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Comment by jameshilliard | Hacker News Reader

> it was never about nuclear weapons

The only reason to enrich uranium to 60% like Iran was doing is for nuclear weapons purposes.

That's not the point. The point is that the attacks on Iran are not about the nuclear weapons. Iran entered the JCPOA and complied with it, it had completely suspended any nuclear weapons program. But that didn't matter for Israel and their sycophants in US foreign policy, because for them the nuclear weapons program is at best only one part of the problem. Their real problem is that Iran is an independent state in the region that refuses to accept Israel's occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and parts of Lebanon, and that refuses to comply with US policies more broadly.

Overall the goal is not to stop Iran's nuclear program, though that is part of it. The goal would be to install a government in Iran that is friendly to Israel and the USA, or, failing that, to completely destroy their economy and defense such that they effectively can't act outside their own borders.

> Israel's occupation of ... parts of Lebanon

Which parts of Lebanon does Israel occupy?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/14/un-peacekeepers-sa...

> The wall extends across the so-called Blue Line and has made “more than 4,000 square metres [43,055sq feet] of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the Lebanese people”

So you're saying Israel's occupation of Lebanon amounts to 4,000 square metres? About the area of an athletics track, I guess? (Not counting the bit inside the athletics track.)

How much land area, exactly, is another nation allowed to seize by force before it becomes unacceptable to you? It obviously is not that much given the tone of your message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_confl...

That's not the question I'm interested in. The question I'm interested in is whether it's correct to claim that Israel occupies "parts of Lebanon", particularly in the context in which the claim was made, next to the claim that it occupies Gaza and the West Bank.

I could have sworn that I saw a goalpost here. Why is it over there now?

The goalpost is "Israel's occupation of ... parts of Lebanon". Do you agree with tsimionescu that Israel occupies parts of Lebanon? Can you back that up?

Yes I agree, and yes, I have backed it up already.

Do you mean with the link to Wikipedia? Could you clarify exactly what part of it backs up your claim?

Yes, if you are able and willing to follow those sources you can end up on for example this United Nations page https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/unifil-statement-14-november-...

> In October, UNIFIL peacekeepers conducted a geospatial survey of a concrete T-wall erected by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) southwest of Yaroun. The survey confirmed that the wall crossed the Blue Line, rendering more than 4,000 square metres of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the Lebanese people.

Right, OK, I guess if you're complaining about some land about the area of an athletics running track then you are technically correct. I'm not sure that's what people would have understood by tsimonescu's original claim that Israel is occupying parts of Lebanon.

And what exactly is Israel doing there, on that land the size of an athletics track? Something very nefarious?

How much land area, exactly, is another nation allowed to seize by force before it becomes unacceptable to you? It obviously is not that much given the tone of your message.

My answer to that question is context dependent. I don't have a strong objection to Israel occupying 4,000 square metres of Lebanon.

But I think we're established the answer to the question I originally asked. Thanks for participating.

The south. It's not a real occupation like the west bank, it's more of a 'raid and pillage' thing. No rape reported yet, so it isn't at all like the West Bank.

Israel only has outposts in Lebanese territory.

In Syria, Israel had a buffer zone since 1974. Last year they said the agreement had "collapsed" and went on to occupy even more territoru: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/26/israel-carries-out-...

Palestine is occupied.

This. Everything going on is one step closer to Israeli dominance of the region and “Greater Israel”.

No, the reason is to have a deterrence so that Iran could say, 'hey, if you attack us we'll develop nukes'.

By the way, I am a lot more worried about Israel and its actual nuclear stockpile that has zero oversight.

> By the way, I am a lot more worried about Israel and its actual nuclear stockpile that has zero oversight.

Iran regularly threatens to destroy Israel, the opposite is not the case.

there are many reasons to do nuclear research beyond medicine, for batteries like the ones powering the voyager space craft, nuclear reactors come in a wide variety of configurations, and many of them actualy produce more radioactive elements that then need to be managed. 60% is nothing,80% is nothing, it needs to be 93%++, and LOTS of it to build a bomb, and given the number of bombs already arrayed around Iran, they would need 100's and all the infrastructure to become a credible threat , for which they plainly dont have the money to afford. The wildly unpopular leaders going after Iran need a scapegoat, or rather a continious supply of scapegoats, but have failed to recognise that the world is moving past them.

60% is actually very close to 93%. To go from natural uranium (<1% U235) to 60% represents the vast majority of the effort. From 60% to 93% is actually quite quick; most of the material is already U235. And they already have enough to build maybe a dozen bombs.

They also have (had?) a very active ballistic missile program, and have conducted implosion experiments.

The constellation of evidence is quite clear: Iran is a threshold nuclear state with all the pieces necessary to credibly threaten the region (and soon the US homeland) with nuclear weapons.

Talking hypotheticals, while the actual threat to the region are the usa and israel

Nice segue.

We've gone from, "The amazing Islamic Republic of Iran isn't even capable of building deliverable nuclear weapons and they have lots of peaceful reasons to do enrichment to 60%!" to "Yeah OK, they are capable and they are indeed enriching Uranium for their weapons program--hey, look over here! USA and Israel!!!"

It's not a segue, USA and israel have been literally destabilizing the region for many decades now. They survive on chaos

And burying your facilities under a mountain is not suspect at all

Not especially. Their other facilities were being bombed routinely by Israel (along with infrastructure).

So they have medical grade uranium facility under a mountain? If that’s all they need, wouldn’t it be easier to just purchase it from a third party instead of investing billions of dollars hiding from Israel?

They have a military base under a mountain, not a uranium enrichment facility.

Building military defenses against crazed, genocidal, racial supremacists who routinely fire missiles at your country seems more like sensible forward planning to me rather than evidence of a guilty conscience.

True. Medical needs require only a lower percentage. I don't know if Iran was planning any fission reactors.

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