I see more and more how racism plays a key role in all this. The barbarians are Iranians and Palestinians. We hate their culture, so that justifies genocide and war crimes.

Media is pretty awful with this stuff too.

We don't hate the Iranians, we hate the Iranian regime which unfortunately has suppressed that beautiful Persian civilization. There are streets in Israel named after great Persian rulers.

That's right Mikie. We're all racist. All actions are racist. Anyone who doesn't look like us is an enemy. It's definitely nothing but racism. Mhmm.

"Iran has enriched uranium particles up to just short of weapons grade, placing further pressure on western powers to issue a third censure of Iran at a meeting of the nuclear watchdog board next week."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/pressure-on-west-to-act-grows-after-report-on-iranian-uranium-enrichment

You don't think Iran shoulders any blame in this? There's a literal clock in Tehran counting down the days to Israel's predicted destruction. Maybe trying to enrich uranium to weapon's grade while constantly threatening Israel and The Great Satan -ahem- America with death isn't the smartest thing in the world to do?

Iran pursues something like the regional foreign policy equivalent of the Soviet Union or US at the peak of the Cold War, while having the actual economic and military strength of... well, Iran. From a realpolitik view it's almost incomprehensible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But they've seemed like rational actors. In the past, they seemed to know where the red line is and walk right up to it without going over. They played us very well during the Iraq occupation. They were responsible for a lot of American soldier deaths and seemed to know how much damage they could inflict without pushing the Bush and Obama Administrations into retaliation.

But this latest move of theirs makes no sense. After 10/7, I don't see Israel allowing Iran to get close to a nuke, and with the election of Trump, Israel now has an ally in their corner capable of just about anything. Why on Earth were they hell bent on uranium enrichment with Bibi and Trump in power?

We don't hate the Iranians, we hate the Iranian regime which unfortunately has suppressed that beautiful Persian civilization. — BitconnectCarlos

This!

Following Israel’s strike on Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, and now the US bombing of additional nuclear facilities, it’s worth asking whether anyone still takes international law seriously or if we’ve simply decided that nuclear safety is a matter of political discretion.

The IAEA has been unequivocal: such attacks are illegal, dangerous and risk catastrophic radiological fallout. That no disaster has occurred yet is luck, not justification. These acts undermine not just the credibility of the IAEA but the entire non-proliferation regime. You can’t uphold the rules while breaking them when it suits you. What’s being set isn’t just back Iran’s programme, it’s a global precedent: that military force trumps nuclear safeguards.

If the goal was to prevent proliferation, this isn’t strategy. It’s arson in the name of fire safety.

And why now? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear bomb for decades if we have to believe everybody ever excusing these strikes on Iran.

I was just listening to an interview with White House gossip-mongering journalist Michael Wolff. Wolff said that Trump really was dithering over the Iran mission until well into last Friday - until someone, probably one of the neo-cons in his orbit, persuaded him that the bombing could be conducted surgically, without too much risk of entanglement or boots on the ground. And that it would make him look good! There’s the golden ticket, right there. And Trump sure as hell loved gloating over it when he came out to the podium in the foyer. Wolff called it ‘a vanity bombing’. As far as Trump’s motivation is concerned, I think it’s likely an accurate description.

I understand your point.

My point is that we don't really want to have inflation on the term genocide or it to be a popular derogatory adjective as "fascist" or "nazi" describing something that it isn't. With genocide we are talking about the intent of total destruction of people. — ssu

If we agree on the basic physical facts, then we are more or less in agreement.

The reason to use the word genocide is that is that the crime of genocide is defined in international law as those acts you're talking about committed with the intent of destroying a people:

Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

So, once the Nazis started systematic murder with the intent of destroying all the Jews (as well as other groups such as invalids) they were committing genocide. How successful they are at completing the objective would not impact the definition of the crime of genocide. Had they been stopped earlier by the Soviets and only succeeded in killing 50 000 Jews at that point: still genocide.

What is normally the difficult to prove part is the intention. As mass chaos and violence and death can be presented as carried out for some other goal.

For example, the US government will argue that if mass deaths occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and so on, that the intention was to achieve democracy and not destroy a people, in whole or in part.

Which is of course an entirely plausible argument as we may have many things to critique about US foreign police, the CIA, pentagon, and so on, as well as question whether the intention really is "democracy" or more mundane imperialist objectives, but I think we (definitely you and me, if not others) would certainly agree that the American people and government simply aren't genocidal (in the 21st century; they probably would be if political groups, such as communists, was in the definition of genocide but that was left out exactly to avoid that discussion). Americans, on the whole, simply don't have a culture of wanting to exterminate whole groups of peoples, and that has been reflected in US foreign policy in the 21st century.

Now, in this case of Israel, the "difficult to prove" part is simply not present. Whereas other cases the controversy is concerning the intent, especially institutional intent (such as even controversy of "the proof" that Hitler really did order and know about the Nazi genocide) Israeli culture and Israeli politicians, ministers, generals and so on, openly declare their intent to destroy the Palestinian people, including all the children are also enemies and must be destroyed.

How the laws concerning genocide are written is that the threshold of mass killing to be a genocide is super low (as the goal is to prevent genocide, and so trigger responses at a low threshold) and that the difficult part to prove is the intent..

Israel openly declares their intent to commit genocide, then go and do exactly those genocidal acts (such as mass killing and starvation) that they declared was their plan.

It's like if a murder happens and there's lots of circumstantial evidence pointing at one suspect and a lot that can be debated, plausibly denied, not at all a clear cut case ... but then the murderer keeps on confessing to the murder, keeps on describing exactly how he or she committed the murder, explaining why the murder was necessary and doing everything possible to disambiguate the situation. The debate is over about the circumstantial evidence once someone explains in detail how they committed the murder, why they committed the murder, boasts about committing the murder, and they are the only plausible possible suspect based on the material evidence that does exist (even if not conclusive in itself; maybe one plausible deniability scenario is "an accident" ... well difficult to maintain if the suspect keeps on declaring "it wasn't an accident! I killed that piece of shit!").

Hear hear! :100: :up: :heart:

Now the clergy that rules of Iran can really go back to the times of the 1980's when it was in war. The idea that Iran's regime would fall because of this is an example of the utter stupidity now so prevalent. I mean really, think of yourself and your country that you live in. If two foreign countries that are thousands of kilometers away from you suddenly started bombing your country, why would your response be to attack your own government? Nope. Iran will try to transition to a wartime economy now. — ssu

We are in full agreement on the military analysis.

The only intrinsic advantage (all else being equal) an invading force has is the initial invasion when taking the defenders by surprise, as it's super costly to mobilize if then turns out there is not a war. Furthermore, aggressor can just wait for demobilization and attack then, so it's really not an easy situation for the defenders to be in.

"Easing into" offensive action has zero military advantages as we are seeing.

But obviously all the military planners involved know that so it's difficult to make sense of what exactly the plan was. The only theory that fits all the data is magical thinking driven by Netanyahu's personal problems and enabled by fanatical religious fervour of his political allies.

Yet you should give a thought here also to why is Iran, of all countries, so hellbent to be against Israel in the first place? — ssu

The alternative view is that Iran supports the Palestinian cause due to real sympathies. Since Israel maintains Palestinians as an occupied people without any rights, the Iranian policy to support them doesn't go away. If Israel made a liveable peace with the Palestinians and other neighbours then Iran would no longer be "against them", even if they didn't agree with the peace terms it would no longer be their problem.

Iran also correctly identifies Israel as a Western colonial project with the fundamental goal of dividing Islam, which was explicit Western policy after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The West could have kept the Ottoman Empire intact; there's no intrinsic reason why a polity must be broken up simply due to military defeat; the reason was to remove the possibility of geopolitical competitor from reemerging down the line.

The general strategy of strife and chaos in the Middle East proposed by @Tzeentch is definitely correct; where I have doubts is that recent Israeli actions in Palestine and elsewhere are fully an extension of that policy compared to Israel's own policy (that then rides on and also exploits the Wests general policy).

Well, a lot of countries have a lot of resources that the neocons don't control. International trade is for that. In the end, the resources of some country don't justify war, because those resources never make wars actually profitable as in the end they cost a lot more than just to buy the Goddam resources by trade. Neocons and other imperialists give as reasons the natural resources of some country as a valid reason to invade them, but in the real world this never goes out so simple. — ssu

Exactly why I say the US is not pursuing some rational grand strategy from the point of view of some coherent Imperial interest. These resource wars do not accomplish anything and only weaken the US' real power base which is presiding over the global trade system and being generally admired.

The toppest level view of what we see happening, I would propose is that after the fall of the Soviet Union the cold warriors had nothing much to do in any rational US imperial project and so pushed for and succeeded in making new conflicts in order to, more-or-less, entertain their sense of importance. To use a tired analogy, they still had their hands on the Cold War hammers and they couldn't help but use them. A better understanding of what we call Neocons are the more violent faction of the cold warriors who need new violence to find meaning. Hence the desire for full spectrum dominance, war's at all times, such as with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and clandestine operations all over the world to control political outcomes.

Of course they need some nominal reason for the war, such as resources, but they obviously have not been profitable wars, but they keep doing it as the real reason is to satiate their psychological need for conflict in which it "feels cool" to get together in secret rooms and discuss what to do; whereas in peace time that just doesn't feel so adrenaline inducing, kind of boring actually. Pathologically psychotic people can only go through the fantasy so many times before they develop the inevitable need to act out the fantasy.

Which brings up an important dynamic of what's happening now, is that the Cold Warriors are all super old, and they can't stop the younger generation slowly taking over (due to things like dying), and so there's now people like Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance in positions of power, who went and actually fought in the Neocon wars, so regardless of their personal ideology and objectives, they at least live in reality and not the Neocon fantasy. Right now these factions have reached the compromise of "blow at least something up, but not fully engage in a disastrous war; and really big explosions! Fucking HUGE ASS explosions!".

That no disaster has occurred yet is luck, not justification. — Benkei

It is evidence that the nuclear facilities are not as significant as claimed, kind of like Saddam's WMD. If you bomb the facility before it's a danger to bomb it, it's a lot safer, but justification is a lot more difficult. If it isn't justifiable, it's oppression.

Stupid strawman from the posturing village idiot. :yawn:

Wolff called it ‘a vanity bombing’. As far as Trump’s motivation is concerned, I think it’s likely an accurate description. — Wayfarer

:up: Serves no purpose otherwise.

And why now? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear bomb for decades if we have to believe everybody ever excusing these strikes on Iran. — Benkei

Conflict with China looms, and the US needs to 'cut Iran down to size' so that it cannot exploit the power vacuum the US will leave behind when it fully pivots to Asia.

In addition, sowing chaos in Iran denies China natural resources, and a vital trade corridor to the Middle-East and beyond.

It's really not very complicated - geopolitics hardly ever is. It just requires the proper lens through which to view events.


The window to bully Iran around, as the West has done for nearly a century, is rapidly closing, however. Assuming Iran can keep the regime from rapid collapse, Russia and China will keep it standing.

So we will now see how feasible this US strategy still is.

I'm not convinced it's as simple as applying the "proper lens." That phrase implies there’s one correct way to see things and that those who disagree just haven’t figured it out yet. It’s a bit condescending, especially when you're not offering actual argument; just a string of confident assertions.

More importantly, I have doubts about the idea that the US or any non-autocratic state consistently executes long-term strategic plans. Policy is usually shaped by competing interests, shifting administrations and short-term political pressures. Whatever strategy exists tends to be reactive and fragmented rather than unified or coherent.

That’s not to say power dynamics and resource competition don’t matter. But treating states as if they act with a single mind and long-term purpose can obscure more than it reveals.

If the claim is that these strikes are part of a broader plan to contain China by weakening Iran, then the burden is on you to explain who is driving that plan, how it is being implemented and why we should assume it is working. Without that, it’s just a story dressed up as insight.

On page 5 of this thread I give a more in-depth analysis.

I'm not sure what you believe is lacking. If you're expecting me to produce hard evidence then obviously I cannot do this - that's simply not how geopolitics works.

I can however point at nearly a century of continuity and explain how what we are currently seeing fits in that historical trend.

If I'm 'telling stories', then everyone here is.

Maybe trying to enrich uranium to weapon's grade while constantly threatening Israel and The Great Satan -ahem- America with death isn't the smartest thing in the world to do? — RogueAI

I don't understand the purpose of putting Israel and USA in the same sentence. You make Israel sound like a superpower, when in reality it is a US proxy that came close to death in 1973. From then the USA assumed all the defense and financing of Israel and it has become almost impossible to divide the merits of Mossad/Israel/Idf from the merits of CIA/USA/US Army.

When you speak about Israel, you are speaking about a heavily US/EU funded country, where less than 6 million Jews are contributing to it (cause you have a country with 8 million Israeli citizens, 2 million citizens are Arab and almost 30% ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not seem to contribute too much to the IDF and to the Israeli economy in general), and these less-than-six-million are supposed to occupy 8 million Palestinian Arabs and control a region with more than 200 million Muslims.

To explain you in figures... Those Western Balkan countries (which have similar size with Israel) are considered the poorest in Europe and through that EU Association Pact those countries received last year less that 200 million dollars in aid (each country) from the EU. At the same time, Israel last year received more than 22 billion from the US in aid (18 billion in war-related emergencies and more than 3.4 billion from the yearly allocation that the US Congress has approved for Israel).

In the last 80 years the US has distributed more than 320 billion USD to Israel. Those Western Balkan Countries are considered poor and developing countries, but they seem to get 1% in aid compared with what a "developed & wealthy" Israel gets from the USA.

To conclude, all that Iran-Israel conflict breaks down to foreign aid and sanctions. You have a country that is heavily sanctioned in the last 40 years and a country that is heavily funded in the last 50 years. When you sanction one country and arm/help the other one, this hatred and revenge seeking toward Israel from its neighbors shouldn't surprise you.

USA, UK and EU need a new approach in that region.

I don't agree with your more polemic statements. You might want to dial back on them to make it easier for others to charitably interpret them. That said there's plenty where we agree; especially the observation that US and Israeli interests align for now, but not forever. The US has a long history of shifting alliances based on strategic value. No partnership is sacred if the costs outweigh the benefits.

That said, I think it's a mistake to describe US policy as a singular, calculated engine of empire. American foreign policy is reactive, divided across institutions and often contradictory. There's strategy, yes, but it’s wrapped in election cycles, congressional theatre and real limitations. That’s not genius, it’s inertia.

And while regime change is often assumed as a goal, the political appetite for that kind of project has collapsed since Iraq. Iran is not an easy target. It is resilient, domestically complex and deeply embedded in regional networks. Sabotage and sanctions are likelier than a ground invasion or occupation.

If we want to critique US strategy in the Middle East, the most credible line is not that it's wickedly brilliant, but that it’s short-sighted, expensive and structurally inflexible in a world that’s rapidly changing.

Examples of shortsightedness are
1. the 2003 Iraq War on tha bsis of fake WMDs with long-term consequences such as regional instabiilty, ISIS and Iran's rise in Iraq. This was absolutely not adequately planned for.
2. Afghanistan was left without a stable government after 20 year; long-term presence does not equate to long-term planning.

The US has spent 8 trillion USD posy-9/11, primarily in the Middle East and then there's the indirect costs of veteran care, interest on war debt and diverted funding from what US people actually need.

We also see path dependency; one's a policy track is chosen, reversing it becomes politically and logistically difficult.

Well, my point isn't that US strategy is wickedly brilliant. Especially today it appears the US is being outplayed by China and Russia.

But it does have a strategy that accounts for basic geopolitical realities. That already seems to surpass the scope of the vast majority of people, who do not go beyond simple narratives of "us good, them bad", "Israel has a right to self-defense", "The evil jew lobby rules the US", etc. - so apparently it's brilliant enough to keep 95% of people in the dark about basic US goals.


At the same time, I would not underestimate the United States. It is easy to look at US Middle-East policy as a string of failures, but if we assume the goal was and is to sow chaos (in other words, deny to the enemy that which cannot be directly controlled) it shows a different picture.

Such foreign policy goals would obviously be impossible to explain domestically and internationally, hence they could never be said out loud. I would point to historical continuity as an indicator that such a policy is indeed in place.

There is a long list of countries that underestimated the United States' capacity for Machiavellianism and cloak & dagger practices, and that suffered the ultimate price for it.


As I've said before, I'll believe the US has met decisive failure once it starts to suffer serious blowback. Currently, that isn't happening. It always manages to export the cost of failure to its "friends".

USA, UK and EU need a new approach in that region. — Eros1982

That's for sure. Iran needs to stop being a theocratic terrorist exporting shithole hell bent on acquiring weapons grade uranium. Why are they enriching far beyond what they need for commercial applications? What is the benign explanation for that? Are they not interested in nukes, but trying to run a bluff to get diplomatic goodies from the international community? I think that principles of MAD apply to Iran and they're not suicidal, so a nuclear armed Iran could be lived with, but I also understand Israel not necessarily agreeing with that assessment and concluding Iran really would try and take out Tel Aviv.

I brought this up earlier, but you ignored it: there is a literal clock in Tehran counting down to the predicted destruction of Israel, said prediction made by the current Ayatollah.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iranian-outlet-publishes-footage-of-israel-doomsday-clock-that-idf-said-it-destroyed/

Why on Earth would Israel let the Iranian regime get close to a nuke if they have a decent chance of stopping or delaying them? A ruler of Israel ignoring such a threat would be guilty of dereliction of duty.

Iran strikes are apparently imminent, perhaps headed towards the US base in Qatar. I guess we’ll see what sorts of mettle and munitions Iran has left. Recall that when Solemeini got destroyed their bark was proven bigger than their bite, and they blew up a civilian plane.

They also attacked one of our bases and put a bunch of soldiers in the hospital with TBI's, but it was still very weak retaliation for taking out one of their top guys.

Missiles on the way according to random social media posts.

Honestly have no idea what's real and what's AI though, we'll have to wait confirmation .... just confirmed on CNN, so seems happening.

A face-saving attack not designed to do much damage or something worse? They would have to be crazy to hit back hard with Trump in the WH.

Iran has fired missiles at US military bases in Qatar and Iraq — CNN

Concerning this retaliation, one of the most important details is that it comes after Iran's foreign minister meeting with Putin (I think literally this morning).

This is Russia-China's opportunity to essentially unseat the US as the world's leading power.

I feel it unlikely that it is simply face saving, because they could just keep hitting Israel if they didn't want further escalation with the US.

They don't need to "show strength" (both domestically and internationally) by hitting the US, as they can just keep hitting Israel with more missiles to accomplish that.

If they didn't want further escalation they would just repeat JD Vance's "we're not at war" and be like ... cool

"Iran coordinated the attacks on the American air base in Qatar with Qatari officials and gave advanced notice that attacks were coming to minimize casualties, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the plans. The officials said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the U.S. but at the same time carry out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp; they described it as a similar strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq heads up before firing ballistic missiles an American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general."

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/23/world/iran-trump-israel-news/82bf4cc2-e1b6-52cf-be4f-18c58b88975c?smid=url-share

Looks like we were right. It was all just symbolic.

This is Russia-China's opportunity to essentially unseat the US as the world's leading power. — boethius

How would that happen? Nothing going on in the Middle East will change the fact the U.S. military is the strongest in the world, the U.S. economy the richest in the world.

The stock market is up despite all this. Oil is down. It's priced in that Iran will take it like a whipped dog.

There may be more, this time in Bahrain. Perhaps also UAE. The mullahs might not be done yet.

"Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, a Gulf State very close to Qatar, several resident have confirmed. The U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered Bahrain. The country’s interior ministry has asked citizens and residents to “remain calm and head to the nearest safe place,” according to a statement posted on X.'

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/23/world/iran-trump-israel-news

Iran coordinated the attacks on the American air base in Qatar with Qatari officials and gave advanced notice that attacks were coming to minimize casualties, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the plans. — NOS4A2

Iran may want to keep things as friendly as possible with the gulf states, but nevertheless escalate with the US.

So giving advance warning to Qatar isn't necessarily indicative.

Also, if you don't want to escalate with the US, you don't need any symbolic strikes at all in this situation (as that anyways risks further escalation), as you can just keep striking Israel to demonstrate capability and willingness to strike things.

It could be some weird logic or then part of some negotiated theatre with the US (give Trump a further optics win of "they could do nothing! nothing!").

But weird logic and diplomacy scenarios seem unlikely as trust and diplomacy with the US is at zero.

Trump is also erratic and unpredictable so there would be no way to be certain that Trump would view retaliation as symbolic, or not take extreme issue with the symbol anyways; he's already used extreme language about any potential Iranian retaliation. Therefore, if you want to avoid escalation you'd probably conclude you simply don't need to strike US bases at all, and just keep hitting Israel, if keeping it localized is the goal.

If you want to keep it local with Israel but want to deter further US strikes ... then you need real deterrence and not a weak symbol (which just invites more strikes), so you'd want to sent US service people back in boxes, show trump the domestic political consequences of further war.

How would that happen? Nothing going on in the Middle East will change the fact the U.S. military is the strongest in the world, the U.S. economy the richest in the world. — RogueAI

If Iran "wins" this war with Israel it is a massive boost for Russia's and China's lead counter-order, further eroding US credibility. However, it's only a proxy failing, like Ukraine, and the US empire could "put it behind us". So would be a big victory for Iran, but further improve Russia and China's position as being able to credibly back opposition to the US.

However, if the US went all in on Iran and then Iran won a conflict directly with the US, that would be a fatal embarrassment to US power and technology, as well as massive damage to US stockpiles, military and domestic moral etc.

Americans coming back in boxes in an unpopular war that in addition America loses, would be catastrophically different than just Israel losing the war with Iran.

Of course, they would still need to win the war with Israel and then the US to realize such geopolitical gainz.

So, I'm not saying that's what they want to do, but if they think they could "defeat" the American war system in Iran, then the firs step is to take advantage of US striking Iran to escalate with the US.

Obviously, escalating with the US isn't good for actual Iranian citizens; that should go without saying.

If Iran "wins" this war with Israel it is a massive boost for Russia's and China's lead counter-order, further eroding US credibility. However, it's only a proxy failing, like Ukraine, and the US empire could "put it behind us". So would be a big victory for Iran, but further improve Russia and China's position as being able to credibly back opposition to the US.

However, if the US went all in on Iran and then Iran won a conflict directly with the US, that would be a fatal embarrassment to US power and technology, as well as massive damage to US stockpiles, military and domestic moral etc. — boethius

Iran is not going to militarily win against Israel and/or America. They are being bombed at will at this point. Their retaliation against Israel has some bite to it, but it's like the V2 rocket attacks against Britain at the end of WW2: strategically meaningless terror attacks. Iran's retaliation against America so far has been like the weak pawing of a cornered rabbit. Their strongest gambit would be to disrupt shipping, but then they would have the whole world against them.

Iran is not going to militarily win against Israel and/or America. — RogueAI

Bombs don't win wars. Since Israel attacked Iran first and its objective is regime change, if Iran survives that's a win for Iran in this context.

This claim that Israel has air supremacy and flying over Iran at will I find incredulous, as then we'd see ballistic missiles being intercepted in the boost phase, which I've seen no evidence of.

What I find more likely is that Iran is using its air defences to cover ballistic missile launches and letting Israel bomb non-critical military asset as much as it wants. Everything military-critical in Iran is under ground ... so Israel bombing the surface is mostly just attritting Israel capacity. Any fixed asset Israel could just strike with a standoff weapon if you did manage to deny the air space to aircraft (i.e. there's no point expending surface-to-air missiles and exposing radar to protect fixed assets on the surface; even if you were successful they just send cruise or ballistic missiles of their own). Concrete buildings cannot only be rebuilt (mostly at lower cost than Israel spends to blow them up), but they aren't assets critical to war fighting so it doesn't impact the war outcome anyways.

Iran is huge, the surface area and mountainous region of essentially one entire Rocky Mountain chain in addition to one whole France, so Iran will focus air defence to ensure ballistic missile launches aren't intercepted in boost phase.

They would turn their radars on to check for planes, and reserve their anti-air capability for any planes that come at them. If there are no planes, they can launch, if planes come at them to intercept launch they don't launch and try to take down the planes. If they have established successful air denial bubbles (i.e. SEAD), those won't cover much of Iran, so Israel can still go around bombing plenty of other stuff, as well as use plenty of standoff missiles systems to make strikes anyways even covered by air denial systems.

However, regardless of Iran anti-air capability, Russia and China have far more than Iran. If you keep supplying Iran with radars and missiles, you'll eventually find ways to take down US planes and then keep doing it even if those systems get destroyed also. Iran may have a limited anti-air stock, but Russia and China can provide far more equipment and missiles. And they can keep producing them and resupplying Iran even for years! Could be the Ukraine of the air that we're still talking about in 3 years time!

Israel and the US have flipped the on-switch to war with Iran, nothing can force Iran to switch it off other than actual defeat, which would likely require a ground invasion and millions of troops. It is to Russia and China's advantage that Iran simply never switch the war off, not their fault there's a war, and so Russia and China maybe quite persuasive in their reassurances.

Iran also has reasons to never switch off the war, in that Israel may just attack them again later so letting them recover serves no military or political purpose.

If peace with Israel is not possible, because they keep on assassinating lead negotiators for example, then Israel turning on a formal war is a better state of affairs.

Since Israel air capacity is limited (for example compared to the US), the smart thing to do (considering the US may join the war), is to collect as much signal intelligence on the F-35 and prepare a giant air battle if and when the US joins the war.

That Israel can blow up concrete buildings meantime, assassinate a few professors and commanders and the like, is a reasonable cost to pay.

In order to "win" against a US lead air war, Iran will need to prevent the US from establishing true air supremacy to carry out a truly massive bombing campaign. As we see with Russia-Ukraine, even with limited resources (that are continuously re-supplied by the West) Ukraine can prevent Russia from establishing air supremacy and this is how Ukraine can stay in the fight.

If Iran (with Russian and Chinese backing) can make a similar situation in Iran, of limiting the US to standoff strikes, then they essentially "win", as there isn't even a ground game and nothing much is going to be accomplished with only standoff munitions against a country of 90 million people.

Of course, maybe stealth is essentially magical technology that nothing can touch.

But, assuming Russia and China have carefully studied this technology and are confident they have systems that can defeat it, then enticing the US into a giant air battle over Iran and defeating the US, would be an absolutely massive geopolitical shift.

Therefore, Russia and China, assuming they have geopolitical ambitions, would be preparing with Iran for such an air war and then to sustain it with resupply (which is super easy to do considering Iran connected to Russia by the Caspian).

Considering Iran would be in a far worse position if it were to completely lose control of the air -- so its missiles intercepted in boost phase and susceptible to way more bombing and interdiction of everything it does -- if I was Iran I would only escalate with the US if I had reassurance from Russia and China that they will supply air defence systems for a giant air battle and then long term battle of air attrition.

Without such an assurance, I would try to keep the conflict limited to Israel, inflict maximum damage over the short term, and deplete their air defence to make the susceptible to drones. In a mutually missile-depleted scenario, Iran has a massive advantage due to being far larger in surface area and population.