On 5 March, a post appeared on the X account of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, managed by his staff after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 28 February. The tweet featured a stark piece of propaganda: a gleaming, oversized missile arcing across the sky as a city below is engulfed in flames. The caption read: “Khorramshahr moments are on the horizon.”
The Khorramshahr missile, Iran’s most advanced ballistic missile, is believed to be capable of carrying a cluster warhead dispersing up to 80 submunitions. Since that post, it has come to loom large in Israeli threat assessments, a persistent concern for a country equipped with a multi-layered missile defence system that is widely regarded as the world’s most sophisticated.
The latest attack using cluster munitions occurred on Sunday, when an Iranian ballistic missile struck central Israel, injuring 15 people.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, roughly half of the missiles launched from Iran since the escalation have carried cluster warheads.
The Guardian, which reviewed the impact of dozens of Iranian strikes alongside statements from Israeli officials, has identified at least 19 ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads that penetrated Israeli airspace and struck urban areas since the beginning of the war with Iran on 28 February. Those attacks have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens, reflecting a broader shift in Iran’s tactics that appears to have exposed a vulnerability in Israel’s air defences. Since the start of the war, Iran’s cluster munitions – which disperse dozens of bomblets mid-air – have tested Israel’s highly advanced, multi-tier missile defence network, including Iron Dome, which is designed to counter threats across ranges, altitudes and speeds, exposing gaps that interception alone has struggled to close.
It’s fascinating (in a horrific kind of way) that literally all participants in this war are monstrous. Seriously, there are no good guys. This is turning into WWIII, but I always figured that when it happened, there would be clearly identifiable victims and aggressors.
How naive of me. Everyone involved is victim and aggressor simultaneously.
America/Israel attacked Iran unprovoked using diplomatic negotiations as cover, negotiations in which Iran apparently agreed to every demand. If this isn’t a war of aggression, I don’t know what is. Your opinion of the Iranian government doesn’t change that.
I don’t see how the US is anything other than the aggressor. Both Iran and Israel suck and they have no concern for human life, but I can see how they can claim to be victims. Not the US.
How can Israel claim to be the victim in this war against Iran?
When don’t they?
Well Iran has been attacking them for decades through Hezbollah and Hamas. It’s not like they’ve been keeping to themselves playing Rummikub in this conflict
Iran has been arming resistance to Israeli colonialism for decades, but that does not in any way make Israel a victim. Palestinians and Lebanese have the right to defend themselves, and Iran has the right (and, like the rest of the world, moral duty) to help them defend themselves.
Can you explain how the Lebanese are defending themselves when they’re firing rockets over the border into Israel?
Do… do you know why Hezbollah was even founded? For a hint, here’s a literal former Israeli PM on the topic:
Yeah, two reasons actually:
1: beat back the Israeli’s (who invaded because the PLO was attacking them from Lebanon)
2: to tilt the Lebanese civil war in favour of the Shia sect
But neither seems like a valid reason to keep attacking Israel today
Israel has been bombing and occupying part of Lebanon since the “ceasefire”, so your argument is ridiculous on the face of it. Hezbollah is also acting in accordance with internetional law with respect to the prevention of genocide. Finally, it does not count as “aggression” if you enter a defensive war against an aggressor - Britain and France were not aggressors in WW2 just because they declared war on Germany, since Germany had already started the war.
Your attempt to whitewash the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (brutal enough that even Reagan told them to dial it down) was not missed.
Are Israel’s near-daily ceasefire violations and its occupation of Lebanese territory reason enough?
You’re actually a Hamas apologist. Wow.
TF do you mean “apologist?” Hamas being a (and, in fact, by far the biggest) Palestinian armed resistance organization and the fact they do a lot of evil shit are two facts that can be true at the same time. That doesn’t mean supporting Hamas is victimizing Israel.
It kinda does tho. Hamas, in one form or another, has been attacking Isreal for many decades. Isreal has been attacking Gaza and Lebanon and other Arab countries for decades too. They’re all victims of each other and a product of an unfortunate history. There have even been some serious attempts at peaceful resolution, which always get fucked up by one side or the other, or usually both. Yes I 100% agree that isreal’s actions are unacceptable and horrific. But they are also victims. Just like the people of Gaza could have voted for a government that strived for a peaceful solution, but chose a violent one - but they are still victims of the result.
One doesn’t become a victim due to being attacked; it takes being unjustly attacked to make one a victim. This makes certain individual Israeli civilians victims, but not Israel as a whole.
With all due respect, this is the most historically illiterate thing I’ve read today. The only reason Hamas even exists is the complete and utter failure of peaceful solutions. And of course they failed; what, did you also expect the Irish or Algerians to strive for peaceful solutions? Rejecting peaceful solutions has been Israeli policy for longer than Israel existed. Hell, the current state of the West Bank should tell you all you need to know about what “striving for peaceful solutions” looks like,.
Because there were so many free and fair elections in Gaza.
you’re actually a zionist terrorism and war crimes apologist. Even bigger wow.
Because I say both sides are bad for continuing the violence over the last decade? And I specifically called out Isreal on its atrocities? Wtf? Are you really that ignorant and closed minded?
You frame it as a both sides conflict because thats a convenient way to let Israelis off for their war crimes. Its a flatly dishonest and contrived position.
Just what is it that you find so appealing about genocide, fasicsm, and pedophilia? It boggles the mind.
Can you not read? Just because an opinion isn’t 100% aligned with your personal brainwashing, doesn’t mean it’s diametrically opposed. What you did is called a ‘strawman argument’. Try looking that up and learn why it makes you an idiot. No offense.
You didn’t answer the question
And Israel have been attacking them…
Uh, yeah. Thats the point. They’ve been attacking each other for decades.
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What a load of one sided crap. Israel has been the aggressor in the region since the nakba. This nonsense started when the ottoman empire retreated in the early 1900s, and its always been the zionists pursuing terrorism, murder and land theft since day 1-- uninterrupted. Endless fountains of blood on their hands for their greed.
Well that’s a slight diversion from how Iran is involved but
Even if you ignore the systemic discrimination under the Ottomans, that’s incorrect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots
It is correct. Your own link for the incident you cite was after Balfour in british controlled palestine. The cause is unknown as your link states. or are ypou trying to blame zionism and the rejection of human rights of the palestinians on the british?
You claim that israel/zionists were the only ones that incited violence. My link is part of the more nuanced history of jews inside the dissolving Ottoman empire first escaping discrimination, then looking to create their own state, then being joined by refugee migrants from Europe, and then local muslim fundamentalists turning violent against them because they wanted to make sure islam remained the privileged religion on all of the land
That’s a lot more nuanced than what you posted above, sadly in line with many other lemmings who choose to simplify all of that history into “the jews jumped from their boats guns blazing”
“then looking to create their own state”
By stealing land beyond what Balfour had outlined. Yes. Can you tell us what the nakba even was?
Also, Balfour ‘specifically promised to protect the “civil and religious rights” of the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.’ Which was immediately violated. and its been 8- years of solid violation since then.
Israeli people are victims, Israel isn’t.
82% of Israelis say there are no innocents in gaza.
https://zeteo.com/p/its-not-just-netanyahu-a-lot-of-israelis.
Half want every palestinian genocided. Israelis arent victims.
Victims in what way? They’re only taking an infinitesimally fraction of what they’re dishing out. A serial killing getting scratched every now and then isn’t my idea of victimhood.
No yours, but it is theirs.
Fair point.
Citizens are generally more victim than aggressors. Maybe given the genocidal rhetoric common in Israel currently that is not so much the case as one would expect, and USA citizens have an oceanic buffer.
How is this turning into WW3?
It still seems like a relatively small scale war. There’s no big allies for Iran. There’s no attacks on the US beyond military bases and ships really. There’s a global economic impact, but that doesn’t constitute a global war imo.
Could this change? of course, but so could the ukraine war.
I can’t imagine the Iran war’s death count is even remotely close to the genocide in gaza that is still ongoing.