Fair point fair point, not saying this is the only egregious case. It's just particularly horrific. I'd push back on Hawaii though. Like obviously Hawaii should be free, what the United States did is horrific, but at least Hawaii still exists, you know? Like, you can go there. A Hawaiian can continue to be a Hawaiian in Hawaii, even if it's incredibly difficult and the American state is attempting to make it no longer possible. That is not the case with Diego Garcia.
Yeah but Diego Garcia is perhaps the most egregious, awful one because the entire island is now just an American air force base. Their ethnic cleaning of the island was total. They are legally not allowed to return. There are no indigenous islanders left. Their entire past has been quite literally paved over with concrete.
Well this source might be garbage but the analysis is true. We know Israel is running out of interceptors, attested to even in mainstream Western media (both WSJ and NYTimes). We know the production of those interceptors, just like most sensitive electronics, requires many Rare Earth Metals that China has an effective monopoly over. And we know that China currently has an export ban on these REMs because of Trump's tariffs. This source is just connecting the dots.
Imagine trying to start a war against the Factory of the World lol
Yeah that's what I mean, Iran surely has the ability to determine how many missiles are getting through. They can clearly see that many are. The only "feint" here is that Israel would have to be intentionally letting missiles through so that Iran makes a bigger launch and then they can intercept all of them which is uh confused.
I think this list is missing a few. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are most definitely sovereign, no question there. They are allied with the United States, sure, but they play both sides. Saudi Arabia is a member of BRICS and has a very good relationship with China. The UAE has an increasingly independent foreign policy, notably supporting a side in the Sudanese civil war actively opposed by the United States. Indonesia too is sovereign. Their decision to forbid nickel refining outside of Indonesia demonstrates this quite clearly. They're too big to be just a puppet. Finally I'd add Singapore, another "plays both sides" city state that is very savvy at protecting their own independence. You could potentially make a case for Malaysia as well, and Thailand (though these are weaker cases).
Yeah if they're gonna do it it's going to be soon I think. US intervention two weeks from now won't mean much once Iran has already taken out the bulk of Israel's sensitive sites and they're out of interceptors.
I agree it maybe a little too good to be true, but this has been our contention for a long while now, that the interceptor missiles for blowing up missiles are far more expensive and difficult to produce than the missiles themselves. We've even seen this with Yemen, let alone Iran. Likewise, what would the "misdirection" on the IDF be? We're seeing their interception rates decline. Iran shoots small waves of missiles and achieves lots of direct hits. What exactly is the point of telling Iran that they're running out of interceptors? To bait them into shooting more missiles at Israel that are going to hit more targets?
I think the only real "sovereign" NATO members (outside the United States) are France (they have their own nukes, have shown independence from NATO before and even left for a bit) and Turkey.
Trust the Plan
Yeah from what I can tell it's more bloomer by the day. Iran's people are untied, they're standing strong, and slowly whittling down Israel's supply of interceptors, striking even in the day time now. So long as TACO Trump maintains his end of the bargain Iran is in a very good place. Increasingly looking like Israel massively miscalculated. The Chinese strategy will be what it's always been, "never interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake."
Yeah this is a great play imo, best thing Pakistan can do to convince Trump not to strike Iran is this.