U.S. intelligence shows Iran retains substantial missile capabilities

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/us/politics/iran-missiles-us-intelligence.html

by hebelehubele • 2 months ago

53 32 2 months ago

Suprises no one. I remember reading that the IRGC is quite a distributed organization, and has planned for the exact situation they find themselves in today.

Im guessing they have lots of stuff stashed away only known to each IRGC "section"

stock_toaster• 2 months ago

Suprises no one.

Well, it is maybe a surprise to at least _one_ person! /s

pseudohadamard3• 2 months ago

It's not just that, the entire Iranian government setup is designed to make it as difficult as possible to get rid of them. Their government isn't built around checks and balances or the other usual things, it's a group that came to power through revolution and have done everything possible to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to them. The result is a baroque interlocking system of councils and bodies and roles without any single point of failure.

Which any career diplomat and analyst in the USG would have known, but clearly came as a complete surprise to a motley collection of reality TV stars, religious nutcases, and former Fox news pundits.

jacknews2• 2 months ago

... so we need to hit them again...

johng2• 2 months ago

If their regular missiles are bad enough, just imagine them with nukes.

jacknews2• 2 months ago

Did they fire their missiles before they were surprise-attacked by Trump?

IMHO they should have nukes as a deterrent and to balance Israel.

bigyabai• 2 months ago

That sounds like Israel's problem. Iran doesn't possess a large enough missile to credibly nuke the US.

CamperBob23• 2 months ago

They could have had nukes long ago. They exercised restraint. We didn't. Just imagine the regret they are experiencing now.

Basically, Trump has taught some terrible people that they should have been even worse. The lesson will not be lost on their descendants.

tejohnso2• 2 months ago

I imagine with nukes they'd be much like Russia, or Pakistan, or India, or China. In other words, showing restraint and intelligence, and having a deterrent against wars of aggression from the world's highest-funded army.

megous• 2 months ago

US will kill more people through secondary effects of their aggression against Iran, than Iran's nuke ever would directly. True barbarians, except I understand English, so they sound to me less like bar bar bar, and more like a*holes. My gf tries to convince me US americans just don't care and are more like a bear in a porcelain shop. But dunno, I look at Cuba, Iran, Israel and lot of other places americans are very aggressive in/against and it's more like a*holes at this point to me. Whole porcelain shop is suffering. This just isn't the "we are big and stumbled a bit and broke stuff", anymore.

glaslong• 2 months ago

All we seem to have done is prove to every non-nuclear country that they all SHOULD have nukes. Because it would have prevented Iran being invaded.

bayarearefugee• 2 months ago

You really think the President of the United States would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?

pseudohadamard3• 2 months ago

It depends. Does it count as a lie if you don't know you're lying?

lo_zamoyski• 2 months ago

The amount of buffoonery on the US side is staggering.

1. Iran is always 2 weeks away from having nuclear missiles.

2. Iran's military capability is destroyed.

3. If Iran had nuclear warheads, it could successfully deploy them against the US.

4. If Iran had nuclear warheads and could deliver them, their leadership is so suicidal/stupid that it would trigger MAD.

Truly staggering buffoonery.

tejohnso2• 2 months ago

Also, the USRAEL regime keeps feigning diplomacy after committing multiple egregious acts of perfidy. On more than one occasion they started bombing during or at beginning of negotiations.

josefritzishere• 2 months ago

Bonus points for the correct use of the word perfidy. Great word.

nostrademons• 2 months ago

The enemy is both strong and weak.

pseudohadamard3• 2 months ago

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink".

gsibble• 2 months ago

Article from the NYT with a vested interest in making the admin look bad = doubt

amanaplanacanal• 2 months ago

This administration doesn't need any help to look bad.

pengaru• 2 months ago

"intelligence"

pentaphobe• 2 months ago

Wait, so you're saying there are "WMDs" in the Middle East?

Fun and totally not sarcastic fact fact: the opposite of "Deja vu" is "jamais vu"

akagusu• 2 months ago

Why this was flagged? Censorship?

U.S. intelligence shows Iran retains substantial missile capabilities

Related Stories