Russia says it will react “very negatively” if Ali Khamenei is killed

I'm not justifying the initial strikes, just saying that it probably won't escalate. At least not immediately.

Creating "terrorists" a couple of planeloads of bombs at a time. This is not geopolitics. It's war. Only the western world could be so crass. It's only a couple of bombs on sovereign soil....meh. I say this as a Canadian. If the US lobbed bombs at us today I'd be on the warpath. I imagine there are some Iranians with those thoughts as well. It won't be a one and done even if it's not all out traditional war.

Eh, they're still doing the announced tit for tat. Like after soleimani got schwacked, they lobbed missiles at a US airbase and that was the end of it. It's saving face by doing _something_ in response, but also not actually escalating by not inflicting any significant damages.

So, despite how ridiculous it looks calling for peace after an exchange of missiles, that's probably what will happen. The only confounding factor is Israel and that may be the catalyst to sparking more conflict.

The fact that Trump is under the thumb of Israel, who want to obliterate Iran, and putin, who _doesn't_, is entertaining to say the least. It's a complete crap shoot how this ends up overall.

America just did go to war with Iran.

Personally I would be very pleased if both Putin and Khamenei were beaten to death by crooked sticks by an angry mob of pissed of civilians. That being said, I'm still not a fan of war.

They need the donkeys to combat the antelope invasion though

Schumer said he would do it, but forgot 40 minutes later.

Pretty sure that's the Netanyahu camp.

Don't forget the 3rd camp of military industrial complexists, just in it to make money bombing whoever wherever

That's Russia and China in a nutshell. Trump does it too, but that's just because he's mimicking daddy Putin.

Saber rattling, very menacingly.

A stern talking down to?

Iran is their ally yet they’ve allowed Israel to strike Iran with out repercussions so they’re sending a lot of mixed messages

See, that wasn't even hard to make you prove my point

Who are you to me again? Are you thick in the head?

Should Crimea belong to Ukraine?

You won't find ANY ruskie who will be against Russia-Ukraine war, Putin AND the annexation of Crimea.

We exist. But it's right to asume one is a bastard or an indifferent enabler until proven otherwise. That's a given.

That abstraction layer is correct, I think.

The thing with abstraction layers is: they are made to simplify a context. This makes it easier to understand and to see correlations and processes. It also hides details of the picture.

As far as I know there are people in Russia who work for their own goals. Those bridges don't collapse themselves and it takes someone to derail a train or sabotage a helicopter or provide intelligence about movements.

Yes. Most people just eat the propaganda or at least don't act up to evade repression (if they would care enough to do so otherwise). That's normal human behavior, it's no Russian specialty. Can you think of a current critical situation which would need immediate wide-spread attention, but people tend to ignore it?

As long as they control the government, military, police and other stuff putin and his regime are russia. If russians don't like that they can make their own Maidan.

Nah, they'll just use AI to do that.

Yes, MLK was one of the most moderate representatives of the movement, yet even he was a democratic socialist (even if that played much less of a role in his convictions than his christianity)

Maybe "communist" by the 60s definition as in anyone to the left of keynes then yeah I guess so, but MLK wasn't a communist in any real political sense.

The analogy still holds though, many of the leaders OP is pointing out are regressive right wing nationalist who would naturally align with putin without being agents of the Kremlin.

Both these accusations tend to put the blame of these movements on foreigners meddling with our democracy instead of real strains of thought coming from that democracy that need to be addressed.

I mean, many of those leaders were communists... But not agents of the Soviets, which was a convenient accusation tho

Yeah, and there were plenty of left journalists on the payroll of Moscow in the 60s. They tended to cover the civil rights movement and anti-war movement very positively, does that mean the leaders of those movements were also secretly agents of the communists?

Has there been any proof that the people OP mentioned have any connection to putin? Don't get me wrong there all horrible people, but it's not because there "Russian assets" and if they're gonna go against this God awful war then good on them.

I’m going to respond to a later comment of yours here for the sake of visibility.

Tucker Carlson flew to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin last year. That trip was financed by Tenant Media - the same group that was revealed to have been financed by Russia for the sake of spreading Russian talking points. Justin Trudeau gave testimony under oath that Tucker was shilling for Russia.

• How Russian operatives covertly hired U.S. influencers to create viral videos

• Right-wing US influencers say they were victims of alleged Russian plot

• Tucker Carlson Funded by Russian Propaganda Machine, Justin Trudeau Testifies Under Oath

It is more challenging, generally, to show that politicians are illegally taking money from foreign interests because the pathways by which money is publicly disclosed are more well-known. So the pathways through which money may be hidden can also be followed to disguise the source of income. Unless one gets caught.

As did an aid of Rand Paul’s, who helped funnel Russian money into the RNC during the 2016 election, and whom was later pardoned by Trump, at Rand Paul’s urging.

• Former Rand Paul aide, pardoned by Trump, charged with funneling Russian money into 2016 election

• Ex-Rand Paul aide pardoned by Trump convicted of illegally funneling Russian cash to Trump campaign

As far as Gabbard is concerned - no money trails, but even her own staff think she’s compromised.

• Tulsi Gabbard’s Own Ex-Staffers Expose Her as a Russian Stooge

Some right wing influencers have already been shown to take Kremlin money

known Kremlin parrots conveniently oppose the war for ulterior motives

What "ulterior motives" if not for being Putin's puppets? It can't be because they aren't Israel's puppets like Cruz or Trump. It can't be because war with Iran is fucking stupid.

Never once did I say that solely being against war with Iran meant someone was Putin's puppet. Never. Either work on your reading comprehension or get your eyes checked.

What I did say is that those specific Republican members who are known Kremlin parrots conveniently oppose the war for ulterior motives. This much is clear.

I don't give a fuck about those people. What I give a fuck about is this:

Watching the divide in republican circles on Iran has been a great way to see who is under Kremlin control.

Is conflating being against the war with Iran with being Putin's puppet and is drumming support for the war. Stop supporting Trump's war.

To the contrary, I am conflating the **fact** that the alleged "anti-war" person (your words) suddenly wasn't "anti-war" when Russia invaded Ukraine as being a Putin puppet; that, and the fact that US intelligence reports found that Russia was promoting Tulsi as the Democratic primaries candidate in 2020, among other things.

Bystanders take note how this individual is trying really hard to separate Tulsi Gabbard from the Kremlin. Like, *really* hard. Deflections and all.

Do not conflate being against the war with Iran as being a Putin puppet.

Oh, so Tulsi Gabbard definitely 100% publicly denounced Russia's unprecedented act of aggression and imperial invasion of Ukraine, right...?

... Right... ?

Sounds like something one of Putin's puppets would say.

Real Americans yell TACO at trump until he bombs Iran.

Im not currently impressed but may change my tune within the year

Yeah, but have you seen Russian grocery stores? They have food!

All of those things you mentioned? Exactly what I was referencing earlier.

Definitely a fair point with one of Russia’s key military suppliers potentially being crippled, I agree. There have been other republican detractors in congress who don’t fall into the same boat and, again, I’m not sure I can really fault Gabbard (in this very specific context mind you) for just reiterating what the US’ own intelligence is saying.

I'm just saying that it's amusing the only anti-war Republicans in the administration and Congress are ones who've long looked, acted, and quacked like Kremlin assets:

• You've got Tulsi Gabbard literally echoing Kremlin propaganda verbatim on Western imperialism (yet not making a peep about Russia's invasion of Ukraine)

• You've got Tucker Carlson flying to Moscow, simping for Putin, trying to show how great Russia is in contrast to the USA.

• You've got Rand Paul flying to Moscow hand-delivering letters on behalf of Trump.

There may be an intersection of my desire to not want to escalate for completely different reasons, and Kremlin operatives not wanting their ally and arms supplier to be crippled, but that is all.

Yeah the entire US intelligence arm, really any public intelligence period, etc.

I vehemently disagree with those folks you mentioned but gotta say, not wanting to get involved in another war in the Middle East built on outright lies doesn’t make them Kremlin controlled. It’s other things.

Yeah real red blooded Americans want world war III

This is just "the anti Vietnam War protestors are secretly working for the soviets" for the modern era. There were just as many conspiracies that left liberals were secretly agents of Moscow in the 60s.

Anti-war people being consistent in their anti-war stance somehow means they're Putin's puppets.

Putin this in my Putin wishlist.

Mr Putin come get your puppet under control

Watching the divide in republican circles on Iran has been a great way to see who is under Kremlin control. Most are who we already knew: Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson, Rand Paul, etc.

What are they going to do? Record 3 hour video of p*tin narrating imaginary history?

Russia's basically already on two fronts and just lost a huge proportion of its strategic bombers.

“Very negatively” as opposed to what? Mild negativity?

You have to think at this point the White House is just like two armed camps. The people that work for Putin and the people who work for Netanyahu. Few years ago I'd say they were sharing an uneasy truce, maybe even a burgeoning friendship, but now? God I hope they tear themselves apart.

trump really forgot the only reason he has a razor thin congressional majority, is Russia blackmailing Congress members into supporting him

Putin can make them all stop supporting trump just as easily.

Oh no are they going to lose another million soldiers about it and crash their economy even harder?

translation from Russian: they will keep bombing schools and hospitals in Ukraine, but now it's going to be a "reaction" just because they were provoked

Killing Khamenei would be a bad move. That's how martyrs are made, and they are already dialed up to 11 in Iran, so there is no reason to pour even more oil in the fire.

I hate war.

But if daddy Vladdy is mad…

I still hate war.

Putin has already requested that Chuck Schumer write a strongly worded letter on his behalf.

Oh no. Anyways I still hope he gets the Gaddafi treatment and still don't want America to go to war with Iran.

Khamenei is weak. Maybe he wasn’t in the beginning, but he has been for the past decade or so. Killing him is risky for US and Israel as that may potentially give Iran another stronger leader. Russia doesn’t want change either as Khamenei is known and manageable.

Meh. I don't see much steering room for their course. It isn't Russia by the way, it's Putin and his regime.

>"Russia is very afraid", Peskov said. "We cannot afford to lose an already weakened partner in a region where Russia is losing more and more influence" he proceeded.

++reasonsToDoIt

They have an army of donkeys lined up at the border.

etc