The United States said the hackers sent emails, which included stolen excerpts from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, to staff of his then-rival, Joe Biden. Both presidential candidates said such attempts took place.
But they didn’t take the bait.
If something similar happens to Trump staff, they will take the bait. They did in 2016 and it worked out for them.
… Why?
I get that Trump was a worse person to deal with, but they were probably still better off with him, he was so erratic the rest of the world edged away from us.
Iran has WMDs and so does Israel. As much as Iran loves to talk about destroying Israel [and vice versa] both sides are aware that they aren’t going to survive a full on war. Look at the Cuban Missile Crisis. Russia felt they had to put weapons in Cuba, even though they knew that if they were found the US would take action. Back in the day they called it ‘Brinksmanship,’ a variation of ‘statesmanship.’ A ‘brinksman’ was a leader/diplomat who could bring his country to the edge of war without going over the edge.
You can trust Harris or Biden to have some cooler heads in the War Room. Trump listens to no one and acts like a child.
I don’t think that’s the game being played now, the new meta is forcing your enemy to be so busy tearing themselves apart that you are free to act anywhere in the world.
If Russia wins in Ukraine, then the Sino-Russian axis can start taking a more active stance in the middle-east, and Israel has to deal with Iran without a blank cheque from the US, and even Saudi Arabia has to make compromises.
It’s in all their interests that the US fall to utter chaos, and Trump is the Lord of Chaos incarnate.
The argument against that is that Iran actually had a chance under Obama to rejoin parts of the global order, and was open to that.
I think one mistake we all make in geopolitics is to see countries as monolithic, I suspect Iran has political factions that want to bury the hatchet, and factions violently opposed to the same, much like every country has different opinions among themselves.
Are these iranian WMD’s in the room with us? Cos if so, it’s time to “Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran”. Is it really that time of day again?
Funny. Israel has never admitted to having nukes but you have no problem believing that they do.
All I know is, if I were the Iranian PM and I knew that my enemies had WMDs I would be building them.
I mean, Ukraine had nukes and gave them away and look how well that turned out for them
What do you know about what I believe?
Are these iranian WMD’s in the room with us?
You’re the one who specifically mentioned Iran and ignored Israel.
I didn’t say anything about Israel. That does not communicate anything about what I think regarding the country. You don’t know what I think - you’re making assumptions. When you assume you make an ass out of u.
You also ignored the fact that Obama made a treaty with Iran regarding nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal_framework
The ignorant tend to ignore a lot of things, hence the name.
From what I’ve read in the past, Iranian state actors – influence campaigns and breaking into computers and such – have opposed another Trump presidency.
Trump greenlighted the hit on Soleimani, and is more-supportive of Israel.
Russian state actors, on the other hand, have been supportive of another Trump presidency.
I imagine that that’s something that Tehran and Moscow probably need to work out.
EDIT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/business/media/iran-disinformation-us-presidential-race.html
Iran Emerges as a Top Disinformation Threat in U.S. Presidential Race
With a flurry of hacks and fake websites, Iran has intensified its efforts to discredit American democracy and possibly tip the race against former President Donald Trump.
EDIT2: I was just (critically) discussing Microsoft’s naming scheme for hostile groups the other day. Russian ones are named “something Blizzard” and Iranian ones “something Sandstorm”.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/microsoft-threat-actor-naming
A hacker group with suspected ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called Mint Sandstorm is suspected of successfully infiltrating the campaign of Trump, a US law enforcement official said at the time.
Those Iranian guys are APT42, aka “Mint Sandstorm”.
https://www.wired.com/story/russia-fancy-bear-us-hacking-campaign-government-energy/
referring to the Hillary Clinton campaign director whose emails were stolen and leaked by APT28 ahead of the 2016 election.
https://www.logpoint.com/en/blog/emerging-threats/forest-blizzard/
The Cyber espionage group Forest Blizzard is attributed to the GRU (Russia’s military intelligence agency).
Forest Blizzard is also known by its numerous aliases: APT 28, Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sednit Gang, Sofacy Group, BlueDelta, and STRONTIUM.
And Russian guys, APT28, aka “Forest Blizzard”.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-accuses-russia-election-interference/
Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation and state-sponsored narratives as part of efforts to influence the upcoming presidential election. He said an internal planning document created by the Kremlin stated one of the campaign’s goals is “securing Russia’s preferred outcome in the election.”
The campaigns involved using “cybersquatted” domains, which are intended to mimic another entity’s domain name and trick visitors into believing they are visiting the legitimate website. These sites, Garland said, were designed to look like major U.S.-based news outlets such as the Washington Post or Fox News, by using the same layout and design, but were fake sites spreading Russian propaganda created by the Kremlin.
Among the goals of the campaigns are to “reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster pro-Russian policies and interests, and influence voters in the U.S. and foreign elections” while concealing the Russian government and its agents as the source of the content, according to the court filings.
The Justice Department accused Doppelganger of using “influencers” worldwide, paid social media advertisements and fake social media profiles purporting to be U.S. citizens to drive viewership to the domains, “all of which attempted to trick viewers into believing they were being directed to a legitimate news media outlet’s website.”
Projects directed at the U.S. include the “Good Old USA Project,” “Guerilla Media Campaign,” and “U.S. Social Media Influencers Network Project,” according to court filings.
The Justice Department obtained notes, project proposals, planning documents and other records during its investigation, some of which detail objectives, target audiences and campaign topics. The department redacted the names of the political parties and presidential candidates, labeling them only as U.S. Political Party A or B, or Candidate A or B, but the documents include information that makes them identifiable.
Objectives of the “Good Old USA” project include boosting the percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. is “doing way too much to support Ukraine,” and lowering President Biden’s confidence rating down to at least 29% in the lead-up to the November election, according to documents submitted by the Justice Department. The document appears to have been prepared in late 2023, when Mr. Biden was still seeking reelection.
EDIT3: Both the Russian and Iranian camps have been reported to be trying to increase political division and decrease trust in the American political system, so I guess they’re aligned on that much, at any rate.
To cause chaos. A nation arguing with itself will be less inclined to mess around internationally.
Sending things to both parties is more likely to cause chaos.
Sending things to both parties
That’s not what happened though.
From the article:
The United States said the hackers sent emails, which included stolen excerpts from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, to staff of his then-rival, Joe Biden. Both presidential candidates said such attempts took place.
I read this as the group attempted to send Trump’s email’s to staff of both candidate’s staff, but maybe it means both candidates confirmed the emails were sent to Biden?
Trump is an existential threat to Iran. Iran is in a regional cold[0] war with Israel. Israel’s ability to wage this war is largely dependent on US support; both in terms of raw military assistance, and in the US providing diplomatic and economic cover for Israel.
While the US had not applied nearly as much moderating pressure on Israel as I would have liked, it has still provided some. Israeli prime minister Netenyahu, in contrast, has been angling for a direct confrontation with Iran for decades now. Given the past 11 months, there are serious forces, both in Israeli politics, Iranian politics, and the inertia of war, pushing in that direction.
Trump is aligned with Netenyahu on this point, and would push him towards a direct confrontation with Iran. By all indications, Harris is not. This dynamic was made clear to Iran when the Democratic administration signed the Iran nuclear deal (against Israeli opposition), from which the US under Trump proceeded to unilaterally withdraw from.
[0] Cold might be a bit of an understatement after the last 11 months. However, apart from a brief tit-for-tat exchange, the fighting has stayed confined to Israel and Iranian proxies.
[0] Cold might be a bit of an understatement after the last 11 months. However, apart from a brief tit-for-tat exchange, the fighting has stayed confined to Israel and Iranian proxies.
That was literally my only dissent from your thesis. This is not cold, it’s tepid.
Empire has been fixated on Iran for centuries, especially since Iran escaped imperial rule in their revolution. The republican party loves to yap about bombing Iran, etc. Trump’s rhetoric about Iran is really aggressive and wild. It wound up more generally with racism, imperialism, fascism, etc.
The dems are more about liberal fascism. There’s not so much overt racism. There’s no so much over warmongering. They’re willing to “make a deal”. Obama made the nuclear deal, then Trump cancelled it out of spite… Etc.
Please stop using, like all those terms.
Texas does believe in their Christian Nationalist Imperialism where all oil on the planet was given to them by God and Brown people should understand that. This should make sense because they were less than a backwater till they realized their black gold finally made them as rich and powerful as they always should have been, and people finally had to accept that God chose them specifically.
But that’s mostly it, and Texans are just partiuclarly insane, they literally fought 2 wars of independence because their parent country wanted to tone down slavery, if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have had any of the middle eastern bullshit over the last, basically century. As oil dies down they can go back to being a worthless shithole desert and we can all ignore them again like we should.
As a Texan, shut the fuck up. It’s not our fault Paxton and Abbott and their cronies keep gerrymandering the state to stay in power.
This isn’t a now thing, what you don’t understand is that texas never belonged to you, they just let you work their ranches and oil fields.
It’s their state and always has been.
I can’t believe I get to say this, but: “it sounds like Iran and Russia have conflicting views here, which means Russia had better watch its rhetoric or risk being cut off from weapon supplies.”
Maybe they are working together to divide us regardless of the election outcome
Nah, Iran just had an easier time stealing from Trump’s camp. If Biden accepted the info, it definitely would’ve become public knowledge and Trump would’ve been non-stop talking about it.
It’s all bait trying to get the Dems to fuck themselves
Oh no, now we’ll know Trump’s campaign intends to… Let unhinged buffoon continue to do and say whatever he wants?
Any lawyers here? I believe it is illegal to accept/read private emails if you get a hold of them, but I’m not sure what the law is.
