Iran has had a miserable few weeks.
First the middle- and senior-level management of its top-tier proxy was taken out because, basically, Iran bought its communications network from its most hated enemy.
Then the next week what was left of the C-level suite of said proxy was taken out in its underground bunker by the same hated enemy.
Then the other day former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad declared that the agency dedicated to targeting agents of your most hated enemy operating in Iran was actually riddled with that same enemy’s agents, including the unit head.
I mean this is the type of buffoonery that you only find from the Three Stooges or the Biden administration.
So having been utterly humiliated on the world stage, what does Iran do to try to restore credibility? It decides to launch a massive attack, estimated at 180+ missiles, on that same hated enemy. The result? The same as the last time it tried, back in April, little to nothing.
After last April’s attack washed out, the Iranians could not have had any expectation that any future missile attack would be any different. In other words, Iran just squandered a big chunk of what is left of its credibility. The strong horse they are not.
Today’s missile attack is what it is like when a government has a nervous breakdown. If the last two weeks were a chess match, Iran has been so thoroughly outclassed that today’s missile strike is the equivalent of it hysterically throwing the pieces off the board at Israel and then curling up in a ball on the floor.
However, now things really get dangerous because as I have said, desperate people do desperate things, and desperate people with power do catastrophic things. Added bonus, back home the mullahs are hated and their praetorian guard, the IRGC, has been shown to be incompetent. These guys are fighting for their lives.
So, on our timeline, we are now at the point where the Iranians will probably try a really futile and stupid gesture. And unlike Israel, we in the US do not have our security act together.
I also expect a stupid and futile gesture by Iran. The main question is whether anyone in power in Iran can recognize that committing that gesture against Israel is almost certainly going to be fatally counterproductive. Noting also that Israel, if provoked sufficiently, has options against either Iran’s political and economic power or against its theological power.
Further noting that Israel has the technology, economy, commonly available assets both human and physical, and means of delivery to totally take out either or both of those options at will.
It would be better for Iran, if they can realize it, to commit its stupid and futile gesture against the US under its current leadership as there is minimal chance of a regime-threatening effective counter by the US, and to be honest our current leadership would be thrilled to use said gesture for domestic politics outside the Constitution and laws.
The key is which Weltanschauung prevails in Teheran; theology or Clausewitz.
Subotai Bahadur
What SB suggested … perhaps this is why I had nightmares last night.