> Pointless if they use a conventional payload (too small payload to be cost effective militarily)

Iran's missiles are used as a terror weapon against civilian population, which is hardly what anyone would consider the optimal use of a rather expensive ballistic missile.

No reason (apart for already proven suicidal tendencies) not to fire one on New York just for the terror value

> a non manoeuvrable warhead (would just be intercepted)

Intercepted? In the UK, by what? London has no missile defence system that I am aware of.

> is that we have leaders who actively believed the downplaying of Irans military capabilities

We've been hinting about these capabilities for decades [0]. A lot of what is being brought up now is stuff a number of us touched on during the Obama years.

None of this is really hidden either - it would be brought up in think tanks and even undergrad classes if you attended a target program.

Civilian leaders have always had a hands-off approach to Defense and NatSec policy - once you show them how close to a polycrisis everything is they quickly defer responsibility. It's actually pretty similar to working in a corporate environment - it's all about managing upwards.

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missil...

Obviously they have boats. The question is, do they still have boats which are capable of serving as a launch platform for ballistic missiles? And could those boats meaningfully close the distance between Iran and its adversaries.

This launch demonstrates that if the answer to both of those questions is still no, they can still place them at threat.

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This "religious ruling" stuff is less interesting than it sounds. To begin with, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a totalitarian state, the Twelver Shia hierarchy isn't unified. The supposed ban on nuclear weapons was Khamenei's, and binding only on his followers. But there are several other marja (marjas? marji?), with significant followings even in the security state & IRGC (al-Sistani being a good example).

More importantly, it's pretty clear that the geopolitical rulings are, well, geopolitical in nature. Iran is a nuclear threshold state; its strategy is to come as close to the breakout line as it can and extract concessions for not crossing it. The supposed nuclear fatwa is just public relations strategy. At the point Iran decided the cost/benefit/risk/reward of crossing the threshold made sense, it would be updated.

Maybe don't murder the religious leader that made the rulings.

Can anyone blame them for considering developing nuclear weapons for real now? I can't.

> The question of whether the world can assume its security on some religious rulings of some Ayatollas

I don't think much of the world has processed that Iran's ostensible lack of nuclear weapons is purely a matter of will and not capability.

You didn't have to take their word for it. It was self-evident from the fact they never did anything like this before, and now they are.

Notably, the previous guy issued a religious decree against the development of nuclear weapons. Despite American's favorite propaganda tool for manufacturing consent, "but the WMDs", we have no reason to believe that was ever actually being violated. But you'd better believe it will be now if they think they can pull it off.

Like they flattened Afghanistan? It is funny people thinks land war in an huge mountainous country with 90 million people is easy.

What incentive would Iran have to lie? Their entire security model revolves around believable deterrence—apparently far more believable than either Israel or the US understood.

> On the other hand if Iran was to fire a missile at continental Europe I would hope that the consequence for them would be to be flattened

Iran have been attacking uninvolved NATO member Turkey for a while now and nothing happens. The USA is already fully engaged into this war while Europe can hardly deal together with Russia, it is doubtful they'd do anything even if it rained down on their territory

Actually it would be better to kill Netanyahu and the IDF.

This was a religious war launched by Israel during Purim, a Jewish holiday celebrating the mass murder of Persians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim

Well some civilians have been injured when Iran attacked the hotels where US agents were stationed. Mostly due to them being foreign workers and well we all know how Dubai and the Saudis treat foreign workers. They were not allowed evacuate in time.

Of course it will be hard to completely avoid civilian casualties in the long run, I fear but yeah Iran has been pretty measured. Iran's fight is with the US imperialists and Israel and not the people that live in the region.

Thousands, not tens of thousands. Which is bad enough so it seems silly to lie about this but whoever can make up the biggest number seems to favored by the Western narrative.

And let us not act like the decades of sanction were not designed to do exactly this. Sanctions mean you create as much hardships as possible for the people in hope they topple their government. They nearly never work but here we are.

> Contrary to popular belief, economic sanctions are ineffective in fulfilling their objectives. Historical observations from Russia to Cuba and Iran reveal that the more sanctions are designed to pressure the ruling class, the harder ordinary citizens are hit. Leaders often perceive sanctions as a means to enhance nationalism, portraying the United States and its allies as hostile. In many instances, such actions have only strengthened their hold on power while stifling dissent internally.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yljdgwppzo

As for the protests, the truth is also that these were not peaceful protests. Mossads agents had been arming people and instructing them to riot. Hundreds of police offers have been murdered and mosques have been burned down. Mossad agents have been instructed to fire at protestors to increase the death toll.

Yes, there has been valid criticism and unhappiness with the government. But most of these people had been protesting for economic reasons. They didn't want to see their country invaded.

Today many of the people that had protested in January are joining the mass demonstrations in favor of the Islamic Republic. The war has united the Iranians.

Well China is still getting Iranian oil no problem.

We in the West, well we are aiding the US in this war by allowing it to operate from military bases in our countries. We deserve it for looking the other way while Israel has been mass murdering Palestinians for more than two years now.

At least Spain showed some guts.

Of course it will also potentially cause suffering in the global south but that is on those that started the war.

That's incorrect:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/02/middleeast/us-b2-bombers-dieg...

Yeah, US/Israel won this war as quickly as Russia won their war with Ukraine. Incredible how much winning you can do once you get over-confident.

> destroying

The same Iran that just launched missiles at Diego Garcia, a critical American base? The same one that severely damaged Qatari LNG infrastructure two days ago? The same one that continues sending missile and drone attacks at various targets? Has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz and forced a +50% spike in oil prices? Ruled by the regime that has no intention of going anywhere?

We must have different definitions of destroyed.

No, the US/Israel are losing the war. Iran is successfully controlling the economic situation and continuously removing western forces from the Middle East. They are also successfully targeting Israel every day. There's very little support for this war in the US and Trump is on the ropes.

The IRGC is fighting for survival, most Iranian want them gone, and Iran will be better as a whole if the IRGC is all dead. Don't try to conflate the government with the country, they don't always align.

Iranian kids have been chanting death to Israel and death to USA for 47 years now. They’ve been waiting for this.

There’s only so many decades you can say “death to America, death to Israel” and fund proxies against them until they say enough is enough and deal with the baiting once and for all.

The whole point of that noise is to put NATO + Japanese military in the Straits of Hormuz so that Israel and the US can continue to attack Iran with impunity. Any effort by Iran to shut the Straits in response to further attacks will hit some "innocent" party and drag them into the conflict.

It's basically bait for WW3, and luckily so far the EU particularly are not biting.

Americans and Israelis literally started this war by bombing an Iranian girl's school. They've been bombing Iran every day since then.

> Would the Americans and Isreali’s start bombing mainland Iran and takin out their weapons and oil/gas infrastructure as retaliation?.

No that’s too easy.

Give hope to Iran / Islamic world for a few months, then take it away.

Sometimes getting shot down is the goal or at least a test to see what kind of response you’ll get

Sometimes it’s worth it to test in production

Agreed, there’s so much intelligence in this act it’s really astonishing

So we can only reach stalemate once a country has nukes and otherwise start blowing up their schools?