90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from the internet

Re:90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from ... by epsters on Tuesday January 13, 2026 @03:39PM (#46607586)

  War         Duration            Population               Deaths
  Iraq war    2003-2017-present   25 million (2005)        500 - 1 million 
  Syrian war  2012-2025-present   21 million (2012)        500 - 600,000
  Libyan war  2011-2021-present   6.5 million (2010)       50 - 100k

This is looking like its going to be another Syria/Libya-style foreign-intervention if Israel gets its way (which seems to be the case). Which means multiple proxy factions backed by various regional and global powers in a grand chessboard. The opposition already seems to be disjointed. To add to the mess, The Israelis seem to be backing the son of the late Shah to install as a tinpot dictator and Europe/Washington and the western media are going along with it dutifully. The Kurdish rioters and sleeper cells already seem to be firing their weapons and may at some point decide to make a break for it. Which risks destabilising Iraq and Syria (again) and likely draw involvement from those countries. Which will likely in turn , draw in the Turks and Gulf monarchs. By which point there is a good chance of this devolving into a conflict divided along ethnic and sectarian lines with a possible resurgence of ISIS and Al Qaeeda. The Israelis and their western-backers seem quite content with all this. The Israelis will likely seek to maximize and prolong the chaos in keeping with the Yinon plan to break apart Iran (along with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia) so they can establish themselves as a regional hegemon.

"90 million" is a good number to keep in mind because going by the numbers and history, such a war would at minimum last 10 years and cost a million lives and trigger another even larger refugee crisis. As is now custom, it looks like the common people of the region will bear the brunt of the impact with Europe suffering the secondary fallout while America foots the bill and Israel reaps the rewards. I say all this because i see lot of people cheering this on and it is important for them to know what exactly they are cheering for. We saw all this happen over and over in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in Palestine, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Sudan. Are we going to pretends it going to turn out different this time? That this time it really is about freedom and democracy and humanitarianism?

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Re:90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from ... by nojvek on Tuesday January 13, 2026 @04:17PM (#46608186)

Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Yemen. It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.

Meanwhile Europe aggressively killed each other during WWI and WWII and then went into a peaceful union with a free trading bloc.

Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?

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Re:90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from ... by C6JEsQeQa5fCjE on Tuesday January 13, 2026 @07:38PM (#46610758)

> It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.

> Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?

A reminder that Britain and France carved up the Ottoman empire and created mini states along ethnic and tribal lines, and then also planted Israel in the middle of it all, specifically in order to PREVENT a reunification of the Middle East (and eastern North Africa). Before that, there was the Ottoman Empire.

Why would external dominant forces WANT a united middle east, with a state that would control such vast resources and so many geographic choke points? Might does not want competition. Might wants vassals. Similarly, Western Might wants a collapse and fragmentation of Iran since it does not align with them geopolitically.

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