Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Brace yourselves for war between Iran and Israel

 

The National Interest warns:  "Deal or No Deal, Iran-Israel War Is Coming to the Middle East".


The Israeli prime minister recently stated: “We no longer play with the tentacles, with Iran’s proxies: we’ve created a new equation by going for the head.” By letting Tehran know that it can and will be struck, Israel is changing the rules of the game. Jerusalem is no longer content to “mow the grass”—an expression for strategically limited strikes—but is upping the ante in response to what it sees as a growing threat.

Israel has also stepped up the scale and scope of its strikes in Syria, recently hitting the Damascus airport. The IDF recently held the largest military drill in decades, dubbed “Chariots of Fire.” In its own words, the exercises “aim to both increase the IDF’s defensive readiness and examine its preparedness for an intensive and prolonged campaign.”

In late May 2022, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) conducted drills which included “long-range flights, aerial refueling and striking distant targets.” It was, the Times of Israel noted, meant to simulate striking Iranian nuclear facilities. According to Israel’s Channel 13 news, the exercises spanned more than 10,000 kilometers and included more than 100 aircraft and navy submarines.

. . .

The IDF is, of course, an exceptionally well-trained military. It isn’t a stranger to major drills and exercises. But it seems clear that something is afoot and the parameters of the long-running conflict between Israel and Iran are changing. Coupled with Tehran’s imminent “nuclear break out,” such developments indicate that Jerusalem is doing more than mowing the grass—it might be preparing to get rid of the entire yard.

Should Israel strike Iran’s nuclear facilities it would likely bring about the worst war that the Middle East has seen in decades—if not longer. The conflict that would follow would look nothing like many of the recent wars between Israel and Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. For both Israel and the Islamic Republic, it would be an existential battle, with the fate of both the Jewish state and the regime in Tehran hinging on the war’s outcome. The losses and destruction would be devastating.


There's more at the link.

Inevitably, such a war would disrupt oil supplies through the Persian Gulf, not just from Iran but from other states in the region as well.  Iran's Revolutionary Guards will ensure that by blockading the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, as they've threatened to do often enough.  That, in turn, will draw in the US Navy and allied forces in an attempt to keep the Strait open - possibly also China, which gets well over half its oil from the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, of course, oil prices in the rest of the world would skyrocket.  We can expect to pay at least double what we are now for gasoline and diesel within a matter of days, and possibly much more than that.  What that would do to our economy as a whole, and to most of us in terms of our household budgets, I leave to your imagination.

Unfortunately, Iran is led by doddering religious zealots who actually believe that to spark a world war would accelerate the return of the "Twelfth Imam" and lead to a climactic war against evil (such evil, naturally, to include Israel and the USA).  They regard that as entirely desirable.  The rest of us . . . not so much.

Peter


17 comments:

bobby said...

What worries me most about this possibility is that I'm not sure which side the Biden regime would support.

And as soon as he suggests that we help out the poor Iranians - he is Obama II, as we already know - there would be such a split in American society that . . . well . . .

Buy guns and ammo.

Mountain Rat said...

Hard to argue that the US is not evil.

Javahead said...

Hard to argue that the Biden Administration and the Democrat Party is not evil.

There. Fixed that.

JaimeInTexas said...

Moral Hazard
Israel is able because it controls a large number of uni-party politicians in Mordor On The Potomac. With total disregard for us and to our detriment.

Old NFO said...

And they will have cooperation from UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Genji said...

Hard to argue that Israel is not evil, too... Unless you have been Carefully Taught.

A pox upon all their houses.

Jess said...

Such a war will unleash things most will find terrible. Israel doesn't play softball, and has no qualms on taking out enemies; regardless of what government they supposedly represent.

FeralFerret said...

I figure that if it goes nuclear, everybody with nukes will jump in. I hope not, but hope is not a plan.

boron said...

I'm one who was brought up to call Him יהוה; I lost half of my father's relatives in the camps and the ovens: the other half were Lutheran or Catholic (quite a few of whom were also lost in the camps). I've had the pleasure of watching the ugly snake of anti-Semitism rear its ugly head again over my lifetime. There are many more of us than the anti-Semites in this country have been led to believe who will never again allow ourselves to be seduced or strong-armed into the cattle cars leading to the "Arbeit macht Frei" camps or ovens. If you're interested in counting our numbers, you can usually find us practicing at the pistol/rifle ranges.

Genji said...

@boron:

I think you've collectively had your vengeance by now. Or is it insatiable?


That's funny... thought could usually find you (plural) pushing Drag Queen story hour and stuffing ballot boxes and crowding the Fed's Discount Window.


If Anti-Semitism is such a big deal.. and it probably is to Jews (frankly the rest of us are getting bored with pretending we care given we have our own problems), just make Aliyah and chill out under the Israeli nuclear triad. At least you have your own ethno-state -- having retconned and doctored Western Culture to make such a thing impossible and unthinkable for the rest of us Cattle.


Peter said...

Folks, chill with the anti-Semitic comments. This blog is not and will not become a forum for that sort of crap. Support Israel or not, it's your choice, but leave Judaism as a religion (and as a culture or society) out of it.

Qualitarian said...

I've no quarrel with semitism as long as I'm not being forced to pay for it.

Soooo....

Aesop said...

@Qualitarian,

You've been paying to the tune of $2B a year to both Judaism and Islamofascism, as a consequence of the post-'73 accords, so your ire seems rather unidirectional.

That sort of focus on anyone's part naturally leads perspicacious people to point to anti-semitism peeking out from under one's skirts.

If one doesn't wave that flag, one doesn't garner those sorts of comments.

Everyone has always thought Israel would take out Teheran's nukes for us and the rest of the world (including all the Arab Guld states), but until Obozo sold them air refueling tankers, they lacked the actual military capability to do so as anything other than a suicide mission.

The Israelis, with widespread Arab backing, have been quietly and not so quietly exploding Iranian nuclear scientists on the ground one by one for the last decade-plus (some 7 or so to date officially acknowledged, and possibly as many as 20 unofficially, IIRC), but science marches on, and the Iranians want a bomb, of any efficiency, mind you, just as long as they can drop it on Israel at some point, as they've frothed and threatened to do for 40+ years.

Israel, like Homie the Clown, don't play that, so the die is cast.

It's not a question of if Israel will scrub the field of the entire Iranian nuke program, even if that means digging facilities out of the ground below hundreds of feet of sand and rock (which is a trifle to nuclear weapons fireballs) but when. Pretty much exactly as we were prepared to do in Cuba in 1962, just with more competence.

We should have done it ourselves any twenty times before now, on general principles, just as we should have with the Norks, but torpor, inertia, and stupidity bears its own fruit, so here we all are. Israel is no such fat, stupid, nor lazy.

Prepare yourselves accordingly.

The Lab Manager said...

Well, we know where Peter stands. Any criticism of 'God's Chosen People' es verboten. Always remember that Jews support abortion and sodomy. Tel Aviv is billed as the world's 'Gayest City.' Nothing more 'Judeo-Christian' than that.

Paul Craig Roberts, who is no extreme right winger, made the point that there concentration camps and most of the deaths occurred because of lack of resources and bombing of rail lines by the allies.

Also, if anyone puts any though into it, it's physically impossible to gas people and then physically/manually carry them to an oven in any of the number presented.

We are told many lies about WWII. Funny that no movies have been made about the Holodomor. The author of 'Gulag Archipelago' also identifies who was in charge, but hey, pointing that out would be 'anti-semitic.' :LOL:

BobF said...

Perhaps some would do well to remember that this is Peter's virtual living room and that we are guests here. I wonder if some would be conducting themselves face-to-face as they have been here.

Birdchaser said...

Are we going to pay for this one too?

boron said...

First I would like to apologize to Peter; this is your living room and a continuation is impermissible, but I would have never allowed this person (Genji) to to say what it said and walk away from me in a schoolyard.
I volunteered for the Armed Services (U.S.) and when I finished my tour with a DD-214 Honorable, I then first continued my education unlike quite a number of people I knew who ran up to Canada or otherwise managed to find a way to dodge the draft board.
Politics: my wife and I vote for the candidate with the most conservative record. I'm unable to account for my co-religionists: can you yours?
I'm extremely happy that General Eisenhower had his photographer waste all that film - you should take the time and have a look at the pics. And it's very easy to carry dead people given the proper stimulus - such as being shot on the spot if you don't.
Again, I abase myself Peter; it shall not happen again, no matter the provocation.