War in The Middle East: Iran Edition

Don't know if you've seen this, but it is pretty remarkable.

 

when Roy Orbison died, I don't know why they didn't just add Roger McGuinn.

 

double points if you can name who wrote the song.

 

Link?

 

sure.

Spoiler

 

McGuinn would have been a good choice.

 

April 16, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com)

On Sunday, April 14, 2024, Iran fired about 170 drones, more than 120 ballistic missiles, and more than 30 cruise missiles from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and areas controlled by Hezbollah in Lebanon toward Israel. The strike was in retaliation for a strike on Iran’s diplomatic complex in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed two top commanders in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, along with other officials. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the Syrian strike, but officials from other countries believe Israel is responsible. Iran warned its attack was coming, and Israel and the U.S., along with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and France, shot the missiles down. Israel sustained almost no damage. One Arab-Israeli girl was critically injured.

In the leadup to the attack, Arab countries shared intelligence and radar tracking, opened their airspace while closing it to Iran, and even supplied forces to withstand Iran’s attack. According to David S. Cloud, Dov Lieber, Stephen Kalin, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal, in March 2022, top military officials from Israel and Arab countries met in Egypt at the invitation of U.S. Marine General Frank McKenzie, then the top U.S. commander in the region, to discuss coordination against Iran’s growing military capabilities.

That prospective coordination had never been tested, but the fact that Arab states stood alongside Israel against Iran highlights changing dynamics in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the attack, a source connected to the Saudi royal family charged Iran with instigating the Gaza war to stop normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon are Iran’s proxies.

...

While this was taking place, according to the four Wall Street Journal reporters, the administration pressed Arab states for intelligence about a retaliatory strike from Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia shared intelligence, and Jordan allowed warplanes to use its airspace while also intercepting Iranian missiles with its own planes. The White House coordinated Israeli and Arab defensive measures. According to U.S. officials, officials from the State Department, the Defense Department, and the National Security Council were “in constant, ongoing, continuous contact with Israelis, with other partners in the region, as well as Iran with a series of direct communications through the Swiss channel and other relevant players,” as well as with “Turkey and China,” “in anticipation of the events that transpired.”

This was the background when Iran attacked Israel on Sunday.

In the aftermath of the attack, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said, “The matter can be deemed concluded.” The White House immediately gathered the leaders of the Group of 7 wealthy democracies, who issued a statement calling on all parties to “avoid further escalation.” Then Biden urged Netanyahu to “think very carefully and strategically” about retaliation and noted that Israel had “got the best of it,” as it had killed senior Iranian military commanders but lost none of its own leaders. Netanyahu is under great pressure from his right-wing coalition to retaliate, but some members of his war cabinet have stressed that they want “to establish an international coalition and strategic alliance to counter the threat posed by Iran.”

The U.S. warned Israel it would not participate in any offensive counterstrike against Iran, although it has announced new economic sanctions against Iran. Matt Bradley of NBC News pointed out that an aggressive Israeli response would run the risk of dissolving the fragile cooperation between Arab states and Israel that helped to repel the Iranian attack. That cooperation illustrated that Iran is increasingly isolated, but as Oraib Al Rantawi, director of a Jordanian think tank, told Bradley, “Those Arab countries are in a very critical situation. There is no easy position to take….”

In the U.S., Republicans, including House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-OH) and Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, immediately said the U.S. should join Israel if it launched a retaliatory attack, saying they hoped to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. (David Sanger of the New York Times reminded readers yesterday that in 2015, in a deal with seven countries after two years of negotiations, Iran agreed to surrender 97% of its uranium, but Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018, and Iran returned to developing weapons-grade uranium.)

 

Very reassuring to have a leader that is able to coordinate with allies and get them to work together. I'm very happy that the mission was such a success.

It is important to note to that Bibi was scheduled to face the consequences for some of his actions prior to Oct. 7th. Currently he is not facing the inquiry because of the war cabinet. Once this conflict ends, he will have to face the inquiry. The far right has a reason for using leverage to keep this going. The people of Israel are protesting against Bibi with increased fervor.

 

agreed. The Abraham Accords were quite an achievement.

 

What role did Bahrain and Morocco play in thwarting the Iranian military action?

 

Iran telegraphed the move because they didn't want a direct war with the West.

I don't think Israel wants to open up 2 more fronts either, but who knows what the voices in Bibi's head is telling him

 

Neither side could invade the other if they wanted. All they could do is chuck missiles at each other.

A traditional war would be pointless for both - basically self-destructive rage.

 

Good.

 

Good for them...as long as when they FA, we don't FO

 

Iran is much like Russia with it's annoying proxies. If I were an Israeli, I'd be concerned about their intermediate range ballistic missiles (European Israeli!) and the rumored 150k rockets and missiles aimed at them, but I can't say they've been victimless with the strings their clerics have been pulling with the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Maybe their Supreme Leader is smarter, but no one will buy the excuse that he can't keep his nation's **** together when this has been a steady years-long provocation against the West.

I'm more inclined to believe they have been acting up because the Western Order has been fading at the edges to the point where NGOs like the UN are powerless and toothless. I do believe we're as dominant as ever, though most of the alliance is broke and getting old af.

It might very well be time for us to **** or get off the pot while we still have the numbers (young cannon fodder) to threaten a great power conflict even if none of us are willing.