Over the past couple of days:
- An Iranian-made missile, launched from Iraq (probably by an Iranian surrogate terrorist group), struck an Israeli naval base at the port of Eilat on Monday, narrowly missing one of the Israeli Navy's newest and most modern warships. This comes two years after Iranian TV showed its forces practicing to attack a mock-up of the same port, showing exactly the position struck by their missile this week, with a similar warship in the same location.
- On the same day, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, striking with such precision that the building was destroyed, but two other buildings on either side of it were left with minimal damage. Three Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals were killed in the strike, along with several other senior advisers. The attack was presumably a rapid and pointed response to the missile strike on Eilat.
- Iran has been supplying almost all the missiles that Houthi insurgents are firing at Western vessels around the entrance to the Red Sea. Those attacks show no sign of diminishing. Sooner or later, the supply will have to be interrupted at its source.
- The USA has been supplying Israel with the aircraft bombs and guidance kits it needs to continue its campaign in Gaza and elsewhere. Recently the Biden administration has appeared to be slow-walking further deliveries of munitions, in order to apply pressure to Israel: but it's also just announced the proposed sale of up to 50 of the latest-model F-15EX strike aircraft to that country. That's a very mixed signal, to say the least.
I get the impression that the Biden administration has been not-so-gently informed by Israel that, if that country's military operations against Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups are hampered by deliberately slowed weapons deliveries, then Israel will take up the option of stopping Iran's sponsorship of terrorism at the source by converting it into a radioactive glass-topped parking lot. Whilst many Israelis might not want to do that, I think the Netanyahu administration is more than sufficiently determined to do whatever it takes to ensure Israel's security; and I don't see the Israeli military arguing against that option. Iran, and terrorists sponsored by Iran, are costing them too many lives.
Recent developments do nothing to make me feel more optimistic about the prospects for peace in the Middle East. On the contrary, I think that region is closer to an all-out, devil-take-the-hindmost war than it has been for a very long time - and almost all parties to the dispute are absolutely adamant that they will not back down. It's irresistible force versus immovable object. Given the other geopolitical stresses on all the major powers right now . . . who knows where that could end?
Finally, remember that the religious fanatics running Iran see it as eminently desirable to bring about their version of the apocalypse, in order to expedite the return of the Twelfth Imam. As far as they're concerned, a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel would be almost guaranteed to accomplish that - so they have nothing to lose.
Don't expect rationality, logic or statesmanship from Iran. They no longer exist among that country's leaders . . . and that's a deadly dangerous reality.
Peter
Interestingly enough, none of this is rating more than bullet point coverage in the MSM... 'Can't be offending those "pro-"Palestinian" teenyboppers, no can we...
ReplyDelete...My take on that floating pier that Biden is manning up in Gaza; it's not for bringing "humanitarian aid" INTO Gaza. It's to FERRY OUT all the "refugees" from Gaza when Israel finishes the toilet flush there. Gee... I wonder where they'll all end up...
Peter: "Don't expect rationality, logic or statesmanship from Iran. They no longer exist among that country's leaders . . . and that's a deadly dangerous reality."
ReplyDeleteSounds like the current administration in DC. At least Israel defends it's borders.
No pb, Israel should name that nuclear warhead "12th Imam".
ReplyDeleteAnd Netanyahu should tell 'em: there you go guys, you have now what you always wanted.
I've always thought that part of the world needed a nice parking lot.
ReplyDeleteThe hook of Ezekiel 38:4 is being sharpened and cast...
ReplyDeleteThings have always been dangerous in the Middle East for the last 10,000+ years. The Bible and detailed histories over the last 2,000 years (Josephus) teach us that.
ReplyDeleteI see that the sale of the new F-15 EX has gone through with 50 of them for Israel. I am not surprised, should be a nice plane once it has been upgraded by the Israelis with their special avionics and such.
But Israel has plenty of delivery platforms for heavy nukes today, starting with the Jericho ballistic missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(missile)
Proverbs 26:17 He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own Is like one who takes a dog by the ears.
ReplyDeleteGREAT WAY to get Bit, eh?
Can ANYBODY show me a link or three of WHAT Israel has DONE for the USA?
I'm pretty sure most here can show you plenty of what they've COST US in money, weapons and troubles.
Shall we ADD UNLIMTED WARFARE also?
We again chat about the Sports Ball Wargames of the Middle East like we have nothing to be CONCERNED about them.
Do you REALLY THINK Iran doesn't have a nuke or three? Seems Pakistan had "lost" a few when our Color Revolution happened a few years ago.
Fanatics, REMEMBER. Maybe a 40 foot cargo box into NYC harbor, eh?
Our recent Key Bridge fiasco proved that we cannot even know what the CARGO IS on them. STILL Discovering problems in that cargo manifest.
Do you think that Iran don't have enough loyalist people INSIDE America to make that Scenario "The Day of RAGE" really happen in real time? More like weeks, months even years of rage with all the illegals OUR OWN Government has PAID to bring here and equip with pre-loaded debit cards and cellphones.
The Bible speaks a lot about tending your own gardens and internal problems.
Pity it's MORE FUN to have Sports Ball chatter about somebody else's problems.
So, in the spirit of Sportsball, what's the score?
Peteforrester, well 350,000 by plane to wherever in CONUS or a 1,000,000 by boat to a harbor on the east coast. what is the big deal?
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "the religious fanatics running Iran see it as eminently desirable to bring about their version of the apocalypse, in order to expedite the return of the Twelfth Imam."
ReplyDeleteNow I do not have a dog in that fight, but I certainly think that the other side...
you know, the ones that everyone else is 'goy', are a bit fanatical themselves.
Yep, Israel plays for 'keeps'...And I don't think Iran understands that...yet...
ReplyDeleteIf Biden blocks the delivery of precision weapons, then Israel will have to use weapons with less precision.
ReplyDeleteBombs aren't that hard to create, what's hard is making them with enough consistency that they can be dropped precisely (which requires either active guidance, or very skilled pilots and smart aircraft that can predict where the unguided bombs will fall)
I wouldn't expect rationality, logic or statesmanship from the criminals running America either....
ReplyDelete“stopping Iran's sponsorship of terrorism at the source by converting it into a radioactive glass-topped parking lot.“
ReplyDelete- Thereby officially starting WW3 (yes, it’s already underway) and putting a target on every jews back throughout the world.
Then one day, for no reason at all…
-J
An Israel that uses a nuclear device gives biden a plausible reason to put the alliance on hold and firm up his faltering support among arabist and peacenik voters. You can't see a mushroom cloud from the Delaware beach, after all.
ReplyDeleteI support the Nation of Israel because of the Israeli people I've met. But I've met plenty of Iranians too and they're fine people, at least those I've met. I hope the Israeli government and military find a way to reunite the crazy clerics of teheran with Allah without hurting innocent Iranians. There's too damn many innocent people getting killed and maimed by power hungry monsters all over. But I won't ever blame the Israelis for surviving, because that's what they're doing. There's winners and losers, but for them losing can be forever, while winning is just for today. r
I suspect that Israel is considering, and developing, multiple options; from experience with some stuff that came out of Haifa, and the folks who invented and then made it, "no stone left unturned" is an inadequate description.
ReplyDeleteIt would not surprise me that "glass topped parking lot," while prominent on the options list, just might be the wrong thing to focus on; that position, however, does not preclude the mass, but subdued, release of electrons, neutrons and protons in some other manner. "Irresistible force versus immovable object" has been a "thing" for millenia, but it is useful to consider that "force" comes in many different forms and is fully adjustable, while "immovable object" by definition is stationary and usually regarded by Practitioners of the Various Combat Arts facing such constructions as "a target."
The Mullahs are nothing if not consistent, bound by dogma and mindless pursuit of what they consider The Ultimate Goal; when one knows by what path the opposition must, and will, travel, to their desired destination, it accommodates a certain educated refinement of Options.
They have been fighting each other since the first records were written, probably before that.
ReplyDeleteFuck both of them.
Why would I expect rationality from Iran, when I can't find any in our own Government?
ReplyDeleteThe idiotarians in America and Europe think that Israel is also somehow subscribed to the "No First Use of Nukes" policy that was the mainstay of MAD. I don't think so and I never saw anything that would leave me to believe that a secret holder of nuclear weapons would subscribe to anything so ridiculous. When the man with the tall hat waves over Qum, Bandar Abbas, Tehran, Tabriz and Jask, I don't think any of the Gulf Arab rulers will care other than to observe that the fallout will be a problem.
ReplyDeleteThere is no upside to continuing this war and only disaster if it is stopped by imperial fiat from the Oval Office.
@charlie,
ReplyDeleteMuhammad wasn't born until ~570AD, so Islam has not been fighting Jews since the dawn of recorded history (it just seems like it)
If you mean that Israel has had wars with it's neighbors since the earliest records, then yes. But the same can be said about every country, the earliest records are births and deaths, which include recording deaths from battle everywhere in the world.
But the fighting around Israel today isn't the historic greed for land, it's one side saying that the other doesn't have the right to live. Muhammad's teachings through the Koran call for the extermination of all Jews (and for Muslims to rule the entire world). The 'extremest' Muslims are just attempting to live up to the literal orders of their scripture.
David Lang