
Satellite Photos Reveal Extent of Damage from Iranian Strike on Air Base in Iraq - jbegley
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794517031/satellite-photos-reveal-extent-of-damage-at-al-assad-air-base
======
ping_pong
Iran wants this to end, which is why they didn't target areas that would cause
a lot of loss of life. Iran is in no position to engage the US in protracted
skirmishes, if the US hits its refineries, etc, Iran is hosed. The memes of
WW3 occurring are absurd even for Twitter.

~~~
cheez
This isn't a one-sided stand down. If the US attacks Iran blatantly, sleeper
cells around the world would probably be activated. At least this is what it
seems they signalled.

~~~
ping_pong
Sorry but this is complete fiction. Sleeper cells around the world? This is
Iran, a struggling government not Mission Impossible. There's nothing Iran
could or would do that the US doesn't do to itself via mass shootings,
wildfires, shitty government policies, etc.

If Iran did anything like a terrorist attack on US soil, it would open the
door for the US to completely devastate Iran through bombings, etc, and that's
not what the Iranian government wants. What they did was probably the smartest
thing they could do, which is show explosions on their TVs so say they
attacked back, but incur no loss of life to escalate things.

~~~
cheez
1) Iran isn't a small country. The cost to carpet bomb every square km of Iran
would be enormous. Afghanistan is a nickel candy by comparison.

2) Iran has connections with Hezbollah and god knows who else. I would not
dismiss the possibility.

3) There are enough people all over the world who would be incensed enough at
the US to self radicalize.

~~~
ping_pong
1) Why on Earth would you carpet bomb every square km of Iran? You attack
their infrastructure and their economy. That's about as simplistic as it gets.
Carpet bombing the entire country is absurd. If you're old enough to remember
the second Iraq War, the level of bombs dropped on Iraq was insane.

2) Iran is Hezbollah. They're basically the same thing.

3) If Iran attacked the US with their fictional "sleeper cells", the world
would be completely on the US side. This is why Iran didn't kill a single US
soldier in their attacks yesterday.

~~~
cheez
1) Because it's not enough. See Iraq. How many trillions are you ready to pay
for the privilege of another quagmire?

2) ok not sure I was implying different.

3) you missed the point. If the US attacked disproportionately, it is highly
unlikely that the USA would have the support of the world. At this point it
would be expected for them to retaliate through any means available. Did you
see the accuracy of their rocket? It destroyed a specific building at the
base. The reason there were no casualties was because Iran told Iraq (who told
us) that they were going to attack. No one wants an escalation.

~~~
ping_pong
1) what are you talking about? The US has no desire to occupy Iran. They would
devastate the economy by mass bombing of the infrastructure, and then
encourage a new US-friendly leader to lead a coup over the current government.
Then they would come in with US companies and have them get paid to fix the
infrastructure back. Have you not been paying attention?

2) saying that Iran has connections with the Hezbollah is like saying Trump
has connections to the Republicans. Iran IS Hezbollah. There's a difference.

3) I'm not sure what you're arguing at this point. I said the same thing. Iran
doesn't want an escalation because they know they can't win. If they caused
any US deaths, it would lead to escalating destruction of Iran. You were the
one that said "sleeper cells" around the world would start conducting
terrorist campaigns or something. But that's absurd and would never happen
because if they did, the US would make Iran pay and they would have the
support of the world. Obviously dropping a nuke on Iran is out of the
question, as is destroying cultural sites, but if these "sleeper cells" killed
Americans, you could expect massive damage to Iranian infrastructure that they
wouldn't be able to recover from in a timely manner.

~~~
cheez
If Iran feels threatened that they would be at the brink of destruction, i.e.,
with a disproportionate attack by the US, look to active operations in allied
countries.

Don't get caught up in specific words like sleeper cells or terrorism. I have
no more information than you. I just know if I don't have a nuclear bomb, I
need a nuclear option and I expect today's press conference by Iran with the
flags of all the groups they support was a signal of the threat.

Perhaps you personally profited from the Iraq war, but US taxpayers footed a
bill in the trillions to keep that going. People died. It isn't a game of Civ.

------
ISL
These images are CC-BY-SA, but I don't see a similar mark on the NPR article.
Is that a CC violation?

Edit: Thank you, Planet Labs, for making them CC-BY-SA!

~~~
cperciva
It's only a CC violation if it doesn't fall under the "news reporting" fair
use exemption.

~~~
floatingatoll
If it costs NPR nothing to include the mark, and doing so does not interfere
with their fair use, then do they have a moral obligation to do so, regardless
of whether the law permits its exclusion or not?

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throwlaplace
it's wild that there are enough high resolution commercial satellites flying
that these took less than a day to capture (i.e. how long it took for one of
Planet's swarm to be in position).

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0xff00ffee
I thought all US satellite companies had a strict set of rules regard where
they could and could not point their satellites. E.g., Dick Cheny's house was
off limits to Google Earth in the 2000's.

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Deleriumm
It really does look more like a show of force than an effort to kill. That's
some pretty impressive accuracy by the Iranians. Those were not random
impacts.

~~~
mywittyname
They sure did show those empty tents what for.

~~~
cheez
Just FYI, there was backchannelling specifying the target of the attack would
be said empty tents. At least that's the rumor mill.

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anon007
OT -

My analysis is Iran's attacking a US base directly and ensuring of no US
casualty was its best strategic option to avoid war.

1 - Iran had to save face domestically and regionally so had to attack.

2 - Most importantly, Iran had to immediately attack. With the calculation
that many types of false flags or attacks against US personal by other
entities would instantly be attributed to it.

A - Their foreign minister Zarif, made it clear that Iran will retaliate
"direct and promotional" and not through any proxies, which was the same
message signal by their Supreme leader[0]

B - After the attack ended, Zarif made it clear Iran is done with their
retaliations[1]. So to avoid being blamed for any further attack that may take
place in future date against US forces or interests.

Iran calculus probably was to avoid a high likely hood of attacks possibly
orchestrated by Saudis or other entities (who benefit from a Us-Iran
escalations) disguised as Iranian.

Having quickly retaliated, ensuring no US casualty and made it clear they're
done, they're closing the door for getting blamed for false flags and trying
to avoid additional escalations against US.

This signals a very rational and calculating player who doesn't want to
escalate against US.

The question is how much US media would now push the narrative of crossing
"red line" and forcing Trump to take escalatory military action.

One can even argue even this article uses a language like, _" Iranian missile
strike has caused extensive damage"_ and *"...show hangars and buildings hit
hard by a barrage of Iranian missiles" to set the stage for US to take re-
retaliatory steps.

[0] [http://archive.is/tqv8M](http://archive.is/tqv8M)

[1] [https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its-
resp...](https://www.newsweek.com/iran-says-it-has-concluded-its-response-us-
strike-does-not-seek-escalation-1480956)

~~~
Fjolsvith
Iran was communicating with the US to ensure there was no loss of life while
giving Iran the ability to save face.

Back channels are important.

------
wafflesraccoon
Does the Ain al-Assad air base not have some type of anti missile/air defense?
I tried to find out this information but I could not find anything off hand.

~~~
ceejayoz
Not against medium/long-range ballistic missiles.

~~~
bonestamp2
For someone who doesn't know anything about this subject matter, can you
explain why? I mean, is it a technical or legal limitation? Maybe a practical,
statistical or strategic decision?

~~~
ceejayoz
Technical. They come in substantially faster and more vertically than cruise
missiles.

~~~
rascul
Do you know which missiles were used? I haven't seen that information
anywhere.

~~~
ceejayoz
I don't think that's been made public.

Some speculation on possibilities in
[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-
national-s...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-
security/iran-used-missiles-on-us-bases-to-save-face-after-us-killed-
soleimani).

------
lm28469
Are these Iranian missiles supposed to be extremely accurate or is the lack of
deaths pure luck ?

~~~
jeffchuber
I dont think Iran wanted to kill any Americans. They knew that this strike
helped them save face. Killing soldiers would have risked an escalation. The
US also did not try to stop the missiles to allow the slap in in the face to
happen. The US wanted to let them save face.

~~~
cronix
We also had advanced warning, as did the Iraqis. They even knew the timing.
I'm sure we moved troops out of harms way. Iran's not just going to lob some
missiles into a foreign country without first telling them, because they
(Iraq) weren't the target. We picked up on that chatter and/or the host
country informed us after they knew.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Back channels are important.

~~~
jeffchuber
100%

back channels are very effective and should be embraced in business and
politics

------
retSava
Alternative link, eg for those that dislike that hard-to-navigate-"your
choice"-of-npr: [https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-
military/2020/01/08/...](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-
military/2020/01/08/see-the-damage-at-al-asad-airbase-following-iranian-
missile-strike/)

The pics are from Planet Labs, but PL does not have anything on their blog
about it.

edit: I'm surprised how little damage each hit inflicted. Purpose more to say
"we struck the US" rather than actually do damage, I suppose.

~~~
dotancohen

      > I'm surprised how little damage each hit inflicted. Purpose
      > more to say "we struck the US" rather than actually do damage, I suppose.
    

I highly suspect that these missiles had no warhead.

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duncancarroll
For a minute I thought the helicopters on the ground were poorly-photoshopped
impact marks...

------
sct202
Don't we have anti missile weapons or something like Israel's Iron Dome?

~~~
cerealbad
Lockheed makes a mobile system called THAAD. I doubt there were any deployed
in Iraq, and the effectiveness of these are dubious. The Russians put the S400
in Syria and it has performed well enough. These act more like a deterrent
than an actual viable defensive grid.

~~~
mcguire
THAAD
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense))
is a bit of a big deal in Huntsville. I'm kind of surprised it's not deployed
in the Middle East, although I suppose it wouldn't be much of a deterrent if
it isn't shown to work better than it did in testing.

