Pre-match: The inevitable war with Iran

Well, well, well. France 24 reports Iran as saying that a ceasefire in Gaza is more valuable than retaliation against Israel.

 

He's now a Zionist hero for bombing the F out of the neighbors. Odds of him going to jail are about the same as Trump's unfortunately.

 

If you go into your house and steal you toilet paper does not mean what I did was pathetic or anticlimatic because I only stolen toilet paper. What I did I showed is how can easily I can enter your house. But honestly I think Israel destroyed some important stuff

https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...uel-mixing-facilities-researchers-2024-10-26/

Also

.@ronenbergman tells @CNN this morning that the preliminary assessment in #Israel based on intelligence and public statements is that #Iran's regime will respond to the Israeli strike on Saturday.

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) October 27, 2024

IF this happens it means the attack was not pathetic?

 

My initial impression about Israel's strike was based on the combination of (a) family members in Tehran not even realizing there had been any attack until woken up by relatives outside calling to check on them and (b) the fact that there were no visible signs accessible to ordinary people of the reported damage and how there wasn't any impact on people daily morning routine. Life in Iran after these strikes was as normal as ever. The drop in the exchange rate for the USD after the attack was another indication of sorts...

However, now, some 48 hours afterwards and reading and listening to various reports from all sides, my take is as follows:

1. Israel planes launched long range air-to-surface missiles from outside Iranian air space which, although carrying relatively light munitions that don't cause huge explosions, are nonetheless apparently very precise. They managed some hits that count (albeit not even remotely as much as the propaganda would suggest).
2. I dismiss the notion that Iran's solid-fuel missile production capability will suffer any serious lasting repercussions from this attack. Nonetheless, I believe Israel has sufficient intelligence assets to have targeted some facilities that matter, albeit none things Iran won't be able to fix up quickly. If there is any material that is truly critical, I am sure Iran would have places to store them in underground facilities that cannot be damaged by ordinary munitions much less relatively light warheads.
3. I don't expect Iran to respond to this Israeli attack before the US election, but Iran will likely respond eventually (despite having a "reformist" aligned government administration more into "diplomacy" and appeasement than military force). I don't think the response will involve another major fireworks over Israel like in October. It will likely be more limited and focus on some similar enough Israeli facility. If there is an agreed ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, Iran might even forego a response altogether.

 

What satellite images reveal about strikes on Iran

It looks like the attack was significant and, unlike the Iranian attack that preceded it, Israel managed to hit their targets with great precision.

Iran, for its part is vowing "bitter and unimaginable consequences" in response...

Israel war: Iran says it will target Israel after weekend attack

 

Literally, just like every IM post

 

So, you think it's bluster and everyone's stepping back from the brink? Hope so.

 

To be precise, I break into your house, twice in a single year, and steal toilet paper, damaging your burglar alarm and CCTV system both times and quite extensively the second time, despite telling you the parts of your house I wasn't going to rob in advance, means that I can break into your house any time I damn well please and steal anything I want.

It means I might not be the greatest master burglar the world has ever seen, but you need a new burglar alarm system, fast.

A new architect would be useful, too.

So would a contractor not on the take.

 

I am 54 years old - the Iranian Revolution happened when I was 8

Iran, for all it's Islamic Revolution bluster will not wage a conflict that will involve the US and/or NATO choking them into submission, just so the Saudi's can achieve regional geopolitical dominance. That saber has been rattling my entire life

 

Hey - I just want everyone to know that for the last 60+ probably closer to 100 years, Architects do not design residences unless they are for themselves or are of a scale that is required by law - generally 3,500 SF and up, which infers that the clients are wealthy enough for us to put up with (usually) and their nagging changes...

 

Huh?

I had an architect design my 1300 sq ft farmhouse renovation.

 

Perhaps, then again, they hadn't sent missiles (direct from Iran) into Israel until just this year...those strikes went well beyond saber rattling even though they did little damage.

 

Sole praticioner?

 

Technology has evolved from convincing young Palestinians to strap bombs onto themselves and getting on buses in Tel Aviv

 

There's some reports that Israel war cabinet has approved an additional strike on Iran, in supposed retaliation for the Hezbollah drone strike against Netanyahu's house in Caesarea.

 

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
The Mullahs want to change the world
They tell me it's not devolution
Well, you know
They all wanna change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out, in

 

Approving it is a good idea and leaking that approval is an excellent idea. So is doing it as part of a wider operation.

Doing it as a stand-alone operation is a very bad idea.

Letting Khamenei have the Sword of Damocles hang over him is a more powerful deterrent to the regime than cutting his head off.

Then again, Netanyahu's Louis XIV complex is off the charts so who knows?

 

It was a "shaping operation" to prepare the battlefield for further operational or strategic-level attacks in the (very) near future, on the shaper's terms. Such operations are limited in scale and often relatively precise but they can have a serious impact.

The S-300 systems, the crown jewels of Iran's air defences that protected key strategic targets, were decimated in a textbook SEAD operation. While the heavy hits to key nodes in the country's missile and drone production lines are important, the destruction of the S-300 radars leaves Iran, in one analyst's words, "essentially naked" in front of the Israeli air force.

The more advanced Iranian missiles are effective and there are enough of them to take advantage of any saturation attack(s) overwhelming Israeli air defences to hit key targets with precision. If that happens, Israel will suffer real military and economic damage to strategic targets or sectors and civilian casualties could be high.

Iran's problem is that uncalibrated PGM strikes piggybacking on saturation attacks is its only offensive option. Given Israeli and US intel dominance, any mass attack will be detected well in advance and neutered in a pre-emptive strike. With Israel's air force able to fly more or less at will and strike whenever and wherever it wants Israel has a vast array of targeting options and levels of damage to choose from.

It's near-textbook escalation dominance.

 

A draft ceasefire agreement in Lebanon that is close to finalization. Kann public TV's diplomatic editor (Suleiman Maswadeh for Israelis here) has posted a copy on Twitter.

Apart from the usual - full cessation of hostilities, right to self-defense, only UNIFIL and the Lebanese army (LAF) south of the Litani, etc. it specifies that
* LAF must stop Hezbollah's rearmament by blocking arms imports and infrastructure building.
* the IDF stays in Lebanon for 60 days, during which time Hezbollah will begin to retreat
* after 60 days, Israel evaluates progress & if it is satisfied, the states will start negotiating full implementation of 1701 and outstanding border issues

Apart from the Israel-Lebanon bilateral elements, there is also a verification mechanism:
* the US will chair a monitoring mechanism to investigate violations within "a reasonable timeframe"
* Israel has the right to act militarily if recognized violations are not addressed
* Israel gains a recognized right to stage reconnaissance overflights in Lebanese airspace

This is a clear acknowledgement of defeat by Iran. Acceptance of an American arbitration mechanism giving the IDF a legal right to act in Lebanon is a complete humiliation for the "axis of resistance", which has to add some long-overdue spine to the LAF/UNIFL disarmament mission. Above all, Lebanon is explicitly decoupled from Gaza.

The "unity of the fronts" is shattered, leaving Hamas politically and ideologically isolated. Whether they can accept that or retain the cohesion to act accordingly is another matter.

 

חשיפה בכאן 11: זוהי טיוטת ההסכם המלא שמתגבש בין ישראל ללבנון. ההסכם נוסח ע״י המתווך האמריקני עמוס הוכשטיין, והונח על שולחנה של ישראל. בכירים ישראלים אומרים שהדרג המדיני מרוצה מהטיוטה וסיכוייו גבוהים. הנה הטיוטה המלאה >>>> pic.twitter.com/39sZianq8m

— Suleiman Maswadeh סולימאן מסוודה (@SuleimanMas1) October 30, 2024

 

From my perspective, these reports you are relying on regarding the impact of Israel's strikes are fanciful propaganda. For now, it is clear that the Israelis didn't feel they could risk having aircraft fly into Iranian airspace and instead used long range (ballistic) air to ground missiles fired from outside Iranian territory. This is significant because there are limited number of such missiles Israel has and their warheads are relatively small.

In any case, rest assured the S300 is hardly the "crown jewel" of Iran's air defense network; Iran's domestically produced Bavar 373 is superior to it and the backbone of Iran's integrated air defense network are a plethora of domestically produced systems.

Don't get me wrong: while over 50% of the missiles fired by Israel were successfully intercepted by Iran's air defense network, enough got through to damage some buildings in several bases and possibly damage or destroy some S300 batteries. Notably, however, none of Iran's Bavar 373 missile batteries were impacted and that is much more significant because both in terms of quantity and quality, the Bavar system is much more important to Iranian air defense.

 

While my own expectation is that any Iranian retaliation will take place after Nov 5, Iran has made it clear that it finds the US/Biden administration complicit in the Israeli strike against Iran as the Israelis were allowed to use Iraqi air space corridors provided to the US. As a result, there are reports about Iran planning to strike Israel from Iraqi territory, presumably to make clear that if Iraq can be used by Israel to strike Iran it can certainly be used by Iran to strike Israel as well.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...rritory-within-days-axios-reports-2024-10-31/
Iran preparing strike on Israel from Iraqi territory within days, Axios reports

 

Which is why part of an S-300 battalion is relocated to Mashad every year when Khamenei visits the city, yes?