Damus
Mike-Dilger
Recent notes
Here is another thought I just had. Iran can't win against the US and you might think surrender would save them from being destroyed. But what surrender means is that the US will install the monarchy and then control Iran into attacking China... yes it will throw Iran at China, just like it threw Ukraine at Russia. And China will win and Iran will be devastated, but the US will have weakened China prior to any US-China war. So Iran will be devastated either way. Given this, there is no reason for Iran to surrender. From their perspective, they should just fight with all they have.
I think most people understand very well what is happening in the Middle East. But I still hear from time to time nonsense propaganda, probably from paid disinformation specialists. Nonetheless I'll try to counter it by stating what is going on. Iran has never attacked Israel outside of well-signalled and moderate retaliations to attacks by Israel. Yes, it is true Iran supports Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ansar Allah, who themselves directly attack Israel. But supporting a proxy is not the same as a direct attack. If it were, Vladimir Putin would be nuking Washington and Langley right about now. Clearly there is a difference between supporting a proxy and a direct attack. Iran was not a belligerent in the 1949 Arab-Israeli war, often called the Nakba, or alternatively Israel's War of Independence. Iran was not a belligerent in the Six-Day war of 1967. Iran is not an Arab nation. For some reason, many American's think Iranians are Arabs. Probably because they are an Islamic nation. But they created their own modified version of Islam called Sunni Islam with Zoroastrian roots. But I digress. Even though Iran has never attacked Israel first, Israel has attacked Iran many times over, from the stuxnet virus, to car bombs planted by motorcycles, to bombing their embassy in Damascus, to actual fighter jet attacks on the Iranian homeland. Many pro-Iranian people have felt frustrated that Iran just takes it and doesn't fight back, or responds in a somewhat pathetic way, where all their missiles and drones are shot down. They feel Iran is weak and should "teach Israel a lesson." And it is this point in the story where I need to take an important digression. In 1953 Britain and the US conspired to overthrow the elected government of Iran, and succeeded. But the people of Iran quickly got wise to what had happened. They lived under a brutal dictator until 1979 when they overthrew him and allowed the current militant religious theocratic dictatorship to replace him. Nobody likes the current militant religious theocratic dictatorship. But at least they were chosen by Iranians and not outsiders, and at least they are "powerful enough to defend us." When people are existentially threatened, they invariably turn to the most powerful defenders they can find, irrespective of whether they like them, of whether they are nice people, of whether they are moral people... all that matters in that situation is survival and that means power. Palestine turned to Hamas not because Hamas are great guys, but because they were the most powerful. Iran is not about to have an internal revolution. Iranians are more than ever united in support of their government and against Israel. Be very suspicious of news media or YouTube personalities arguing that Iranians are going to overthrow their government. This is a strategic disinformation campaign intended to trick Iranian dissidents within Iran into attacking the Iranian government from within, thinking they are much more well supported they they actually are. I'm sure they will sucker some people. There are always some suckers. The Trump negotiations were a ruse. When Iran agreed, the Trump team were thrown off.. that wasn't supposed to happen. Then the Trump team had to change what they were asking for to make sure that Iran didn't agree. Part of the purpose is to convince dissidents inside Iran that their own government is at fault for not making peace with the West. Part of it was to lure Iran into thinking they were not about to be attacked. Recently Israel executed a very successful military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, air defenses, top military officials and nuclear scientists. They struck residential areas where these officials and scientists live with their families, and killed far more innocent civilians in order to get the 6 or so targets. Israel doesn't play by rules of war, they don't care how many civilians die to get their target, and they twist rhetoric to assign the blame to their military target by saying they were using "human shields" when in fact, clearly, they were just living at home. This attack was so major that Iran could not simply let it go, or make a small symbolic retaliation. They are now compelled by the only strategic path that makes any sense, which is to engage in full war with Israel. Israel would have you believe that Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear weapon. They have said this over and over for the last 30 years. Their definition of "on the verge" strains credibility to say the least. But let's assume for the moment that they were right this time. Nobody builds a nuclear bomb and then uses it. That would be suicide. Anybody who builds a nuke and strikes another nuclear power is committing suicide. Iran would never do that. All of Iran's actions in it's dealings with Israel have been calm, cool, logical and reasonable. And any suggestion by Israel that Iran was going to nuke them is utter rubbish and you should not be swayed by such poor arguments. Iran only wanted deterrence so that Iran would not be attacked. Israel knew that once Iran had a nuclear weapon it would no longer be possible to strike them. So they wanted to strike while they still had the chance (also it overshadows the genocide story, and keeps Netanyahu in office, so lots of simultaneous reasons). This is the same reason Russia attacked Ukraine, because once Ukraine joins NATO Russia would not be able to, so they struck while they still had the chance. Iran's hyper-enrichment was a back-up strategy and a negotiation strategy. Yes, they wanted to be on the verge of building a nuke. They thought that being on the verge might be enough deterrence to protect them. Clearly it was not. Clearly what they should have done is build that bomb faster in secret. Because if Iran had finished the bomb, then Israel would not have struck them. People I generally trust on this say that Iran is definitely going to build that bomb now. Now that the war has started, I'm not sure that they should. I don't think it will create any effective deterrence after the fact. Iraq had chemical weapons and agreed to give them up. Iraq was then ripped to shreds. Libya had a nuclear program and gave it up. Qaddafi was then sodomized to death with a bayonet on camera. On the other hand, North Korea has nuclear weapons and nobody attacks them. Pakistan and India both have nuclear weapons, and it was probably the main reason that their recent scuffle came to a quick resolution. Iran has been preparing for this war for many decades. They are the world leaders in cement and concrete reinforcement. No other country has as much dug-in reinforced military forces as Iran has. Russia just got a bunch of its nuclear bombers destroyed. That can't happen to Iran because Iran is dug in. Israel and Iran are militarily equally matched. In some ways Israel is far superior. In other ways Iran is far superior. They are the 15th and 16th most powerful militaries in the world. Iran dominates in manpower, land power, naval power, natural resources, financials, logistics, dug-in concrete underground facilities, and ballistic missiles and drones. Israel dominates in air power, geography, nuclear power, and technological superiority such as cyberattacks and AI. Neither side is about to "win". And there is no easy way to deescalate the conflict that Israel just started. With US backing, however, Israel is much stronger than Iran. Israel will be hurt but they can eventually take Iran to its knees if Iran is not supported by it's allies. And that is where things get a bit worrisome. If Russia and/or China actively participate to support their ally Iran while the USA actively supports it's ally Israel, then this becomes a massive, devastating, and very long proxy war that will completely ruin both Israel and Iran. One thing that could shorten it is for Israel to nuke Iran, since Israel is a nuclear power and Iran is not quite a nuclear power. And I'm sure people will argue that Iran should give up because they should not take the risk of being nuked. But if Israel nukes Iran, Putin will probably then nuke Ukraine. Same argument goes both ways. You see, all the global conflicts are intertwined. The true superpower proxy war is global. Geopolitics has been interesting to me. But it just became less interesting. Because there are few off-ramps anymore. The whole thing is now on rails. All the interesting and consequential decisions have been made, the strategies have been locked in. The interesting part is over. Now we just have to live with the consequences, which doesn't interest me at all. I'm going to go split some more wood.
I was at the supermarket buying groceries and the machine said "Enter PIN" and then right below it showed my PIN! I was like "What?! Don't show that" and I leaned in to cover it up. Then I realized it was showing the price of what I was buying.