Attacking Iran was stupid. It defeated the point of last year's war, it's put everyone in the region at unnecessary risk and they're probably not going to achieve the regime change they desire. As others have already insinuated, the Iranian regime has planned for this attack for decades. They have contingencies on top of contingencies, which is why they're still able to inflict a lot of damage despite the command structure being wiped out. It won't surprise me if they survive this and then end up with an even more brutal and hardline regime than before but with much of the country devastated, perhaps going the same path that Syria experienced from 2011-2024. A failed state.
What would definitely be an even worse outcome from this is if the Americans and Israel are completely victorious without the Americans having suffered a lot of pain. Because this desperately needs to be the last war that Trump and his goons are allowed to start. Without pain, Trump's massive ego will be satiated for a while before he gets bored and attacks Cuba. After them, he will be delusionally confident enough to attack the rest of us, including Russia, China and/or us in Europe (via Greenland), which will only end in nuclear armageddon, whoever he picks. The Americans don't care about the consequences, only their own power. It doesn't matter how many conflicts they get themselves involved in, they will never learn anything meaningful from them.
Also Israel just can't help themselves but target schools. They do it on purpose, knowing full well that they are schools. They have a
history of doing this. They do not care if children are there or not. There's going to be many in Iran that were against regime that are initially happy about the death of the Supreme Leader are going to have second thoughts when they see that their hospitals, universities, neighbour's homes, ancient momuments, banks etc. have turned to rubble, as they realise that the US and Israel are not there to liberate them, but to neuter any potential capability for Iran to be prosperous in the future. Most are probably not going to join the IRGC or anything, but they're more likely to sit at home and wait it all out rather than protest or rebel against the regime. They're not going to think that the effort is worth it. This alienation is what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will happen in Iran.
One of Iran's goals now is clearly to cause a global economic crisis to increase opposition to the war. That's why they're attacking the GCC's civilian and oil infrastructure as well as international shipping, despite the fact that the GCC had nothing to do with America's and Israel's stupidity. I just hope at the end of this that the GCC will place just as much of the blame on the Americans and Israel for starting this as they do for Iran lashing out. Ideally telling them to leave once this is over. Oman especially has the biggest right to be angry given that the Americans duped them during the talks.
And yes, Starmer is a dunce. He keeps putting himself in binds between doing the morally right + evidence based thing and appeasing Trump, ending up with contradictory policies that do neither. We certainly should not be allowing US or Israeli forces on our soil, as that now makes us a target according to Iran's current military doctrine and it may end up dragging us in further. The GCC on the otherhand is definitely capable of defending themselves and making their own decisions. We in the UK don't need to be their saviours. Unless there's some hidden mutual defence treaty with a GCC country that I'm not aware of, the only 2 places we should be defending right now are Cyprus and the Chagos Islands. We in the UK should have the same attitudes to the Americans + Middle East as Spain, Ireland, Norway etc. Spain in particular should be commended. The Americans and Israelis are already hurling abuse at Spain and making false equivalences that refusing to let them use their soil for an illegal war is somehow akin to siding with Iran, Houthis, Hamas etc... Idiots.
Still, it could've be much worse for the UK. Kemi Badenoch (Tory party leader) proved yesterday in the Commons that she is even more of a dunce than Starmer (though I don't think that was ever in question anyway). She had a 5 minute rant about why international law shouldn't apply to the UK and was complaining that we were not attacking Iran ourselves. Farage of course, has the same view (but predictably absent from even emergency debates like these). Lib Dem leader Ed Davey seemed to be the only adult in the room, as he made it clear that Trump should be held responsible. Was great when he also took the piss out of far-right tax dodgers that immigrated to the UAE (who ironically complain about immigrants all the time), that NOW expect us to rescue them at significant cost to the taxpayer.
All in all, it's just going to be a pointless and destructive war with no tangible gain for anyone. Only psychopaths will be truly proud to be fighting in it. It needs to be fundamentally clear that the American and Israeli governments are to blame. All military treaties involving either of them (including the US's membership of NATO) should be brought into question, because it's becoming increasingly clear that THEY and not Iran are the larger threat to regional and world stability.
And it totally makes no sense to NOT at least take a few hours to coordinate with all the allied actors in the region (e.g. to prevent friendly fire...). Let alone going through congress for legitimization of this act of war. 
