I always knew that it was inevitable. But when the Americans told their diplomatic staff in several Middle East countries to pack up and head home on Wednesday, it became imminent.
Israel attacked Iran again, and this time it was for keeps. These two countries have been in a shadow war for decades, and have recently traded blows, right around the time that Israel was putting the boots to all of Iran’s proxy terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
When that it-for-tat business was happening between the two, I took note of the Israeli targets in Iran, and mostly took note of the fact that the Israelis stayed well clear of Iran’s nuclear facilities, something that most international pundits gave Israel credit for, as in credit for showing such remarkable restraint. Those international pundits have a shocking naivety.
During the attack where Israel responded to Iran’s futile and pathetic ballistic missile and drone attack on Israel itself, the Israelis hit a large number of air defence installations inside of Iran, almost all of them Russian-made, including some of Russia’s latest, batteries of the S-400 SAM —surface to air missile — system.
The experts classified it as a “measured” response. But any student of Israel and the Israeli military would see something entirely different. Instead of a measured response, by knocking out those air-defence systems, the Israelis were preparing for the real assault that would come some day in the future, some day before the Iranians had a chance to replace those destroyed batteries.
By taking out those air defences several months ago, the Israelis laid the groundwork for yesterday’s assault, where no fewer than 200 Israeli warplanes ranged through Iranian airspace unopposed, having their way with their target packages, this time intent on decapitating the Iranian nuclear capability and killing or maiming senior Iranian commanders. And that’s exactly what happened. Israel hit the supposedly impenetrable nuclear installations that the Iranians had built in their quest for nuclear weapons, although they’d tell you the whole thing was intent on fulfilling civilian purposes, like generating electricity.
Not only that, but the Israelis have confirmed, as have the Iranians, the deaths of three senior Iranian generals, including the leaders of the Republican Guard, the nuclear program, and the Iranian armed forces.
In other words, Israel has hit Iran, they’ve hit them hard, and have no doubt that they will hit them again, perhaps even harder. The Israelis don’t strike you so they can sit back and read their press clippings. They hit you to kill you, and don’t make any mistake about that.
Iran, of course, shook its mighty fist and sent a package of missiles and drones back towards Israel, but every single one of them was identified and shot down long before they got anywhere near Israeli airspace. Not only that, but the United States has no fewer than three aircraft carriers in the region, along with their strike groups, which means that there are literally thousands of American missiles within range of Iran should they be needed. I won’t get into all the additional air power the Americans have stationed throughout the region. Quite simply, the Iranians never had a chance.
The Americans insist that they had nothing to do with the strike, nor did they know about it beforehand. That’s a lie, and the American pull-out of diplomatic staff is the biggest indicator that they were aware of an impending attack, or at least knew something was up. The Americans would also be keenly aware of over 200 aircraft signatures suddenly on the move across the region, since nothing bigger than a mosquito would be invisible to their own air defence radars and their own situational awareness.
Currently, the Americans are in negotiations with Iran about the Iranians scaling back their nuclear ambitions in exchange for the Americans lifting the crippling sanctions they’ve imposed on Iran for over a decade. This Israeli attack gives the Americans added leverage in those discussions, since now the Americans will tell Iran to get more serious or face additional attacks that they can’t stop.
The Israelis, for their part, are also claiming that they have no issue with the Iranian people themselves, but only with their theocratic government led by an eighty-something Ayatollah who spits fire and damnation Israel’s way with every breath. Israel says that Iranians now have an opportunity to throw off this theocracy, and getting rid of the supporting, and often violent structures that support the regime. Civil unrest is never far from the surface in Iran, so one can’t rule out a civilian uprising in the face of the crippling Israeli attacks.
I’m surprised the Israelis didn’t manage to kill the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, but you can be sure that fellow won’t have a decent night’s sleep ever again.
All of this is just more demonstrable proof that Iran is no match for Israel militarily, and the Israelis are keen and more than willing to ensure that this remains the status quo for a long time, which in Israeli terms, means forever. Not only that, but Iran stands alone. They have one benefactor, and that’s Russia, and the Russians are in tough against the Ukrainians at the moment, and even if they weren’t, would be in no rush to have dozens of their own aircraft shot down by an Israeli Air Force that’s far superior in training, tactics, and equipment. And so, if even on a good day the Iranians have the Russians in their corner, the Israelis have the Americans in theirs, and the Americans didn’t assemble all that military strength in the region just so that they could say they did. They put those assets in theatre in order to deploy them, and to use them, and it will be Iran that bears the brunt of any American military action. And anybody thinking that the Israelis and the Americans haven’t collaborated on these attacks, and the ones still to come, are a little out of it in the realpolitik sense.
Nobody will shed a tear for the demise of Iran as it’s presently constituted. The removal of the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard from power presents Iranians with the possibility of entering into the world, not as pariahs bent on causing trouble, but as a member of the family of nations in good standing.
It would remove one nation from the four-pack of nations that present the most trouble on the world stage, the others being Russia, China, and North Korea.
North Korea is as precarious as Iran, except they have nuclear weapons. But the Hermit Kingdom could go down in flames at the flick of a wrist, removing another international irritant. And once the Russians finish self-destructing in Ukraine, that will leave China isolated as troublemaker In chief, although a weakened Russia may have the Chinese eye-balling all that land the Russians stole from them over a century ago, something that still stings Chinese national pride.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 