums up Arabs is that they are "extremely territorial"  

Baked into the cake of Arab Tribalism.

Evident in the description that Lawrence had of the Arabia in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Every one of the tribes could more or less either be migratory (fighting for various wadi) or stationary (living in one of the more watered wadi with year round wells closer to the coast. If a tribe was muscled out of a better spot, they would try to muscle in on a somewhat less bad spot and likewise bump other tribes off their respective spots in turn. 
 

[Soldier36]

The Israeli army demonstrated the use of UH-60A Yanshuf 3 helicopters and CH-53K King Stallion helicopters to evacuate the wounded. Both helicopters are American-made. In the video, the 669th Air Rescue and Evacuation Unit evacuates wounded soldiers from Lebanon. Initially, the unit rescued downed pilots behind the front line, but gradually the tasks expanded to evacuate soldiers. Let me remind you that Merkava Mk.IV tanks are currently on the border with Lebanon, and they may have already entered the adjacent territory.

 

 

[Roman Alymov]

British tanker guards vs. Houthi u-boat https://t.me/anna_news/71445

and outside view https://t.me/anna_news/71444

[rmgill]

Do they not have anything heavier than FAL’s? 

[crazyinsane105]

The first question of the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday night was whether the candidates would support or oppose a pre-emptive strike on Iran by Israel. It framed the issue for Gov. Tim Walz and Senator JD Vance as urgent to consider because Tehran has “drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon,” cutting its acquisition time to “one or two weeks.”

The premise behind the question from Margaret Brennan of CBS News, one of the debate’s moderators, highlights a popular confusion over what it takes to build a usable nuclear bomb.

Nuclear experts said on Wednesday that it would take Iran not weeks to make a nuclear weapon, but months and possibly as long as a year. Ms. Brennan’s question, they added, began the debate on a false note.

“I don’t think there’s a danger that Iran this year is going to start exploding nuclear weapons,” said Houston G. Wood, an emeritus professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia. A specialist in atomic centrifuges and other nuclear matters, Dr. Wood estimated that it would take Iran up to a year to devise a weapon once it had enough nuclear fuel.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

“It would likely take many months,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, “not weeks.”

The experts said that the CBS question conflated the time it would most likely take Iran to manufacture a bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium with the overall process of turning it into a weapon. Once enough uranium metal is produced, it must be carefully machined into the core of an atom bomb, which is then set amid the other parts of a nuclear warhead that would sit atop a missile.

“It takes advanced metallurgy and engineering,” Dr. Hecker, who served as the Los Alamos director from 1986 to 1997, said in an interview. The process is harder than might be expected. The atomic workers, for instance, face health risks because the tiny radioactive particles created during the shaping of nuclear parts could, unless they’re careful, settle in their lungs and spur cancerous growths.

The CBS question, though based on a false premise, seemed appropriate for the moment because Iran fired 180 missiles at Israel on Tuesday night in a dramatic escalation of the conflict between the two countries. Israel has vowed to retaliate, and President Biden said on Wednesday that he would not favor an attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The widespread misunderstanding of the state of Iran’s nuclear capabilities stems from the many recent public reports that gave detailed timelines for Iran’s production of fuel for a nuclear bomb. But those reports offer few details on the other steps Iran must complete to build a nuclear weapon, including feats of atomic purification, engineering, manufacture and testing.

The public reports focus on what weapon experts call nuclear breakout — the time it would take a would-be atomic power to acquire a bomb’s worth of atomic fuel. An August reportby the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, for instance, declared that Iran had developed its fuel-making expertise to the point where it could now “break out quickly, in days.”

Middle East Crisis: Live Updates

Updated 

Oct. 7, 2024, 12:05 p.m. ET42 minutes ago

U.S. imposes new sanctions to cut off Hamas funds.

Israel strikes southern Gaza after Hamas fires rockets.

Emirates bans pagers and walkie-talkies from flights after the attacks in Lebanon.

The institute’s president, David Albright, did not respond to questions about the group’s Iran timeline.

If Tehran did achieve breakout, it would then face a series of other crucial steps before producing a deliverable nuclear warhead. One would be developing an electronic firing system to set off a group of conventional explosives that compress the nuclear core, starting the chain reaction that emits bursts of atomic energy. In addition, the complete warhead must be tested rigorously to ensure that it can withstand the extraordinary heat and shaking of atmospheric re-entry.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Nuclear experts say the lengthy process also usually culminates with a bomb’s explosive testing underground to make sure the warhead would detonate as expected in war.

A March study by the Congressional Research Service cited federal reports saying that Tehran needed between one and two weeks to produce enough enriched uranium for a single weapon. But that study also cited testimony from Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Iran would need “several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon.” And it said that the “U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran has not resumed work on its weaponization research.”

Finally, the congressional study noted that reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog that monitors Iran’s nuclear progress, suggested Tehran “does not yet have a viable nuclear weapon design or a suitable explosive detonation system.”

Dr. Wood, the University of Virginia professor, said many additional factors go into assessing the actual threat that Iran’s nuclear program might pose to Israel.

ADVERTISEMENT

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

“You don’t want to fire one weapon and then be out of ammunition,” he said in an interview. Iran, Dr. Wood suggested, might want to possess an arsenal of a half dozen or more weapons before it tested one underground or detonated one in war.

The big problem for the councils of war and arms control, he added, is that “having that first one is a game changer.”

 

This seems to be a more rational time frame of the Iran bomb craze 

[Josh]

I think Iran could easily build a simple nuclear device of the U-235 “gun” type design. “Little Boy” was sufficiently simple in concept and execution that its design was never even tested before use.

Building a warhead that would fit onto a ballistic missile and reliably explode would probably be a much more involved process. It appears Iran already has tested explosive lenses in its efforts, but it’s worth noting tests in places like North Korea and Pakistan definitely had very mixed results early on.

That said, even a single stage atomic fizzle could likely contaminate most of Israel, given the incredibly small size of the most populated areas.

[Mighty_Zuk]

4 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

This seems to be a more rational time frame of the Iran bomb craze 

No it's not, because the breakout time isn't measured to the acquisition of a bomb, rather the final irreversible step after which gauging progress is no longer reliable.

Iran had already gone through several irreversible steps, and worked to reduce the time it needs to weaponization by acquiring Russian and North Korean expertise. If Iran enriches a sufficient amount of material to craft a bomb - tracking becomes much more difficult.

[crazyinsane105]

Edit 

Edited October 8 by crazyinsane105
Inaccurate

[bojan]

Old vid from Syria.

[crazyinsane105]

6 minutes ago, bojan said:

Old vid from Syria.

Ah ok, will take it down