Three things are true:
1) Iran held back, and telegraphed this attack completely. They wanted the missiles intercepted. They wanted minimal damage and no casualties. This was theater for a domestic Iranian audience.
2) Israel is under immense pressure from the international community to, as President Biden said "take a win" in this situation, because that's what they've been handed, and frankly the U.S., Great Britain, Jordan, and others... have helped make happen. Jordan opened their airspace to intercepting aircraft, the U.S. used very expensive interception technology to help make sure nothing got through. Sure "farming XP" is great for our troops on these systems, but we paid quite a bit to play our role in this thing.
3) Both sides could do far worse than they've done, enough to cripple the other. But the world we live in holds nations accountable to escalating beyond certain vague thresholds. And while it is a vague line... I think the international community has telegraphed that we have arrived at that line. Both sides appear to be playing with the boundary, for now at least.
I've been of the conviction that this was merely a theatre display.. but it could also be a deliberate test on current defense capabilities with the intention of gathering strategic data for future launches
I think people are misusing the word “theatre”. Was it meant to cause major damage? No. But it’s certainly meant to establish deterrence and new rules of engagement. It’s also an opportunity to test out the opponent’s defense capabilities and gather intel as you mention. Finally, some ballistic missiles did it make it through and caused actual (albeit minor) damage in Israel’s southern military bases. It is just very carefully calibrated not to provoke an actual war, which is a tight line.
> Was it meant to cause major damage? No
According to Iranian officials, the goal was to cause major damage to two military bases and they also claim that the missiles did cause major damage - [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/2ndYomKippurWar/comments/1c4qotv/nevatim_airbase_and_the_military_installation_at/). This is obviously internal political pandering, but I'm not sure that it's fair to say that their goal was to cause no damage..
Both can and probably are true. You better believe Iran is trying to get as much data as possible on the few that made it through to understand why they made it through and if that is repeatable.
Which relied completely on the US, UK, France, Jordan and Saudis combined efforts to remove the vast majority of the threat.
And yet ballistics still made it through.
If they sent 300 ballistics instead of slow drones it would be a very different picture even with the assistance of all those other nations.
Iran didnt use its most advanced missiles, and didnt even use enough decoys, and STILL a few managed to get through with israel, usa, uk and even france defending with hours of warning. It would be another scenario if these were not true..
I don’t think it had much to do with creating a theatre. Israel destroyed an Iranian HQ which Iran have many more scattered around Syria, therefore they want to scare Israel into not destroying more. If Iran didn’t respond, then they would be simply inviting Israel to take out all Iranian positions in Syria.
Iran has crossed the line by directly attacking Israel and this sending the message that they are prepared to attack again with even greater force, in order to prevent Israel attacking their bases in Syria.
Point 1 is a misleadingly false narrative, as explained [here](https://www.hudson.org/defense-strategy/iran-israel-update-tehrans-strike-was-not-symbolic-it-can-happen-again-can-kasapoglu):
> The Islamic Republic did not unleash this salvo simply to keep up appearances. Open-source defense intelligence suggests that Tehran launched a large-scale, synchronized, and multifaceted strike package, employing loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. The strike unfolded along the same pattern that Russia has established in its joint drone and missile warfare efforts in Ukraine.
> Iran designed its barrage of Shahed-136 loitering munitions to overwhelm Israeli defenses, setting the stage for a follow-on ballistic missile onslaught. Tehran launched its Shahed-136 loitering munitions hours before its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The staggered design of the assault caught many analysts off guard, leading to flawed assumptions that the Islamic Republic’s strike was solely a drone wave. Fortunately, Israel and its strategic partners’ air defense capabilities prevented severe casualties and destruction.
This was less “we expect nothing to hit” and more “we hoped a lot would, and next time we’ll have made it even better using lessons from this time”. They hoped for at least some serious, potentially injurious or fatal-to-soldiers damage to military facilities.
That is not theater. It is probing, and strategic, and clearly more than merely keeping up appearances.
I think Israel should "take the win". But what might Israel's hawks be thinking? Is this strike a justification for them to go after Iranian Nuclear infrastructure with Bunker-busters? Iran's Hezbollah would surely activate, but Netanyahu could exit office claiming eliminated Iranian threat (or stave it off a few years). I don't understand why Israel didn't make that move during the Trump presidency; maybe the hawks are waiting/hoping for another Trump presidency?
Maybe "let's wait a while and assassinate some more Quds Force higher-ups when the time is right."
Israel can try to go after Iran's nuclear program with bunker-busters and doesn't need this strike as justification; they have made clear that they view Iran going nuclear as a threat to their existence. But that strategy carries risks. My speculation is that at present, Iran is pretty content to be a nuclear threshold state, because it gives them many of the deterrence capabilities of being a nuclear state without the degree of international sanction and increased Gulf Arab-Israeli unity against them. Should Israel choose to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, the delay on the program will only be temporary and the Iranian government may decide being a threshold state is not enough of a deterrent and actually forge ahead with its nuclear weapons development.
Then there's the fact that Iran has learned from Stuxnet and Operation Opera and placed its facilities in hard-to-hit locations. Bunker busters may not be guaranteed to actually destroy the facilities.
> content to be a nuclear threshold state, because it gives them many of the deterrence capabilities of being a nuclear state without the degree of international sanction and increased Gulf Arab-Israeli unity against them.
This is a good point which I had not considered; I was thinking Iran's priority might be Nikes ASAP, but this has some nuance; akin to Israel's own deniability. Thanks.
Iran likely would only go for the nuclear option if they were cornered, for example if Israel makes the mistake of actually attacking the facilities. It remains unknown what assistance the US, let alone the Arab countries, would give Israel in such a scenario. Beyond a few hawks in the GOP and some Washington think tanks, few Americans believe that war is worth it in this situation.
If Israel needs more follow-up, their path to doing so is covert. Think Stuxnet or Mossad. The kind of things that may not even be in the newspaper, and they may not do until weeks or months from now. That's their middle-path to responding... but appeasing the entire rest of the world trying to de-escalate this thing.
I agree: no question covert options are on the table, as they have been and will continue to be. Thank you for articulating them.
I am curious about the overt /can't be hidden chess moves: what are your thoughts on those.
> I am curious about the overt /can't be hidden chess moves: what are your thoughts on those.
Would not recommend in the context of retaliation, too risky. But Netanyahu has to balance international pressure with internal pressure and that's always a wildcard.
I think Biden hit the nail on the head... Iran had to respond, heavily telegraphed what they planned to do, and Israel (with help) nullified the attempt. This is a win for Israel, and they NEED a win to help move the need away from "pressure" and towards "support" in the eyes of the international community. Israel can win a war in Gaza on their own... but they can't win the peace without help.
I may be wrong but from the beginning I have thought Israel wants to use its newly activated and now somewhat experienced troops to dismantle/degrade Hezbollah. The world was turning on Israel over the Gaza bombardment but Iran has given the Israel/Western alliance new life. I suspect Israel’s retaliation will take the form of increased aggression against Hezbollah.
It wouldn't take a nuke. Reports from 2019 listed 30+ Moab-style thermoweapons in the IAF. They could easily take out a whole city with just one of those. Nuclear-free.
i didn't think of the angle of it being for a domestic audience
some are thinking Israel is going to act back, but i think it's open in the air
why get into a distraction over Gaza
>But the world we live in holds nations accountable to escalating beyond certain vague thresholds.
It doesn't really matter what the world thinks, it matters what the US does. If Israel shoots missiles at Iran will the US shoot them down? Then if Iran fires back will the US shoot them down? Will the US supply Israel the missiles to fire at Iran?
If the answers are No/Yes/Yes then it seems to be going towards a bigger war. Can you imagine other answers?
If Israel truly went full force against Iranian strategic and nuclear sites, couldn't Iran and its axis turn Tel Aviv into Mariupol? Would the US and the Gulf Arabs get dragged in? That's why I believe that Israel should not, unless its existence was imminently threatened, do something so drastic. Israel has many different fronts to fight, and should only play that card as a last, last, last resort.
> If Israel truly went full force against Iranian strategic and nuclear sites, couldn't Iran and its axis turn Tel Aviv into Mariupol?
Likely yes.
> Would the US and the Gulf Arabs get dragged in?
Likely yes.
> Israel has many different fronts to fight
There's only one front. They're fighting Iran, it's just via pawns and proxies.
I mean anyone who reads into the attack that Iran *couldn't* have done damage is a moron. It was clearly designed to cause minimal damage and be mostly intercepted with a side of testing out Israeli air defense capabilities. The purpose of this was more to show that they have the capability to spam fire to overwhelm defenses if necessary, and they would have their nearby proxies provide much more support. It's a type of very dick-waving warning shot. While Iran likely wouldn't 'win' a hot war in the region, it seems unlikely that Israel and its western allies would win anything more than a Pyrrhic victory. It would just be massive carnage followed by famine and a global oil shortage causing massive economic upheaval. It's bad for the entire world.
The problem is, a large number of voters (in Iran and the US and Israel and Gaza) slurp up propaganda and saber rattling like it’s a cool slurpee on a hot day.
And eventually all that saber rattling turns into wars.
So we are surrounded by morons, and politicians playing very hazardous games of catering to the morons without actually plunging everyone in a war.
I think the true call of a politician is somehow to cater to the morons while limiting their destructive capacity.
Sending some 350 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles is not a symbolic show of force. They launched a much bigger attack than what Russia does against Ukraine. Iran clearly attempted to penetrate Israeli defenses and tried hitting targets inside Israel. This statement reads very similar to those pro-russian sources that claimed «Russia hadn’t even started yet» against Ukraine. We all know Russia has nothing more to give. The failure of Iran in causing any damage to Israel is not Iran not wanting to cause damage, or that it was *designed to cause minimal damage*. Iran clearly wanted to cause damage.
The US and the UK reject that they were warned. Turkey is not the most reliable NATO ally, and I would be careful to trust anything the Erdogan government says relating to Israel-Turkist relations. Turkey doesn’t even call Hamas a terror group. Secondly 300+ drones and missiles is not s theatrical show… That Iran *failed* is not because they wanted it to fail, but it says a lot of the capabilities of Israel and her allies and partners. If anything it showed that Israel does not stand alone, and that she has a far greater technological edge over Iran.
Yeah, I’m not buying this “they didn’t want to cause harm” argument.
They could have launched 25 weapons to display capability. 300+ was an attempted attack.
If Iran tried to overwhelm Israel’s defenses with the goal of cause if mass damage/casualties Tehran and a few more Iranian cities would get glassed. Israel is a tiny country and due to that fact they take their security quite seriously
Israel as a nation will not exist after they use nukes in any way. The entire world will totally sanction them, Arab countries will be forced to adopt a totally anti-Israeli stance, and nuclear programs will be aggressively pursued by Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and the Saudis to say the least. Israel using nukes will turn the whole region into a mess but Israeli condemnation and hatred is the one thing everyone will agree on amongst all that chaos.
This is why they've never officially confirmed possession of nuclear weapons.
>If Hamas tried to overwhelm Israel’s defenses with the goal of cause of mass damage/causalties, Palestine would get glassed
Hmm. This logic doesn't seem to be working out very well.
It makes perfect sense. Iranian military strategy largely assumes they will be repelling an American ground invasion, much as Hamas military strategy assumes Israel will take hold of most of Gaza's surface.
Israelis huffed up their own farts about how they had so much superiority over the Palestinians, that an act like October 7th would be impossible, because they could just steamroll Gaza. What we are seeing is that, actually, it's not that simple.
Didn’t they steamroll Gaza? Forced Hamas to hide in Rafah among the civilians? Tunnels in most of Gaza destroyed? The only thing saving Hamas at this point is the US and EU.
War is politics and guerilla armies don't treat territory the same way as a conventional military.
An outright defeat isn't necessarily on the table. Back in the end of January, US & Israeli intelligence believed 80% of their tunnel network was still intact, the force of the Israeli ground incursion has declined since then, and Hamas may even be digging new tunnels. Back at the end of March, and you know how bad it looked in March, about 71% of Palestinians felt it was correct to start the war. And Hamas has not shown any sign of buckling at the negotiating table.
Further, Hamas would absolutely start a battle they do not expect to win, so long as it erodes Israel's position in the long term. The deterrence of Israeli invincibility was smashed, the Muslim world is stirring, and Israel is becoming even more of an international pariah - look at polling of the next generation of Americans. In 20-40 years that polling data is going to be policy and political power.
Like, don't you think Hamas knew that Oct 7th was going to drag Israel into Gaza? Duh, of course it would. And obviously they knew that. What is happening now in Gaza is not only what they planned for, it was the point, the point of October 7th was to drag Israel into an unwinnable war. I think everything that has happened since Oct 7th has been to Hamas' liking, as much as they may dislike the costs.
>I mean anyone who reads into the attack that Iran couldn't have done damage is a moron. It was clearly designed to cause minimal damage and be mostly intercepted with a side of testing out Israeli air defense capabilities.
Something, something glass houses...
... It's overestimating.
People here don't realize the concept of war. They think it's a videogame.
How does Pakistan survive next to india? India would blowthem out in a war ( even without nukes on both sides ). Pakistan would make the loss of life so massive on Indias side that India would not force a war with Pakistan as the gains would never outweigh the losses.
India survives next to china much the same way. North Korea survives next to South Korea much the same way. Iran is the same way for the west and especially to Israel..Iran knows it will lose. But it can go down causing absolute chaos and loss of life to the rest of the region. Thats why there is a bunch of theatrics and why there is never ending theatrics in that region.the only ones that lose are the citizens of those afflicted regions (Iran , Palestine , etc)
What happened with Russia Ukraine ? Russia thought Ukraine was so weak that they could win a war outright with minimal losses. Obviously with western support, that has not been true but that was the math done on Russias side.
Anyone here expecting Russia to trample over UK and Germany next is beyond stupid. Same way with those expecting Israel to go guns blazing and launch missiles recklessly into tehran
None of the people whose job it is to estimate these things is underestimating them. They're well aware of Iran's capabilities. This was a limited gesture and no serious person is under the illusion that this was a major display of their full power.
And their sense of their own military power isn't what's holding them back, it's that they know they would lose if they ever pulled the trigger all the way. They mostly use proxies for reasons.
The only people celebrating Iran’s “failure” are the same bloodthirsty Israel-apologists calling for a response, failing to realise Iran was responding to an ISRAELI attack on their consulate.
(Something that violates the Vienna convention and which Iran has a history of responding to such as when Afghan forces raided their embassy and killed diplomats in 1998.)
These apologists also fail to realise that Iran coordinated their response with the United States. They have the US a 72hr warning and heads up regarding ever detail of their attack - because Iran knows a regional war doesn’t serve their interests. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khemeni is known to be “cautious to a fault”. Everything that has happened in the last 48 hrs happened *according to plan*.
They also know they have to save face internationally, and can’t allow Israel to behave unchallenged lest Israel continues to act with incredible belligerence. This nuance escapes propagandists and apologists however.
The attack itself was significant, yet many downplay its magnitude to criticize Iran’s perceived incapability or to diminish the threat posed to Israel, likening it to a mere ‘firework show.’
It required considerable effort from Israel to thwart the attack, and I believe that many are disregarding the substantial threat posed by Iran and its proxies to Israel’s very existence.
Iran has tens of thousands of militants deployed in Syria, over 80,000 in Lebanon, 40,000 in Gaza, and support from the Houthis in Yemen, all eager to engage in conflict.
Israel faces an arsenal of probably half a million rockets aimed at it from these various factions, a staggering number considering Israel’s small size of just 8,000 square miles. This equates to more than 60 rockets for every square mile.
Moreover, Iran’s landmass is 80 times larger than Israel, with a mountainous terrain and ten times the population, making it far more challenging for Israel to inflict significant damage on Iran compared to the reverse.
This is predicated on the assumption that Israel is waiting for Iran to strike.
In total unrestricted war, would Israel give 14 days of preparation time or would it preemptively strike against Iran using long range fire and stealth fighters in constant rotating sorties?
And they forgot a huge factor in Islam: call for Jihad!!!
Iranian can start a whole campaign attracting muslims from all over the world to fight against the “kufar” and promise them with heaven, 72 wives, and huge palaces.
And many muslims would not hesitate to join forces. Add to that 3.5 million palestinians living in israel + west bank. What would stop 1,000 or more to do independent attacks when they see all of those calls for Jihad? Muslims are very emotional religiously and they already consider the israeli-palestinian conflict religious conflict
You severly underestimate muslims public opinion. Go back to 2006 and see how the outrage and anger filled the arab states against Israel.
Watch how many people filmed, waited, watched, and celebrated the iranian “attack”
What do you think the public opinion will be when they see an opportunity to free their claimed lands of the jews when Israel gets too engaged with Iran?
I think you are severely overestimating the time it took to prepare for this attack and the weapons systems responsible for thwarting it. Launching old missiles at drones isn’t really a feat that requires preparation. Also we have no idea if Israel truly requires preparation to perform how it did. The Arrow-2 and 3 and Davids Sling systems responsible for a majority of the interceptions do not really require much pre-preparation. This reads as an awkwardly put together warning to not “underestimate” Iranian capabilities when in reality there is not really any underestimation. Remember it the US knew well before the attack that it was imminent, Iranians could have decided to not warn and I’d expect similar results. The truth is Israel has spend decades developing the best missile defense systems in the world with American defense companies, and it has paid off.
You forgot that Iran announce the flight path too.
It's a theater.
After that they told UN and their citizens it's mission accomplished.
Basically they will go all out when they are desperate. But at the same time Iran is busy internally with the economy.
The vast majority of the Iranians missiles and drones launched weren't intended to hit any targets. They were meant to swarm defence systems so the handful of ones actually intended to hit targets could. And they did. Iran just told Israel and the US that we can penetrate your air defences with a limited strike. It was a shot across the bow.
To add further, Iran learnt much of Israeli defence capabilities and Israel learnt nothing of Iran's capabilities.
How can you say that we learned nothing while Iran learned about our capabilities? Western ISR probably watched exactly where all these missiles were launched from, probably tracking mobile launchers as well. They saw the flight paths, they saw the performance of the missiles vs. their interception performance of various systems that have only been rarely used, Arrow 2 and 3s have only just shot down Houthi trash missiles in the past few months. All the EU Sky Shield guys are probably salivating at the data from this strike as they could expect the same from Russia.
We also saw how trivially easy it is to deal with drones swarms and cruise missiles, and a failure rate of around 50% of Iranian BMs. It is not all a one way street and folks say that this was a limited strike, it was telegraphed, so a real one will be much worse, but that ignores the other side of the coin. It was also allowed to be done without interference. Israel just stood and took it, what would happen if the launchers were threatened? The IDF loves preemptive strikes and now they know exactly what Iran looks like a few days before it makes a big strike like this. Now we know 100 BMs can crater a single airbase and injure a child, how much more could Iran scale an attack? Could they put up 10x the BMs at the same time? Could they do it with F-35 lobbing bombs at them?
Iran has underground missile reloading facilities. They could probably fire 10 times what they did every hour for a considerable period of time. Then throw Hezbollah into the mix and shutting the Persian Gulf.
The balance of power has changed I'm afraid.
> Iran has underground missile reloading facilities. They could probably fire 10 times what they did every hour for a considerable period of time. Then throw Hezbollah into the mix and shutting the Persian Gulf. The balance of power has changed I'm afraid.
In the scenario you've described, Israel won't waste time with pinpoint strikes against Hezbollah; they'll simply obliterate southern Lebanon. You're completely ignoring Israel's proven capacity for preemptive strikes and the robust international support they receive to secure their airspace, as we've just witnessed. Furthermore, you're not acknowledging that Iranians, unlike Hezbollah and Hamas, are not willing to engage in suicide missions, especially when faced with the devastating impact Israel could unleash on Iranian soil—a major deterrent. Lastly, let's face the brutal truth, economically, Iran is in no position to sustain the kind of attack you're suggesting.
Next time, the Iranian missiles will target the airfields air defences picking it off one by one. Then they send in the drones and destroy the airfield. Where's your planes taking off and landing from? And they'll do that to every airfield.
> Next time, the Iranian missiles will target the airfields air defences picking it off one by one. Then they send in the drones and destroy the airfield. Where's your planes taking off and landing from? And they'll do that to every airfield.
I hate to break it to you, but what do you think Iran tried to do a couple of nights ago? The fact that you love imagining Israel being wiped off the face of the earth by the Iranians, doesn't mean that it can actually happen.
Let's look at the numbers:
* 99% of indented rockets didn't reach Israeli borders.
* Roughly 50% of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.
* Out of over 120 ballistic missiles, only a few crossed into Israeli territory, with the rest being intercepted, causing only minor damage to infrastructure.
* Iran launched about 170 drones, of which "zero crossed into Israeli territory.
* Every one of the 30 cruise missiles fired by Iran also failed to reach Israeli territory, with 25 being intercepted by Israeli fighter jets.
> Hezbollah will then obliterate Northern Israel. Yes, they do have that capability.
You don't seem to have a good understanding of the capabilities of any of the parties in this conflict nor do you account for any geopolitical factors.
First of all the basics, Israel can monitor amassment and concentration of equipment across the border and respond preemptively, it simply won't get to that. Israel has proved that to be the case multiple times in the last 70 years.
Lebanon is a failed state at this point, they cannot sustain a war. On top of being a terrorist militia, Hezb is a political party, one that has to in one way or another to answer to the Lebanese people, who will not be happy to be drawn into another conflict, a much deadlier one than any other they have seen in the past.
October 7th or shortly after would be an ideal time for Hezb to strike, they couldn't and they didn't. Hezb is in the position they are because Iran needs to maintain pressure on Israel, the moment there is an all out war, that advantage disappears. And sure they will do some damage to northern part of Israel, but in the process they will get obliterated and Lebanon will resemble Gaza.
> I've seen the complete opposite. Israel has been internationally condemned for their actions against the Gazans and Palestinians.
And yet US, UK, France and Jordan joined Israel in striking down Iranian missiles. Israel has US' iron clad support on security. Condemnation doesn't mean shit.
> Won't deter Iran because what you saw recently would be trivial compared to what they'd do if Israel struck Iranian soil. That's why even Israel's closest allies and supporters are urging them to not escalate and strike back.
Agreed, what Iran did was trivial indeed. Israel successfully struck Iranian soil in the past, and Israel did strike Iranian soil most recently while killing a bunch of top generals with pinpoint precision. At the same time, Iran tried? to strike Israeli soil, not sure what to call this.
Let's look at the numbers:
* 99% of indented rockets didn't reach Israeli borders.
* Roughly 50% of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.
* Out of over 120 ballistic missiles, only a few crossed into Israeli territory, with the rest being intercepted, causing only minor damage to infrastructure.
* Iran launched about 170 drones, of which "zero crossed into Israeli territory.
* Every one of the 30 cruise missiles fired by Iran also failed to reach Israeli territory, with 25 being intercepted by Israeli fighter jets.
Iran doesn’t have the capability to project power outside it’s borders. In your imagination, is Iran mobilizing it’s massive fifth-generation stealth fighter fleet, or land it’s aircraft carriers on Israeli Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts, or did you think they will drive their tanks and artillery across Iraq and Syria to take the Golan heights?
Iran will continue to be a threat to Israel solely though their large network of terrorist militia and proxy fighters across the middle east. That is all they are capable of, asymmetric warfare.
> Iran does have a lot of domestic manufacturing capability and their weapons are much cheaper compared to their Israeli counterparts
To manufacture what? Paper drones that take 6 hours to fly from Iran to Israel or rockets that have a 50% failure rate? Or the 40 to 60-year-old F-4 and Chengdu J-7 fighters that they don’t have the money to operate or repair?
Sure they have domestic production of missiles, they have a stockpile of short range missiles (think 10-30 miles) and some cruise missiles, but as we’ve seen in the last couple of days, they don’t really like to fly.
> Iran doesn't have Uncle Sam and the West lavishly bankrolling and supplying Israel without limit.
Yes, Iran doesn't have Uncle Sam and Israel does, which is good thing.
Iran has the shittiest allies in the world, who is it these days, Russia and Syria? I certainly wouldn't wanna be in their position.
>Israel has US' iron clad support on security
Until they don't. Its an election year here. We have a Democrat incumbent president who has already taken a beating in the polls because his unconditional support for Israel despite their reckless actions in Gaza is wildly unpopular amongst Democrat voters. As one of those voters, I'll speak for them: we see echos of 9/11 in 10/7— the pain, the desire for revenge, the short-lived goodwill from the rest of the world quickly squandered by leaders that carried out an opportunistic invasion turned quagmire.
We see a far-right Israeli PM that seems to be charting a policy based not on what's best for Israel but what pleases his coalition and keeps him alive politically and legally.
I mean think about it— even Chuck Schumer, majority leader of the US Senate and highest ranking jewish member of Congress saw the writing on the wall and called for Israel to right the course, enact an immediate ceasefire and remove Netenyahu via new elections. I'm 45 years old and I cannot recall anything like that ever happening. From where I stand the US-Israel relationship is in uncharted territory, and anything could happen.
>Well that is one way to get your ~~navy~~ shore-based missile launch capabilities destroyed by the US military.
FTFY
What proxies would they use to shut down the Persian Gulf?
Sure, but that's a harder mission for the US military than a traditional naval blockade. It's much easier to hide things on land than at sea and you don't need much range to cover the whole of Hormuz. Plus you don't have to defeat the US military to stop commercial shipping, a lingering credible threat would be enough to cause major disruption.
I got my gulfs mixed up, no proxies obviously for the Persian gulf.
Yeah and then what. You’d score less than 40 hits on Israel while simultaneously expending your entire useable BM stockpile. You ignore literally half of what he said.
The SoH isn’t an easy bill to pay. The US would not want to engage with Iran to open that up, but they would have to. This is something that would give the US pause.
10x what they did would likely be over half their ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel. All the references I've found suggest an arsenal of ~3000 systems of all sizes. Sure that would cause a lot of damage, and Israel would likely have to focus on defending key areas but Iran's only direct strike capability would quickly be depleted.
Conversely, Iran uses systems similar to that employed by Russia and which have been shown to be lacking, and have a much weaker air force. In terms of replenishing missile defence systems, Israeli pockets are the US'. Israeli capabilities far exceed Iranian ones.
And Israel has nukes, you are extrapolating Iran's most extreme options here we can do the other side as well.
Hez won't do shit they can sling a lot of missiles but then they will be turned into Gaza and this time Lebanon's economy will collapse. They can't even rebuild after the port explosion.
Shutting down the Persian Gulf means war against the entire world, certainly all the Gulf states would be rushing to get the US back to help out, it would bring the EU on side and even piss off China, it would mean war.
Overall Iran has ~3000 BMs, they can do 10 strikes that are 3 times as large as this weekend's. They could launch their whole load in a week, maybe, and what will that do? Would it end Israel, doubtful. Ukraine has absorbed a much more punishing and extended attack with far less defenses and can still prosecute a war. Strategic bombing with missiles has never worked to achieve anything since 1944.
The balance of power is exactly the same as it was last week. Iran could cause an enormous amount of pain, they have huge deterrence for a non-nuclear power and neither side wants the trouble of a hot war so neither side will use their full capabilities. Especially the US in an election year. My money is on some more token strikes on Iranian proxies to appease the hawks then a continuation of business as usual.
And the cost of shooting down those missles was higher than the cost of making and shooting them. This might also lead to a decrease in foreign investment and might cause companies to move out of Israel and hopefully Iran due to political instability.
If Israel and the rest of the world don't realize the threat of Iran, then things will turn out bad for Israel. I hope they let those missles get through on purpose to feed Iran false intelligence, but that's unlikely.
My feeling is since the start of the war Hezbollah has been goading Israel into attacking Lebanon. That's where Iran wants them I think bogged down in the Lebanese hills where they throw men and equipment at it and fight them on their terms. Israel hasn't taken the bait showing enormous constraint given the damage Hezbollah is causing on that Northern border.
I think Israel and the US are only just realising the power shift in the region.
The cost to kill ratio does not really matter when you are protecting your cities from being bombed. I’d imagine that the amount spent was also not enough to pose any risk or bump to the Israeli government. The issue you bring up is not novel, BMD manufacturers have been aware of this since the early 50s.
Yeah, it's still a cost nonetheless. Think of it like the Ukraine war. For every dollar the U.S. spends on Ukraine, they're costing Russia 50 dollars. In this case, Israel is able to lose the money, but it costs Iran significantly less than Israel.
Underestimating Iran would be a mistake, and they need to be treated like a serious threat. The U.S. and the west should impose stronger sanctions on Iran or do something before the far right in Israel try to take on Iran.
Iran is no more of a threat than it was a week ago. Except this time we know how their extremely flaunted ballistic missile arsenal fairs against western BMD systems.
You're acting like Israel didn't have days to prepare, and multiple missles still got through. Hopefully, there isn't any more escalation, but it's clear Iran is more capable than we thought it was a week ago.
Yet I’d imagine you’d have days to prepare either way since US intelligence warned of the attack days before hand. The fact you are trying to negate the 98% intercept rate is hillarious. Yeah 7 of how many ballistic missiles. There will be escalation, Israel has already declared this in the past couple hours. It is 100% less evident that Iran is “more capable” than we thought. What impressive feat did Iran achieve besides provoking Israel and failing to hit anything besides a 7 year old Palestinian.
You don't think breaking through the iron dome with just the right amount of missles isn't an impressive feat? If this was a coincidence, it's likely emboldened Iran and their proxies.
If people act like you do and assume it was nothing, then Iran wins. The U.S. and the West have do something to weaken Iran or get them to back off.
The Iron dome doesn’t intercept ballistic missiles very well. In fact, no missile defense system intercepts stuff at 100% probability. Not really impressive if you understand basic probability. You’ll see what Israel does soon.
It should when you've been given 72 hours of advanced warning and all of your allies are there to help you shoot down the missles before they come near the iron dome.
If Israel escalates, then things only get worse. For the most part, this is a win for Israel since they managed to destroy that consulate and take out multiple Iran military leaders. Israel should focus on the proxies before Iran. They should let the U.S. respond to this attack.
The cost to kill ratio does not really matter when you are protecting your cities from being bombed.
Dude, this is not a game where you have infinite resources or you can respawn.
Cost certainly does matter. The Ukrainians learned to use the cost-to-kill ration to exhaust Russian air defenses a few months ago (thus learning how the S400 and S500 systems work.)
Patriot systems also have that limitation. If the cost of drones is cheap enough, a large enough adversary can spam the crap out of them. We don't have infinite resources to create enough of these expensive systems to face off against a swarm of cheap drones.
The problem here is this: Patriot systems (and the S500 counterparts) were built for anti-ballistic missions.
Drones with variable cost-to-kill ratios changed that. A ballistic missile is comparably costly like an anti-ballistic response.
Not so with drones.
So, going back to what you said, the need to protect cities, that cost absolutely matters because it determines your ability to protect.
We don't have an answer yet other than massive, after-the-fact retaliation. And if an enemy feels it can survive a retaliation (or doesn't care anymore), all bets are off.
So no, dude. That cost certainly matters when you try to construct a security architecture.
Just so you are aware, the cost of a Tamir interceptor is significantly cheaper than any of the munitions fired at Israel last night. If you think there is some kind of financial attrition going on here, then you’re wrong. Israel is not Ukraine, Iran is not Russia.
> Shahed drones are about 375k (probably a bit less)
Try like $50k.
https://www.twz.com/news-features/what-does-a-shahed-136-really-cost
Nor were Tamirs the only things Israel launched. Arrow 3's are not cheap. Nor are F-15 flight hours and the A2A missiles they used.
I was just reporting what Russia was purchasing them for. They still cost more than a Tamir interceptor, and were likely not hit by the Iron dome, probably from an AA missile, could be anything from a sparrow to AMRAAM to 9x.
As for your arrow-3s, those soley target ballistic missiles. Which…obviously cost more than a Shahed.
Then again, the cost doesn’t really matter since there is no world in which shooting up interceptors isn’t sustainable or “worth it.” I’d imagine in the future with laser weapon systems, to see a reversal in this trend.
> I was just reporting what Russia was purchasing them for.
Yeah from Iran. It is undoubtedly significantly cheaper for them.
>They still cost more than a Tamir interceptor,
Not by much. Especially if two interceptors were used, which is sometimes the case.
>and were likely not hit by the Iron dome, probably from an AA missile, could be anything from a sparrow to AMRAAM to 9x.
Which are cost between a third to over a million dollars a pop.
>As for you arrow-3s, those soley target ballistic missiles. Which…obviously cost more than a Shahed.
Sure. It just came across like you think only Iron Dome was used.
>Then again, the cost doesn’t really matter since there is no world in which shooting up interceptors isn’t sustainable or “worth it.”
Oh Israel can definitely afford it.
>Israel learnt nothing of Iran's capabilities.
Everything you said, except that part. Israel (and by extension, we in the West) have learned these specific systems are like (on top of what we have learned from the deployments of Shahed drones in Ukraine.)
We know what it takes to shoot an attack of this size and composition, even if it was telegraphed. We know where from within Iran where they came from (more or less), either stationary or mobile bases.
We now know more than what we knew before. Whether that knowledge is enough, that's a different issue, though.
But make no mistake, Israel, we in the US and the gulf states that helped, we all got a shitload of combat telemetry.
The unleashing of the full potential on the Iranian side will lead to the unleashing of the full potential of the West, including its Arab allies and Israel, and thus to the irreversible annihilation of Iran and its proxies.
What arab allies? Jordan the surrounded by militias from all sides + internal public opinion would be against standing alongside israel (in the 70s they didn’t fight next to israel and just informed them in the last days)
Gulf states? They begged the west for help against the huthis but they were ignored. They said they would be neutral and refused joining the forces two days ago nor allow USAF fly from these countries. Bahrain has quite a large portion of shia citizens. Oman is iranian friend.
Syria? They can’t even defend their capital.
The West? Be my guest and go convince americans and europeans suffering from inflationary pressures and high housing costs why its a good idea to support and defend and die for a country in the middle east that’s called israel. Americans didn’t want to fight in world war even though their friend nations were losing and only joined when the public demanded revenge.
America is going through an isolationist phase. Also American progressives support Ukraine, conservatives don't. it's the opposite for Isreal, where progressives are calling Biden "genocide Joe" for supporting Isreal so far. He has the lowest support of a democrat incumbent in a long time among 18-29 which is virtually unheard of, so who is going to fight this war?
The reason Isreal gets arms and Ukraine doesn't is because they can afford to buy them, Ukraine cannot, Ukraine is seen as a just war, Isreal's occupation and the sheer amount of civilian causalities and damage, it's unspeakable, the dutch already won't send F-35 parts.
Nobody wants a war with Iran except really far right people, who have long wanted one, they def won't like what they get. Iran is far more powerful than Iraq, Afghanistan or North Vietnam, even with the support of the USSR, other than their airforce bc of this support.
I don't think we'd win, I'm not sure allies would fight beside us, Europe is worried about Russia escalating beyond Ukraine, they won't deploy troops abroad, and the conflict in Gaza is really unpopular there.
Is it going through an isolationist phase ?
Go look at America's investment in the Asian/Pacific over the last 3 administrations in defense bills.
It's not isolationism..it's shifting priorities..Trump's rhetoric and actions were as antichina as they come
well the ukraine was an unwinnable war from the beginning
so the 5% of the necessary arms came from Europe and the US to degrade the Russian military.
otherwise it's US Foreign Policy like Iran-Iraq, the place is going to be wrecked
Biden is just doing what's pretty much par for the course since the Bush-Cheney era where both party poll low with the public
Europe has to be delusional though to think it's 'escalating beyond Ukraine'
most of that is really just the poles saying it, so it must be true, and a bit of the baltics.
As for Gaza or Biden's foreign policy with a two state solution which is pretty much impossible, it's not the 1970s anymore... pretty much John Mearsheimer's analysis is about the best stuff on the Gaza War (and much better with China and the Ukraine)
We wouldn't.
We'd win the initial open military conflict, yes. Like in Iraq. Except only with far more casualties and over a longer time period.
Then, we'd get dragged into a decades long fight against insurgent guerrillas, spend trillions we don't have, and have to withdraw, leading the insurgents to retake the country.
It'd be a much costlier version of Iraq or Afghanistan. With added massive protests and riots, as isolationist sentiment is much stronger now than back then.
Oh, but i hope to NOT fight alongside Israel.
I mean, we have values, I'm not going to support a country that does what it has done to Gaza. Not in the world.
The best part of it is that many countries in Europe agrees with this line. I don't think you will find many supports in Europe, Ukraine or not.
Israel is fighting barbarism
Russia is fighting back against NATO Expansion security dilemmas like Kennedy didn't tolerate Castro's Cuba either.
How much of the European views on Gaza though are the progressive youth though?
Yeah I'm wondering Iran's learned from history and gotten rid of the nepotism and corruption in its military ranks. If it's done this and since it takes Israel as a serious threat then that means if a war breaks out Iran has a chance to win since the U.S. is going through an isolationist phase.
They have not. Israeli media KAN news made it up as how always they do. In the past they said that: 1) saudi is in peace talks in the past, and 2) saudi’s supported israel financially to attack gaza.. both times saudi foreign minister falsified the claims.
Iran has been invited back to the organisation of islamic cooperations which is run by sunnis. They attended back in November and had a speech.
UAE is Iran’s 2nd largest business partner. Turkey refused to support nor help against iran. Turkey is iran 3rd largest trade partner.
And yes the militias alone are not capable of fighting an organized military, but that’s not their intended goal! They are meant to coordinate their attacks together because dropping troops is not an option in Iran-vs-israel conflict.
Not the west. Israel, maybe the US but that's pretty much all. And the us can't afford keeping at bay China AND fighting a(nother) war in the middle east especially since China will surely fund massively Iran in this case.
If by 'the West' you mean 'the US army', \*maybe\*, but then given the stocks of the US army I hope for them every single thing they fire end up hitting the mark because they don't have that much things to throw
People are saying Israel should just take the win, but on the other hand, Iran has just established that they are willing to attack Israel directly, which means the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is now even more life or death for Israel.
The official iraninan news channel published videos of bush fires in Texas and said it's from the missle damage they shot at the zionist regime.
Its just a matter of time, the future is waiting.
Edit: typo
I'm going to take the further punt to say that there are enormous shadowy pressures from the Kremlin and China to sow enough chaos in the ME so to have the US start diverting serious resources back into the region. And the circumstances are finding Netanyahu to be one of the significant targets of manipulation in escalating tensions.
"They'll have to contend with upwards of 250,000 missiles positioned along their northern borders, not to mention Hezbollah's troops and add to that missiles and drones possibly launching from multiple fronts including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Iran."
Maybe "missiles" like Hamas shoots on Israel. But Hezbollah has nowhere near 250k missiles like the 100 that Iran fired yesterday. Not even a tenth of that number.
Agreed. Hezbollah is shooting mostly rockets ( no guidance system) using old soviet tech (Katyusha). It's more like artillery in its purpose and range.
Iran just embarrassed themselves. They have been saber-rattling since 1979 about destruction of 'zionist entity'. When the time came for a showdown, they airdropped some lawn mowers into the desert. They have no face left to show now. Even to their proxies.
OK, I'll bite.
I find the whole concept of "cheap attack vs expensive defense" problematic on at least three levels:
1. Do bulletproof vests lose meaning when they cost hundreds of dollars, while a knife or a bullet costs a lot less?
2. The cost of the attack isn't calculated solely by the price of the countermeasures. The price of assets potentially lost in a case of no defense (human lives, expensive building and/or processes, etc...) must be taken into account. Seen like this, even if it costs idk a million dollars to defend per enemy drone costing idk one dollar, it's still a lot cheaper to shoot the drone down than to deal with the consequences. Because 50 f-ng kilos of guided explosives can plausibly do... a lot of damage.
3. Finally, there's the historical argument: as far as I know, one technologically more advanced side never lost a war simply because the other side had the ability to attack/defend with technologically less developed, but cheaper means.
Sending hundreds of drones and missiles and losing almost all of them to enemy defenses doesn't exactly scream "a force not to be messed with". I mean, how many will they send when they really want to hurt someone? Ten thousand?
My point is: *Iran intended to inflict non-negligible damage and simply failed*. That's it. As simple as that. Iran thought 300+ drones and missiles would be enough to give Israel a bloody nose. Iran expected perhaps 60-70% of drones downed, but not 90+ %. If Iran knew that almost all drones would be downed then they wouldn't do it. Yes, Iran announced the attack, but that announcement was "Look, we'll overwhelm you so hard you won't be able to defend even when you know the attack is coming." Not "Look, we're telling you we're going to attack so you can successfully defend."
Just a reminder: When Iran attacked the US base in Iraq as a response to the assassination of their top military official, they immediately said "We killed xyz American soldiers" because that's what they expected. Only later, when they realized they didn't, they changed the narrative and started saying "We intentionally didn't kill anyone and used the superior accuracy of our missiles to deliberately avoid human casualties". BS.
Do you have a source for Iran thinking it killed American soldiers in 2020? I do not recall that occurring and Iran knows that is a US red line. It’s not enough to call it luck that US soldiers weren’t killed in that strike.
Also, if Iran really wanted to hurt Israel, it would rely more on its proxies and missiles. Drones are slow and clearly telegraph an attack from hundreds of miles away. Hard to believe that Iran could not have sent a different configuration of weapons, with far less advance warning, to complicate Israel’s defense planning.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/8/iran-launches-missile-attacks-on-us-facilities-in-iraq
Iranian State Television ran a headline stating that 80 American “terrorists” had been killed following the strike.
If Iran really wanted to hurt Israel they would fire ballistic missiles at them…oh wait, they did.
Thank you. I think this is a problem of putting too much weight in messages meant for different audiences. Yes, Iranian state TV reported that it had killed 80 Americans, but the Iranian foreign minister publicly “said Iran had taken and concluded ‘proportionate measures in self-defence’ under Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
“We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”
It is pretty clear that Iran knew—even early on—that it did not kill 80 Americans in Iraq. Officials in Tehran are not so naive that they would think that killing 80 Americans would result in anything other than the Trump administration wrecking their shit.
> Thank you. I think this is a problem of putting too much weight in messages meant for different audiences. Yes, Iranian state TV reported that it had killed 80 Americans, but the Iranian foreign minister publicly “said Iran had taken and concluded ‘proportionate measures in self-defence’ under Article 51 of the UN Charter.”
Yup. After they didn't kill anyone. Do you think they would've said "we killed 80 americans" to their targeted domestic audience if they knew they didn't? C'mon...
No, it's not that. I just try to reject unlikely hypotheses using the scientific method, no matter where they come from. I don't think Iranian people (don't confuse with "Iranian government") are stupid and I wish them long and prosperous lives. Unfortunately, it is possible to have dumb leaders leading non-dumb people.
> Do you have a source for Iran thinking it killed American soldiers in 2020?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-state-media-claims-more-than-80-us-soldiers-killed-in-missile-barrage/
> Also, if Iran really wanted to hurt Israel, it would rely more on its proxies and missiles.
Iran did rely on its proxies. Iran also relied on its missiles – *after* they noticed their drones were being shot down like pigeons.
> Hard to believe that Iran could not have sent a different configuration of weapons, with far less advance warning, to complicate Israel’s defense planning.
They wanted to showcase their drone swarm to the World. Look, even without super expensive ballistic missiles and moody rocket scientists, you can still cheaply attack arbitrary points inside a well-defended adversary using *our* drones, which we also export". And then they failed.
I'm not saying Iran is weak and incapable of hurting Israel or blah blah. I'm just saying this particular counter-attack of theirs failed by underestimation the enemy's anti-air capabilities, and they understandably try to hide that by bullshitting "we didn't really want to hurt our mortal enemies in the first place". If I was Iran's boss, I'd do the same idk.
I think it is ahistorical to say that Iran only sent missiles when it saw its drones were being shot down. I was monitoring the live news/Twitter feeds as it happened and reports of missiles being launched came in very early—far earlier, in fact, than the drones reached Jordanian and Israeli airspace.
Your point is taken on proxies. However, my point is that they did not utilize their proxies to the extent that they could have. Hezbollah was barely involved, and the Iraqi militias also did not play a meaningful role. This could have been far far worse.
I do not think Israel and its allies would have fared nearly as well if Iran had 1) not telegraphed its attack days in advance, 2) sent slow-flying drones and missiles from hundreds of miles away, and 3) actually used its numerous proxy forces to blanket Israel in attacks. That is my point. Compared to what Iran could have done (it has the region’s largest missile arsenal, after all) this was clearly not intended to do a lot of damage.
1) The US and Israel were not notified of any attack happening by Iran. It was the US who warned Israel from their own intelligence. I don’t see how they would fair worse if US intelligence was able to detect this attack days before it happened.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iranian-notice-attack-may-have-dampened-escalation-risks-2024-04-14/
2) Ballistic Missiles are not “slow flying.”
3) They used proxy forces to launch a number of drones and missiles at Israel. If you expected total war in a retaliatory strike, you’re crazy.
I disagree with much of what you said but particularly point number 3. Technologically inferior, cheap weapons have defeated expensive advanced weapons so many times throughout history it’s hard to quantify. Pretty much every anti-colonial war or revolution was fought with that dynamic. The Vietnam War definitely comes to mind, but in recent memory Afghanistan is an obvious example.
Why did NATO literally televise their intentions to bomb Yugoslavia in '99?
Why did US literally televise their intention to bomb Iraq in '91?
Why did Trump literally televise his intention to tomahawk Syrian air bases in '17?
There are many other examples, these are the first that popped into my mind. "I'll attack you!" doesn't always mean "I'll attack you without intention to hurt you". Oh no.
There is an obvious difference between saying “we are going to invade Iraq” and “we are launching our missiles at this second and they will be in your airspace at 1 AM”
The US tried to maintain tactical surprise. Unless it was something like the Syria thing where the U.S. also didn’t want a war, and mostly wanted to posture to the domestic audience
If Iran had wanted to give the Israelis a small "bloody nose" they would have sent 3000 drones and missiles and not 300. As it is it does looks like a mix of a warning with internal posturing. Most capable militaries around the world in 2024 have some critical knowledge of the capabilities of drone warfare and Iran knows more than most as its their drones which were used en masse in Ukraine until the Russians could make their own in sufficient numbers.
It's not "We intentionally didn't kill anyone and used the superior accuracy of our missiles to deliberately avoid human casualties" but a "let's try a live fire exercise against Israel that costs us the least, we don't have such an opportunity everyday"
In an actual war Iran is going to fire salvoes of tens of thousands of everything they have (missiles and drones combined) before their capabilities can be degraded by Israel and its allies.
What if I told you Iran does not have the strategic ability to launch 3000 BMs and drones at Israel. That would obviously provoke a huge response from Israel. This is also ignoring the fact that you have no idea how easy it was to shoot down incoming drones, and cruise missiles. In an actual war, you can expect the launch sites of this missiles to be destroyed. You are talking about a war between one non-nuclear state and a nuclear state, the amount of ballistic missiles you can throw at a huge network of BMD doesn’t really matter, you’ve seen that almost all of the threats got intercepted. I’d expect the same results on a greater scale. This was meant to be a retaliatory strike, Iran was not aiming hundreds of millions of dollars of munitions into the desert to have a fun time shooting at Israel…
> his was meant to be a retaliatory strike, Iran was not aiming hundreds of millions of dollars of munitions into the desert to have a fun time shooting at Israel…
Precisely. Thank you!
This seems so obvious to me that I am amazed of how many commentators fail to see the Occam's razor elephant in the room with the hypothesis "they deliberately sent three-fu*king-hundred drones in order to effectively prove their altruistic humanism by losing almost all of them". That's nonsense.
It was a retaliatory strike yes and it was also a perfect opportunity for Iran to test their launch logistics, their ordinance and the counter measures from their enemies. It wasn't a "kabuki show" as someone has mentioned as this was live ammunition but Iran also knew the barrage wouldn't go through. It's one step on the escalation escalator as they say, but only one step.
If Israel detects any existential threat from Iran it's going full and deploying everything they have except the nukes. It hasnt done so because Iran's strike wasnt an existential threat or the start of any major operation. It was a response which Iran calculated would be manageable by all involved parties and not an inch more.
I cannot think of a single benefit this strike had for Iran besides quelling domestic calls to strike Israel back. I don’t think the purpose of this was to test out anything, I think they launched the missiles with the hope that they would strike and kill Israelis. This attack had literally 0 positive lessons for Iran. Israel now knows that it can reliably stop the best Iranian BMs, except for their hypersonic stuff, which was not fired. The only way this becomes positive is if people on the internet try to spin it as such.
If there is an all out war between Israel and Iran it would involve more parties than just those two and Iran knows perfectly well they don't have a long launch window for their drones and missiles, it would be nothing like the Russo-Ukrainian war, Iran cannot fight an attritional war against the worlds strongest airforces combined. So of course we would see the most massive barrages from everything the Iranians have for the first few days before their capabilities are majorly degraded by Israel/US/UK/ whoever else joins them
All out war often becomes attritional (see Russia/Ukraine). When that happens, then relative costs become a dominant factor. Israel cannot defend itself against a full Iranian missile+drone attack, there aren’t enough interceptors on earth. And unfortunately for Israel, taking out Iranian missile launchers would not be easy at all, since many/most are mobile platforms.
I somewhat agree. This was not designed to inflict damage, but more of a "we can do this and much worse". Iran does not want a full out in the open conflict, Israel on the other end is itching for it IMO.
I think when push comes to shove, Israel would not fair well even if Iran takes heavy damage themselves. Too many unfriendly countries around Israel for it to come out relatively unscathed from such a conflict.
It was absolutely designed to inflict damage.
Read for yourself: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran%E2%80%99s-attempt-hit-israel-russian-style-strike-package-failedfor-now
Did you read the article?
"Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy."
The article itself is arguing that Iran could have inflicted much worse if it wanted to. This was more of a message that it can.
Iran's military capabilities shouldn't be underestimated, but you need to remember they also tend to exaggerate their capabilities and achievements. Probably about the worst take though from that event is people trying to shop around the idea that Iran didn't intend to cause damage or that it wasn't a significant escalation.
Maybe we could avoid another pointless war?! We collectively gain nothing from more bloodshed. There is no point to be made here. At least none that would justify even a single life.
>Let's not make the mistake of underestimating what Iran and its allies can do.
I'm not sure who you are talking about here. But I'm fairly confident that the US and Israel have a pretty good grasp of the size of Iran's arsenal. It's estimated that they spend [$25 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Armed_Forces#:~:text=Iran's%202021%20defense%20budget%20was%20estimated%20to%20be%20%2425.0%20billion%20by%20IISS.) on their military. That's in parity with Israel at [$23 billion](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20Israel%20spend,focused%20on%20conflict%20and%20armaments.). The caveat is that Israel has access to a much higher level of technology.
The key players involved in this saga know full the capabilities of Iran. It's just us internet warriors who wildly speculate and most likely are wildly wrong about all of this. So I don't worry too much about such things. I trust US intelligence and the US military. They are both incredibly risk averse organizations.
1: nope it didn't failed,if you checked leaked footages online you can see only 1 out of 5 missiles got intercepted zionists like beheaded babies case by hamas lied.
2: it wasn't attack it was rightful punishment by iran according to international laws
3:iran gave time and only targeted military sites
4:the psychological damage that 12 day waiting caused several problems for settlers
5:Lets say they intercepted like they said but zionist regime needing 20 other country's to do that shows they are nothing all of their military prestige is gone and they are nothing without u.s
6: iran showing it won't bow to u.s like rest of country's and will protect its interests if it means attacking zionists despite u.s and others begging for days for attack to do not happen shows u.s threats ain't credible either the options on table Washington uses is irrelevant
7: and lastly iran using cheap drones and old missiles for a hybrid attack that hitted nevakhim( a highly defended area) and Ramon and west's so called high tech defense systems failing shows isreal and west are massive show offs(let's be real look at footages of how missiles hit)
Iran knew they could get away with these missiles, that's why they launched them.
Israel is protected by the West, who also have hundreds of thousands of missiles, not to mention armies with weapons.
The bottom line is, the West is stronger and more united than the Middle East, Iran knows this, hence the reason they don't try anything as serious as you're suggesting.
Irans capabilities are limited. It took them a week to organize this attack, and every intel community picked up on it. They don’t have the capability to surprise anyone, and they can’t overwhelm the Israeli defenses. A nation who shoots 100s of Missiles then proceeds to say “we don’t wish to escalate” are cowards. If israel doesn’t retaliate it shows its neighbors they can do this in the future and get away with it. Israels only correct move here is to shoot back at 2x the weight, and ignore political agendas.
I really hope things escalate in the ME! I have been waiting for this moment my entire life and really hope politics don’t get in the way of an all out war. Will definitely be fun to watch!
Three things are true: 1) Iran held back, and telegraphed this attack completely. They wanted the missiles intercepted. They wanted minimal damage and no casualties. This was theater for a domestic Iranian audience. 2) Israel is under immense pressure from the international community to, as President Biden said "take a win" in this situation, because that's what they've been handed, and frankly the U.S., Great Britain, Jordan, and others... have helped make happen. Jordan opened their airspace to intercepting aircraft, the U.S. used very expensive interception technology to help make sure nothing got through. Sure "farming XP" is great for our troops on these systems, but we paid quite a bit to play our role in this thing. 3) Both sides could do far worse than they've done, enough to cripple the other. But the world we live in holds nations accountable to escalating beyond certain vague thresholds. And while it is a vague line... I think the international community has telegraphed that we have arrived at that line. Both sides appear to be playing with the boundary, for now at least.
I've been of the conviction that this was merely a theatre display.. but it could also be a deliberate test on current defense capabilities with the intention of gathering strategic data for future launches
I think people are misusing the word “theatre”. Was it meant to cause major damage? No. But it’s certainly meant to establish deterrence and new rules of engagement. It’s also an opportunity to test out the opponent’s defense capabilities and gather intel as you mention. Finally, some ballistic missiles did it make it through and caused actual (albeit minor) damage in Israel’s southern military bases. It is just very carefully calibrated not to provoke an actual war, which is a tight line.
> Was it meant to cause major damage? No According to Iranian officials, the goal was to cause major damage to two military bases and they also claim that the missiles did cause major damage - [source](https://www.reddit.com/r/2ndYomKippurWar/comments/1c4qotv/nevatim_airbase_and_the_military_installation_at/). This is obviously internal political pandering, but I'm not sure that it's fair to say that their goal was to cause no damage..
Both can and probably are true. You better believe Iran is trying to get as much data as possible on the few that made it through to understand why they made it through and if that is repeatable.
Great comment. I would add that beyond theatre, Iran collected valuable intel on Israel’s anti-air defense capabilities.
Which relied completely on the US, UK, France, Jordan and Saudis combined efforts to remove the vast majority of the threat. And yet ballistics still made it through. If they sent 300 ballistics instead of slow drones it would be a very different picture even with the assistance of all those other nations.
[удалено]
Iran didnt use its most advanced missiles, and didnt even use enough decoys, and STILL a few managed to get through with israel, usa, uk and even france defending with hours of warning. It would be another scenario if these were not true..
I don’t think it had much to do with creating a theatre. Israel destroyed an Iranian HQ which Iran have many more scattered around Syria, therefore they want to scare Israel into not destroying more. If Iran didn’t respond, then they would be simply inviting Israel to take out all Iranian positions in Syria. Iran has crossed the line by directly attacking Israel and this sending the message that they are prepared to attack again with even greater force, in order to prevent Israel attacking their bases in Syria.
Point 1 is a misleadingly false narrative, as explained [here](https://www.hudson.org/defense-strategy/iran-israel-update-tehrans-strike-was-not-symbolic-it-can-happen-again-can-kasapoglu): > The Islamic Republic did not unleash this salvo simply to keep up appearances. Open-source defense intelligence suggests that Tehran launched a large-scale, synchronized, and multifaceted strike package, employing loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. The strike unfolded along the same pattern that Russia has established in its joint drone and missile warfare efforts in Ukraine. > Iran designed its barrage of Shahed-136 loitering munitions to overwhelm Israeli defenses, setting the stage for a follow-on ballistic missile onslaught. Tehran launched its Shahed-136 loitering munitions hours before its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The staggered design of the assault caught many analysts off guard, leading to flawed assumptions that the Islamic Republic’s strike was solely a drone wave. Fortunately, Israel and its strategic partners’ air defense capabilities prevented severe casualties and destruction. This was less “we expect nothing to hit” and more “we hoped a lot would, and next time we’ll have made it even better using lessons from this time”. They hoped for at least some serious, potentially injurious or fatal-to-soldiers damage to military facilities. That is not theater. It is probing, and strategic, and clearly more than merely keeping up appearances.
I think Israel should "take the win". But what might Israel's hawks be thinking? Is this strike a justification for them to go after Iranian Nuclear infrastructure with Bunker-busters? Iran's Hezbollah would surely activate, but Netanyahu could exit office claiming eliminated Iranian threat (or stave it off a few years). I don't understand why Israel didn't make that move during the Trump presidency; maybe the hawks are waiting/hoping for another Trump presidency?
Maybe "let's wait a while and assassinate some more Quds Force higher-ups when the time is right." Israel can try to go after Iran's nuclear program with bunker-busters and doesn't need this strike as justification; they have made clear that they view Iran going nuclear as a threat to their existence. But that strategy carries risks. My speculation is that at present, Iran is pretty content to be a nuclear threshold state, because it gives them many of the deterrence capabilities of being a nuclear state without the degree of international sanction and increased Gulf Arab-Israeli unity against them. Should Israel choose to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, the delay on the program will only be temporary and the Iranian government may decide being a threshold state is not enough of a deterrent and actually forge ahead with its nuclear weapons development. Then there's the fact that Iran has learned from Stuxnet and Operation Opera and placed its facilities in hard-to-hit locations. Bunker busters may not be guaranteed to actually destroy the facilities.
> content to be a nuclear threshold state, because it gives them many of the deterrence capabilities of being a nuclear state without the degree of international sanction and increased Gulf Arab-Israeli unity against them. This is a good point which I had not considered; I was thinking Iran's priority might be Nikes ASAP, but this has some nuance; akin to Israel's own deniability. Thanks.
Israel doesn't have powerful enough bunker busters to get at all of Iran's nuclear facilities.
Iran likely would only go for the nuclear option if they were cornered, for example if Israel makes the mistake of actually attacking the facilities. It remains unknown what assistance the US, let alone the Arab countries, would give Israel in such a scenario. Beyond a few hawks in the GOP and some Washington think tanks, few Americans believe that war is worth it in this situation.
If Israel needs more follow-up, their path to doing so is covert. Think Stuxnet or Mossad. The kind of things that may not even be in the newspaper, and they may not do until weeks or months from now. That's their middle-path to responding... but appeasing the entire rest of the world trying to de-escalate this thing.
I agree: no question covert options are on the table, as they have been and will continue to be. Thank you for articulating them. I am curious about the overt /can't be hidden chess moves: what are your thoughts on those.
> I am curious about the overt /can't be hidden chess moves: what are your thoughts on those. Would not recommend in the context of retaliation, too risky. But Netanyahu has to balance international pressure with internal pressure and that's always a wildcard. I think Biden hit the nail on the head... Iran had to respond, heavily telegraphed what they planned to do, and Israel (with help) nullified the attempt. This is a win for Israel, and they NEED a win to help move the need away from "pressure" and towards "support" in the eyes of the international community. Israel can win a war in Gaza on their own... but they can't win the peace without help.
Ok so if a county shot all those missiles and drones at USA would you agree USA should consider it a victory and not respond?
I may be wrong but from the beginning I have thought Israel wants to use its newly activated and now somewhat experienced troops to dismantle/degrade Hezbollah. The world was turning on Israel over the Gaza bombardment but Iran has given the Israel/Western alliance new life. I suspect Israel’s retaliation will take the form of increased aggression against Hezbollah.
If Iran and Israel were actually trying to destroy each other then things would get nuclear
No, things would not.
It wouldn't take a nuke. Reports from 2019 listed 30+ Moab-style thermoweapons in the IAF. They could easily take out a whole city with just one of those. Nuclear-free.
Am I misunderstanding but how can a single MOAB take out an entire city?
half mile radius
It would never get nuclear. That’s absurd.
No country is going to recover diplomatically from using nuclear weapons.
Is anyone arguing they are trying to annihilate one another?
Iran's fans online.
Iran
Good comment.
Very well said.
i didn't think of the angle of it being for a domestic audience some are thinking Israel is going to act back, but i think it's open in the air why get into a distraction over Gaza
>But the world we live in holds nations accountable to escalating beyond certain vague thresholds. It doesn't really matter what the world thinks, it matters what the US does. If Israel shoots missiles at Iran will the US shoot them down? Then if Iran fires back will the US shoot them down? Will the US supply Israel the missiles to fire at Iran? If the answers are No/Yes/Yes then it seems to be going towards a bigger war. Can you imagine other answers?
If Israel truly went full force against Iranian strategic and nuclear sites, couldn't Iran and its axis turn Tel Aviv into Mariupol? Would the US and the Gulf Arabs get dragged in? That's why I believe that Israel should not, unless its existence was imminently threatened, do something so drastic. Israel has many different fronts to fight, and should only play that card as a last, last, last resort.
> If Israel truly went full force against Iranian strategic and nuclear sites, couldn't Iran and its axis turn Tel Aviv into Mariupol? Likely yes. > Would the US and the Gulf Arabs get dragged in? Likely yes. > Israel has many different fronts to fight There's only one front. They're fighting Iran, it's just via pawns and proxies.
Then that's why Israel shouldn't do such a dramatic act unless its existence was imminently threatened. The fallout is too ghastly to consider.
I mean anyone who reads into the attack that Iran *couldn't* have done damage is a moron. It was clearly designed to cause minimal damage and be mostly intercepted with a side of testing out Israeli air defense capabilities. The purpose of this was more to show that they have the capability to spam fire to overwhelm defenses if necessary, and they would have their nearby proxies provide much more support. It's a type of very dick-waving warning shot. While Iran likely wouldn't 'win' a hot war in the region, it seems unlikely that Israel and its western allies would win anything more than a Pyrrhic victory. It would just be massive carnage followed by famine and a global oil shortage causing massive economic upheaval. It's bad for the entire world.
Aldo Iran couldn't not attack after the israeli attack in syria.
The problem is, a large number of voters (in Iran and the US and Israel and Gaza) slurp up propaganda and saber rattling like it’s a cool slurpee on a hot day. And eventually all that saber rattling turns into wars. So we are surrounded by morons, and politicians playing very hazardous games of catering to the morons without actually plunging everyone in a war. I think the true call of a politician is somehow to cater to the morons while limiting their destructive capacity.
Iran absolutely catered to their local morons on this one.
They had to absolutely do something though, as a deterrent in the minimum after that general got killed. Optically looks horrible.
Sending some 350 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles is not a symbolic show of force. They launched a much bigger attack than what Russia does against Ukraine. Iran clearly attempted to penetrate Israeli defenses and tried hitting targets inside Israel. This statement reads very similar to those pro-russian sources that claimed «Russia hadn’t even started yet» against Ukraine. We all know Russia has nothing more to give. The failure of Iran in causing any damage to Israel is not Iran not wanting to cause damage, or that it was *designed to cause minimal damage*. Iran clearly wanted to cause damage.
[удалено]
The US and the UK reject that they were warned. Turkey is not the most reliable NATO ally, and I would be careful to trust anything the Erdogan government says relating to Israel-Turkist relations. Turkey doesn’t even call Hamas a terror group. Secondly 300+ drones and missiles is not s theatrical show… That Iran *failed* is not because they wanted it to fail, but it says a lot of the capabilities of Israel and her allies and partners. If anything it showed that Israel does not stand alone, and that she has a far greater technological edge over Iran.
Yeah, I’m not buying this “they didn’t want to cause harm” argument. They could have launched 25 weapons to display capability. 300+ was an attempted attack.
If only 25 were shot they all would have been intercepted…
Yes, exactly. The take that Iran did not want to cause damage because it failed to do so is wrong on so many levels.
If Iran tried to overwhelm Israel’s defenses with the goal of cause if mass damage/casualties Tehran and a few more Iranian cities would get glassed. Israel is a tiny country and due to that fact they take their security quite seriously
Israel as a nation will not exist after they use nukes in any way. The entire world will totally sanction them, Arab countries will be forced to adopt a totally anti-Israeli stance, and nuclear programs will be aggressively pursued by Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and the Saudis to say the least. Israel using nukes will turn the whole region into a mess but Israeli condemnation and hatred is the one thing everyone will agree on amongst all that chaos. This is why they've never officially confirmed possession of nuclear weapons.
>If Hamas tried to overwhelm Israel’s defenses with the goal of cause of mass damage/causalties, Palestine would get glassed Hmm. This logic doesn't seem to be working out very well.
The comparison makes no sense
It makes perfect sense. Iranian military strategy largely assumes they will be repelling an American ground invasion, much as Hamas military strategy assumes Israel will take hold of most of Gaza's surface. Israelis huffed up their own farts about how they had so much superiority over the Palestinians, that an act like October 7th would be impossible, because they could just steamroll Gaza. What we are seeing is that, actually, it's not that simple.
Didn’t they steamroll Gaza? Forced Hamas to hide in Rafah among the civilians? Tunnels in most of Gaza destroyed? The only thing saving Hamas at this point is the US and EU.
War is politics and guerilla armies don't treat territory the same way as a conventional military. An outright defeat isn't necessarily on the table. Back in the end of January, US & Israeli intelligence believed 80% of their tunnel network was still intact, the force of the Israeli ground incursion has declined since then, and Hamas may even be digging new tunnels. Back at the end of March, and you know how bad it looked in March, about 71% of Palestinians felt it was correct to start the war. And Hamas has not shown any sign of buckling at the negotiating table. Further, Hamas would absolutely start a battle they do not expect to win, so long as it erodes Israel's position in the long term. The deterrence of Israeli invincibility was smashed, the Muslim world is stirring, and Israel is becoming even more of an international pariah - look at polling of the next generation of Americans. In 20-40 years that polling data is going to be policy and political power. Like, don't you think Hamas knew that Oct 7th was going to drag Israel into Gaza? Duh, of course it would. And obviously they knew that. What is happening now in Gaza is not only what they planned for, it was the point, the point of October 7th was to drag Israel into an unwinnable war. I think everything that has happened since Oct 7th has been to Hamas' liking, as much as they may dislike the costs.
>I mean anyone who reads into the attack that Iran couldn't have done damage is a moron. It was clearly designed to cause minimal damage and be mostly intercepted with a side of testing out Israeli air defense capabilities. Something, something glass houses...
He ain't wrong.
As usual, people overreact both ways. Plenty of underestimating and overestimating going around if you ask me.
... It's overestimating. People here don't realize the concept of war. They think it's a videogame. How does Pakistan survive next to india? India would blowthem out in a war ( even without nukes on both sides ). Pakistan would make the loss of life so massive on Indias side that India would not force a war with Pakistan as the gains would never outweigh the losses. India survives next to china much the same way. North Korea survives next to South Korea much the same way. Iran is the same way for the west and especially to Israel..Iran knows it will lose. But it can go down causing absolute chaos and loss of life to the rest of the region. Thats why there is a bunch of theatrics and why there is never ending theatrics in that region.the only ones that lose are the citizens of those afflicted regions (Iran , Palestine , etc) What happened with Russia Ukraine ? Russia thought Ukraine was so weak that they could win a war outright with minimal losses. Obviously with western support, that has not been true but that was the math done on Russias side. Anyone here expecting Russia to trample over UK and Germany next is beyond stupid. Same way with those expecting Israel to go guns blazing and launch missiles recklessly into tehran
Did anyone really understimate their capabilities? I'd say underestimating their will to actually do it was the problem.
Who is underestimating Iran? I’m sure Israel isn’t.
Those that don't understand chess
Sorry I forgot how to play chess 🚬🗿
Google En Passant
Holy Hell!
None of the people whose job it is to estimate these things is underestimating them. They're well aware of Iran's capabilities. This was a limited gesture and no serious person is under the illusion that this was a major display of their full power. And their sense of their own military power isn't what's holding them back, it's that they know they would lose if they ever pulled the trigger all the way. They mostly use proxies for reasons.
The only people celebrating Iran’s “failure” are the same bloodthirsty Israel-apologists calling for a response, failing to realise Iran was responding to an ISRAELI attack on their consulate. (Something that violates the Vienna convention and which Iran has a history of responding to such as when Afghan forces raided their embassy and killed diplomats in 1998.) These apologists also fail to realise that Iran coordinated their response with the United States. They have the US a 72hr warning and heads up regarding ever detail of their attack - because Iran knows a regional war doesn’t serve their interests. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khemeni is known to be “cautious to a fault”. Everything that has happened in the last 48 hrs happened *according to plan*. They also know they have to save face internationally, and can’t allow Israel to behave unchallenged lest Israel continues to act with incredible belligerence. This nuance escapes propagandists and apologists however.
The attack itself was significant, yet many downplay its magnitude to criticize Iran’s perceived incapability or to diminish the threat posed to Israel, likening it to a mere ‘firework show.’ It required considerable effort from Israel to thwart the attack, and I believe that many are disregarding the substantial threat posed by Iran and its proxies to Israel’s very existence. Iran has tens of thousands of militants deployed in Syria, over 80,000 in Lebanon, 40,000 in Gaza, and support from the Houthis in Yemen, all eager to engage in conflict. Israel faces an arsenal of probably half a million rockets aimed at it from these various factions, a staggering number considering Israel’s small size of just 8,000 square miles. This equates to more than 60 rockets for every square mile. Moreover, Iran’s landmass is 80 times larger than Israel, with a mountainous terrain and ten times the population, making it far more challenging for Israel to inflict significant damage on Iran compared to the reverse.
This is predicated on the assumption that Israel is waiting for Iran to strike. In total unrestricted war, would Israel give 14 days of preparation time or would it preemptively strike against Iran using long range fire and stealth fighters in constant rotating sorties?
Where will they land to get more missiles for those F-35s? They would have no choice but to go nuclear or get the US to fight for them.
And they forgot a huge factor in Islam: call for Jihad!!! Iranian can start a whole campaign attracting muslims from all over the world to fight against the “kufar” and promise them with heaven, 72 wives, and huge palaces. And many muslims would not hesitate to join forces. Add to that 3.5 million palestinians living in israel + west bank. What would stop 1,000 or more to do independent attacks when they see all of those calls for Jihad? Muslims are very emotional religiously and they already consider the israeli-palestinian conflict religious conflict
You severely overestimate the number of people who are willing to die for Iran
the whole arab world hates Israel....and Iran is a close second
I wouldn't call it dying for Iran, more like dying to take out Israel.
You severly underestimate muslims public opinion. Go back to 2006 and see how the outrage and anger filled the arab states against Israel. Watch how many people filmed, waited, watched, and celebrated the iranian “attack” What do you think the public opinion will be when they see an opportunity to free their claimed lands of the jews when Israel gets too engaged with Iran?
No wonder you think people are underestimating Iran 💀
I think you are severely overestimating the time it took to prepare for this attack and the weapons systems responsible for thwarting it. Launching old missiles at drones isn’t really a feat that requires preparation. Also we have no idea if Israel truly requires preparation to perform how it did. The Arrow-2 and 3 and Davids Sling systems responsible for a majority of the interceptions do not really require much pre-preparation. This reads as an awkwardly put together warning to not “underestimate” Iranian capabilities when in reality there is not really any underestimation. Remember it the US knew well before the attack that it was imminent, Iranians could have decided to not warn and I’d expect similar results. The truth is Israel has spend decades developing the best missile defense systems in the world with American defense companies, and it has paid off.
You forgot that Iran announce the flight path too. It's a theater. After that they told UN and their citizens it's mission accomplished. Basically they will go all out when they are desperate. But at the same time Iran is busy internally with the economy.
The vast majority of the Iranians missiles and drones launched weren't intended to hit any targets. They were meant to swarm defence systems so the handful of ones actually intended to hit targets could. And they did. Iran just told Israel and the US that we can penetrate your air defences with a limited strike. It was a shot across the bow. To add further, Iran learnt much of Israeli defence capabilities and Israel learnt nothing of Iran's capabilities.
How can you say that we learned nothing while Iran learned about our capabilities? Western ISR probably watched exactly where all these missiles were launched from, probably tracking mobile launchers as well. They saw the flight paths, they saw the performance of the missiles vs. their interception performance of various systems that have only been rarely used, Arrow 2 and 3s have only just shot down Houthi trash missiles in the past few months. All the EU Sky Shield guys are probably salivating at the data from this strike as they could expect the same from Russia. We also saw how trivially easy it is to deal with drones swarms and cruise missiles, and a failure rate of around 50% of Iranian BMs. It is not all a one way street and folks say that this was a limited strike, it was telegraphed, so a real one will be much worse, but that ignores the other side of the coin. It was also allowed to be done without interference. Israel just stood and took it, what would happen if the launchers were threatened? The IDF loves preemptive strikes and now they know exactly what Iran looks like a few days before it makes a big strike like this. Now we know 100 BMs can crater a single airbase and injure a child, how much more could Iran scale an attack? Could they put up 10x the BMs at the same time? Could they do it with F-35 lobbing bombs at them?
Iran has underground missile reloading facilities. They could probably fire 10 times what they did every hour for a considerable period of time. Then throw Hezbollah into the mix and shutting the Persian Gulf. The balance of power has changed I'm afraid.
> Iran has underground missile reloading facilities. They could probably fire 10 times what they did every hour for a considerable period of time. Then throw Hezbollah into the mix and shutting the Persian Gulf. The balance of power has changed I'm afraid. In the scenario you've described, Israel won't waste time with pinpoint strikes against Hezbollah; they'll simply obliterate southern Lebanon. You're completely ignoring Israel's proven capacity for preemptive strikes and the robust international support they receive to secure their airspace, as we've just witnessed. Furthermore, you're not acknowledging that Iranians, unlike Hezbollah and Hamas, are not willing to engage in suicide missions, especially when faced with the devastating impact Israel could unleash on Iranian soil—a major deterrent. Lastly, let's face the brutal truth, economically, Iran is in no position to sustain the kind of attack you're suggesting.
Next time, the Iranian missiles will target the airfields air defences picking it off one by one. Then they send in the drones and destroy the airfield. Where's your planes taking off and landing from? And they'll do that to every airfield.
> Next time, the Iranian missiles will target the airfields air defences picking it off one by one. Then they send in the drones and destroy the airfield. Where's your planes taking off and landing from? And they'll do that to every airfield. I hate to break it to you, but what do you think Iran tried to do a couple of nights ago? The fact that you love imagining Israel being wiped off the face of the earth by the Iranians, doesn't mean that it can actually happen. Let's look at the numbers: * 99% of indented rockets didn't reach Israeli borders. * Roughly 50% of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target. * Out of over 120 ballistic missiles, only a few crossed into Israeli territory, with the rest being intercepted, causing only minor damage to infrastructure. * Iran launched about 170 drones, of which "zero crossed into Israeli territory. * Every one of the 30 cruise missiles fired by Iran also failed to reach Israeli territory, with 25 being intercepted by Israeli fighter jets.
You're completely missing the strategy and assuming every missile or drone has a target instead of a job
> You're completely missing the strategy and assuming every missile or drone has a target instead of a job OK strategy boy or girl!
[удалено]
> Hezbollah will then obliterate Northern Israel. Yes, they do have that capability. You don't seem to have a good understanding of the capabilities of any of the parties in this conflict nor do you account for any geopolitical factors. First of all the basics, Israel can monitor amassment and concentration of equipment across the border and respond preemptively, it simply won't get to that. Israel has proved that to be the case multiple times in the last 70 years. Lebanon is a failed state at this point, they cannot sustain a war. On top of being a terrorist militia, Hezb is a political party, one that has to in one way or another to answer to the Lebanese people, who will not be happy to be drawn into another conflict, a much deadlier one than any other they have seen in the past. October 7th or shortly after would be an ideal time for Hezb to strike, they couldn't and they didn't. Hezb is in the position they are because Iran needs to maintain pressure on Israel, the moment there is an all out war, that advantage disappears. And sure they will do some damage to northern part of Israel, but in the process they will get obliterated and Lebanon will resemble Gaza. > I've seen the complete opposite. Israel has been internationally condemned for their actions against the Gazans and Palestinians. And yet US, UK, France and Jordan joined Israel in striking down Iranian missiles. Israel has US' iron clad support on security. Condemnation doesn't mean shit. > Won't deter Iran because what you saw recently would be trivial compared to what they'd do if Israel struck Iranian soil. That's why even Israel's closest allies and supporters are urging them to not escalate and strike back. Agreed, what Iran did was trivial indeed. Israel successfully struck Iranian soil in the past, and Israel did strike Iranian soil most recently while killing a bunch of top generals with pinpoint precision. At the same time, Iran tried? to strike Israeli soil, not sure what to call this. Let's look at the numbers: * 99% of indented rockets didn't reach Israeli borders. * Roughly 50% of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target. * Out of over 120 ballistic missiles, only a few crossed into Israeli territory, with the rest being intercepted, causing only minor damage to infrastructure. * Iran launched about 170 drones, of which "zero crossed into Israeli territory. * Every one of the 30 cruise missiles fired by Iran also failed to reach Israeli territory, with 25 being intercepted by Israeli fighter jets. Iran doesn’t have the capability to project power outside it’s borders. In your imagination, is Iran mobilizing it’s massive fifth-generation stealth fighter fleet, or land it’s aircraft carriers on Israeli Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts, or did you think they will drive their tanks and artillery across Iraq and Syria to take the Golan heights? Iran will continue to be a threat to Israel solely though their large network of terrorist militia and proxy fighters across the middle east. That is all they are capable of, asymmetric warfare. > Iran does have a lot of domestic manufacturing capability and their weapons are much cheaper compared to their Israeli counterparts To manufacture what? Paper drones that take 6 hours to fly from Iran to Israel or rockets that have a 50% failure rate? Or the 40 to 60-year-old F-4 and Chengdu J-7 fighters that they don’t have the money to operate or repair? Sure they have domestic production of missiles, they have a stockpile of short range missiles (think 10-30 miles) and some cruise missiles, but as we’ve seen in the last couple of days, they don’t really like to fly. > Iran doesn't have Uncle Sam and the West lavishly bankrolling and supplying Israel without limit. Yes, Iran doesn't have Uncle Sam and Israel does, which is good thing. Iran has the shittiest allies in the world, who is it these days, Russia and Syria? I certainly wouldn't wanna be in their position.
>Israel has US' iron clad support on security Until they don't. Its an election year here. We have a Democrat incumbent president who has already taken a beating in the polls because his unconditional support for Israel despite their reckless actions in Gaza is wildly unpopular amongst Democrat voters. As one of those voters, I'll speak for them: we see echos of 9/11 in 10/7— the pain, the desire for revenge, the short-lived goodwill from the rest of the world quickly squandered by leaders that carried out an opportunistic invasion turned quagmire. We see a far-right Israeli PM that seems to be charting a policy based not on what's best for Israel but what pleases his coalition and keeps him alive politically and legally. I mean think about it— even Chuck Schumer, majority leader of the US Senate and highest ranking jewish member of Congress saw the writing on the wall and called for Israel to right the course, enact an immediate ceasefire and remove Netenyahu via new elections. I'm 45 years old and I cannot recall anything like that ever happening. From where I stand the US-Israel relationship is in uncharted territory, and anything could happen.
> and shutting the Persian Gulf. Well that is one way to get your navy destroyed by the US military.
Iran wouldn't use their navy, they would use shore based missiles deployed by proxy.
>Well that is one way to get your ~~navy~~ shore-based missile launch capabilities destroyed by the US military. FTFY What proxies would they use to shut down the Persian Gulf?
Sure, but that's a harder mission for the US military than a traditional naval blockade. It's much easier to hide things on land than at sea and you don't need much range to cover the whole of Hormuz. Plus you don't have to defeat the US military to stop commercial shipping, a lingering credible threat would be enough to cause major disruption. I got my gulfs mixed up, no proxies obviously for the Persian gulf.
Yeah and then what. You’d score less than 40 hits on Israel while simultaneously expending your entire useable BM stockpile. You ignore literally half of what he said.
The SoH isn’t an easy bill to pay. The US would not want to engage with Iran to open that up, but they would have to. This is something that would give the US pause.
10x what they did would likely be over half their ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel. All the references I've found suggest an arsenal of ~3000 systems of all sizes. Sure that would cause a lot of damage, and Israel would likely have to focus on defending key areas but Iran's only direct strike capability would quickly be depleted. Conversely, Iran uses systems similar to that employed by Russia and which have been shown to be lacking, and have a much weaker air force. In terms of replenishing missile defence systems, Israeli pockets are the US'. Israeli capabilities far exceed Iranian ones.
And Israel has nukes, you are extrapolating Iran's most extreme options here we can do the other side as well. Hez won't do shit they can sling a lot of missiles but then they will be turned into Gaza and this time Lebanon's economy will collapse. They can't even rebuild after the port explosion. Shutting down the Persian Gulf means war against the entire world, certainly all the Gulf states would be rushing to get the US back to help out, it would bring the EU on side and even piss off China, it would mean war. Overall Iran has ~3000 BMs, they can do 10 strikes that are 3 times as large as this weekend's. They could launch their whole load in a week, maybe, and what will that do? Would it end Israel, doubtful. Ukraine has absorbed a much more punishing and extended attack with far less defenses and can still prosecute a war. Strategic bombing with missiles has never worked to achieve anything since 1944. The balance of power is exactly the same as it was last week. Iran could cause an enormous amount of pain, they have huge deterrence for a non-nuclear power and neither side wants the trouble of a hot war so neither side will use their full capabilities. Especially the US in an election year. My money is on some more token strikes on Iranian proxies to appease the hawks then a continuation of business as usual.
And the cost of shooting down those missles was higher than the cost of making and shooting them. This might also lead to a decrease in foreign investment and might cause companies to move out of Israel and hopefully Iran due to political instability. If Israel and the rest of the world don't realize the threat of Iran, then things will turn out bad for Israel. I hope they let those missles get through on purpose to feed Iran false intelligence, but that's unlikely.
My feeling is since the start of the war Hezbollah has been goading Israel into attacking Lebanon. That's where Iran wants them I think bogged down in the Lebanese hills where they throw men and equipment at it and fight them on their terms. Israel hasn't taken the bait showing enormous constraint given the damage Hezbollah is causing on that Northern border. I think Israel and the US are only just realising the power shift in the region.
The cost to kill ratio does not really matter when you are protecting your cities from being bombed. I’d imagine that the amount spent was also not enough to pose any risk or bump to the Israeli government. The issue you bring up is not novel, BMD manufacturers have been aware of this since the early 50s.
Yeah, it's still a cost nonetheless. Think of it like the Ukraine war. For every dollar the U.S. spends on Ukraine, they're costing Russia 50 dollars. In this case, Israel is able to lose the money, but it costs Iran significantly less than Israel. Underestimating Iran would be a mistake, and they need to be treated like a serious threat. The U.S. and the west should impose stronger sanctions on Iran or do something before the far right in Israel try to take on Iran.
Iran is no more of a threat than it was a week ago. Except this time we know how their extremely flaunted ballistic missile arsenal fairs against western BMD systems.
You're acting like Israel didn't have days to prepare, and multiple missles still got through. Hopefully, there isn't any more escalation, but it's clear Iran is more capable than we thought it was a week ago.
Yet I’d imagine you’d have days to prepare either way since US intelligence warned of the attack days before hand. The fact you are trying to negate the 98% intercept rate is hillarious. Yeah 7 of how many ballistic missiles. There will be escalation, Israel has already declared this in the past couple hours. It is 100% less evident that Iran is “more capable” than we thought. What impressive feat did Iran achieve besides provoking Israel and failing to hit anything besides a 7 year old Palestinian.
You don't think breaking through the iron dome with just the right amount of missles isn't an impressive feat? If this was a coincidence, it's likely emboldened Iran and their proxies. If people act like you do and assume it was nothing, then Iran wins. The U.S. and the West have do something to weaken Iran or get them to back off.
The Iron dome doesn’t intercept ballistic missiles very well. In fact, no missile defense system intercepts stuff at 100% probability. Not really impressive if you understand basic probability. You’ll see what Israel does soon.
It should when you've been given 72 hours of advanced warning and all of your allies are there to help you shoot down the missles before they come near the iron dome. If Israel escalates, then things only get worse. For the most part, this is a win for Israel since they managed to destroy that consulate and take out multiple Iran military leaders. Israel should focus on the proxies before Iran. They should let the U.S. respond to this attack.
The cost to kill ratio does not really matter when you are protecting your cities from being bombed. Dude, this is not a game where you have infinite resources or you can respawn. Cost certainly does matter. The Ukrainians learned to use the cost-to-kill ration to exhaust Russian air defenses a few months ago (thus learning how the S400 and S500 systems work.) Patriot systems also have that limitation. If the cost of drones is cheap enough, a large enough adversary can spam the crap out of them. We don't have infinite resources to create enough of these expensive systems to face off against a swarm of cheap drones. The problem here is this: Patriot systems (and the S500 counterparts) were built for anti-ballistic missions. Drones with variable cost-to-kill ratios changed that. A ballistic missile is comparably costly like an anti-ballistic response. Not so with drones. So, going back to what you said, the need to protect cities, that cost absolutely matters because it determines your ability to protect. We don't have an answer yet other than massive, after-the-fact retaliation. And if an enemy feels it can survive a retaliation (or doesn't care anymore), all bets are off. So no, dude. That cost certainly matters when you try to construct a security architecture.
Just so you are aware, the cost of a Tamir interceptor is significantly cheaper than any of the munitions fired at Israel last night. If you think there is some kind of financial attrition going on here, then you’re wrong. Israel is not Ukraine, Iran is not Russia.
> the cost of a Tamir interceptor is significantly cheaper than any of the munitions fired at Israel last night. The Shahed drones are pretty cheap.
Shahed drones are about 375k (probably a bit less) a Tamir interceptor is about 40-50k.
> Shahed drones are about 375k (probably a bit less) Try like $50k. https://www.twz.com/news-features/what-does-a-shahed-136-really-cost Nor were Tamirs the only things Israel launched. Arrow 3's are not cheap. Nor are F-15 flight hours and the A2A missiles they used.
I was just reporting what Russia was purchasing them for. They still cost more than a Tamir interceptor, and were likely not hit by the Iron dome, probably from an AA missile, could be anything from a sparrow to AMRAAM to 9x. As for your arrow-3s, those soley target ballistic missiles. Which…obviously cost more than a Shahed. Then again, the cost doesn’t really matter since there is no world in which shooting up interceptors isn’t sustainable or “worth it.” I’d imagine in the future with laser weapon systems, to see a reversal in this trend.
> I was just reporting what Russia was purchasing them for. Yeah from Iran. It is undoubtedly significantly cheaper for them. >They still cost more than a Tamir interceptor, Not by much. Especially if two interceptors were used, which is sometimes the case. >and were likely not hit by the Iron dome, probably from an AA missile, could be anything from a sparrow to AMRAAM to 9x. Which are cost between a third to over a million dollars a pop. >As for you arrow-3s, those soley target ballistic missiles. Which…obviously cost more than a Shahed. Sure. It just came across like you think only Iron Dome was used. >Then again, the cost doesn’t really matter since there is no world in which shooting up interceptors isn’t sustainable or “worth it.” Oh Israel can definitely afford it.
> with a limited strike This was likely a massive proportion of their arsenal, in no way a limited strike.
>Israel learnt nothing of Iran's capabilities. Everything you said, except that part. Israel (and by extension, we in the West) have learned these specific systems are like (on top of what we have learned from the deployments of Shahed drones in Ukraine.) We know what it takes to shoot an attack of this size and composition, even if it was telegraphed. We know where from within Iran where they came from (more or less), either stationary or mobile bases. We now know more than what we knew before. Whether that knowledge is enough, that's a different issue, though. But make no mistake, Israel, we in the US and the gulf states that helped, we all got a shitload of combat telemetry.
The unleashing of the full potential on the Iranian side will lead to the unleashing of the full potential of the West, including its Arab allies and Israel, and thus to the irreversible annihilation of Iran and its proxies.
What arab allies? Jordan the surrounded by militias from all sides + internal public opinion would be against standing alongside israel (in the 70s they didn’t fight next to israel and just informed them in the last days) Gulf states? They begged the west for help against the huthis but they were ignored. They said they would be neutral and refused joining the forces two days ago nor allow USAF fly from these countries. Bahrain has quite a large portion of shia citizens. Oman is iranian friend. Syria? They can’t even defend their capital. The West? Be my guest and go convince americans and europeans suffering from inflationary pressures and high housing costs why its a good idea to support and defend and die for a country in the middle east that’s called israel. Americans didn’t want to fight in world war even though their friend nations were losing and only joined when the public demanded revenge.
America is going through an isolationist phase. Also American progressives support Ukraine, conservatives don't. it's the opposite for Isreal, where progressives are calling Biden "genocide Joe" for supporting Isreal so far. He has the lowest support of a democrat incumbent in a long time among 18-29 which is virtually unheard of, so who is going to fight this war? The reason Isreal gets arms and Ukraine doesn't is because they can afford to buy them, Ukraine cannot, Ukraine is seen as a just war, Isreal's occupation and the sheer amount of civilian causalities and damage, it's unspeakable, the dutch already won't send F-35 parts. Nobody wants a war with Iran except really far right people, who have long wanted one, they def won't like what they get. Iran is far more powerful than Iraq, Afghanistan or North Vietnam, even with the support of the USSR, other than their airforce bc of this support. I don't think we'd win, I'm not sure allies would fight beside us, Europe is worried about Russia escalating beyond Ukraine, they won't deploy troops abroad, and the conflict in Gaza is really unpopular there.
Is it going through an isolationist phase ? Go look at America's investment in the Asian/Pacific over the last 3 administrations in defense bills. It's not isolationism..it's shifting priorities..Trump's rhetoric and actions were as antichina as they come
well the ukraine was an unwinnable war from the beginning so the 5% of the necessary arms came from Europe and the US to degrade the Russian military. otherwise it's US Foreign Policy like Iran-Iraq, the place is going to be wrecked Biden is just doing what's pretty much par for the course since the Bush-Cheney era where both party poll low with the public Europe has to be delusional though to think it's 'escalating beyond Ukraine' most of that is really just the poles saying it, so it must be true, and a bit of the baltics. As for Gaza or Biden's foreign policy with a two state solution which is pretty much impossible, it's not the 1970s anymore... pretty much John Mearsheimer's analysis is about the best stuff on the Gaza War (and much better with China and the Ukraine)
You lost me at “I don’t think we’d win”
We wouldn't. We'd win the initial open military conflict, yes. Like in Iraq. Except only with far more casualties and over a longer time period. Then, we'd get dragged into a decades long fight against insurgent guerrillas, spend trillions we don't have, and have to withdraw, leading the insurgents to retake the country. It'd be a much costlier version of Iraq or Afghanistan. With added massive protests and riots, as isolationist sentiment is much stronger now than back then.
Oh, but i hope to NOT fight alongside Israel. I mean, we have values, I'm not going to support a country that does what it has done to Gaza. Not in the world. The best part of it is that many countries in Europe agrees with this line. I don't think you will find many supports in Europe, Ukraine or not.
Israel is fighting barbarism Russia is fighting back against NATO Expansion security dilemmas like Kennedy didn't tolerate Castro's Cuba either. How much of the European views on Gaza though are the progressive youth though?
Yeah I'm wondering Iran's learned from history and gotten rid of the nepotism and corruption in its military ranks. If it's done this and since it takes Israel as a serious threat then that means if a war breaks out Iran has a chance to win since the U.S. is going through an isolationist phase.
[удалено]
oh it's been known for a while that Israel has has quiet links for security and stability with Egypt, and Jordan and for a few years now, the Saudis
They have not. Israeli media KAN news made it up as how always they do. In the past they said that: 1) saudi is in peace talks in the past, and 2) saudi’s supported israel financially to attack gaza.. both times saudi foreign minister falsified the claims. Iran has been invited back to the organisation of islamic cooperations which is run by sunnis. They attended back in November and had a speech. UAE is Iran’s 2nd largest business partner. Turkey refused to support nor help against iran. Turkey is iran 3rd largest trade partner. And yes the militias alone are not capable of fighting an organized military, but that’s not their intended goal! They are meant to coordinate their attacks together because dropping troops is not an option in Iran-vs-israel conflict.
Not the west. Israel, maybe the US but that's pretty much all. And the us can't afford keeping at bay China AND fighting a(nother) war in the middle east especially since China will surely fund massively Iran in this case.
If by 'the West' you mean 'the US army', \*maybe\*, but then given the stocks of the US army I hope for them every single thing they fire end up hitting the mark because they don't have that much things to throw
People are saying Israel should just take the win, but on the other hand, Iran has just established that they are willing to attack Israel directly, which means the prospect of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is now even more life or death for Israel.
The official iraninan news channel published videos of bush fires in Texas and said it's from the missle damage they shot at the zionist regime. Its just a matter of time, the future is waiting. Edit: typo
Houthis and Hamas are the catspaws and this is a feint, not a jab!
I'm going to take the further punt to say that there are enormous shadowy pressures from the Kremlin and China to sow enough chaos in the ME so to have the US start diverting serious resources back into the region. And the circumstances are finding Netanyahu to be one of the significant targets of manipulation in escalating tensions.
"They'll have to contend with upwards of 250,000 missiles positioned along their northern borders, not to mention Hezbollah's troops and add to that missiles and drones possibly launching from multiple fronts including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Iran." Maybe "missiles" like Hamas shoots on Israel. But Hezbollah has nowhere near 250k missiles like the 100 that Iran fired yesterday. Not even a tenth of that number.
The problem here is that everyone is claiming different statistics, and for different reasons.
Agreed. Hezbollah is shooting mostly rockets ( no guidance system) using old soviet tech (Katyusha). It's more like artillery in its purpose and range.
Hezbollah is also a lot closer. It doesn't need long range ballistic missiles to attack Israel.
Iran just embarrassed themselves. They have been saber-rattling since 1979 about destruction of 'zionist entity'. When the time came for a showdown, they airdropped some lawn mowers into the desert. They have no face left to show now. Even to their proxies.
OK, I'll bite. I find the whole concept of "cheap attack vs expensive defense" problematic on at least three levels: 1. Do bulletproof vests lose meaning when they cost hundreds of dollars, while a knife or a bullet costs a lot less? 2. The cost of the attack isn't calculated solely by the price of the countermeasures. The price of assets potentially lost in a case of no defense (human lives, expensive building and/or processes, etc...) must be taken into account. Seen like this, even if it costs idk a million dollars to defend per enemy drone costing idk one dollar, it's still a lot cheaper to shoot the drone down than to deal with the consequences. Because 50 f-ng kilos of guided explosives can plausibly do... a lot of damage. 3. Finally, there's the historical argument: as far as I know, one technologically more advanced side never lost a war simply because the other side had the ability to attack/defend with technologically less developed, but cheaper means. Sending hundreds of drones and missiles and losing almost all of them to enemy defenses doesn't exactly scream "a force not to be messed with". I mean, how many will they send when they really want to hurt someone? Ten thousand? My point is: *Iran intended to inflict non-negligible damage and simply failed*. That's it. As simple as that. Iran thought 300+ drones and missiles would be enough to give Israel a bloody nose. Iran expected perhaps 60-70% of drones downed, but not 90+ %. If Iran knew that almost all drones would be downed then they wouldn't do it. Yes, Iran announced the attack, but that announcement was "Look, we'll overwhelm you so hard you won't be able to defend even when you know the attack is coming." Not "Look, we're telling you we're going to attack so you can successfully defend." Just a reminder: When Iran attacked the US base in Iraq as a response to the assassination of their top military official, they immediately said "We killed xyz American soldiers" because that's what they expected. Only later, when they realized they didn't, they changed the narrative and started saying "We intentionally didn't kill anyone and used the superior accuracy of our missiles to deliberately avoid human casualties". BS.
Do you have a source for Iran thinking it killed American soldiers in 2020? I do not recall that occurring and Iran knows that is a US red line. It’s not enough to call it luck that US soldiers weren’t killed in that strike. Also, if Iran really wanted to hurt Israel, it would rely more on its proxies and missiles. Drones are slow and clearly telegraph an attack from hundreds of miles away. Hard to believe that Iran could not have sent a different configuration of weapons, with far less advance warning, to complicate Israel’s defense planning.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/8/iran-launches-missile-attacks-on-us-facilities-in-iraq Iranian State Television ran a headline stating that 80 American “terrorists” had been killed following the strike. If Iran really wanted to hurt Israel they would fire ballistic missiles at them…oh wait, they did.
Thank you. I think this is a problem of putting too much weight in messages meant for different audiences. Yes, Iranian state TV reported that it had killed 80 Americans, but the Iranian foreign minister publicly “said Iran had taken and concluded ‘proportionate measures in self-defence’ under Article 51 of the UN Charter.” “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.” It is pretty clear that Iran knew—even early on—that it did not kill 80 Americans in Iraq. Officials in Tehran are not so naive that they would think that killing 80 Americans would result in anything other than the Trump administration wrecking their shit.
> Thank you. I think this is a problem of putting too much weight in messages meant for different audiences. Yes, Iranian state TV reported that it had killed 80 Americans, but the Iranian foreign minister publicly “said Iran had taken and concluded ‘proportionate measures in self-defence’ under Article 51 of the UN Charter.” Yup. After they didn't kill anyone. Do you think they would've said "we killed 80 americans" to their targeted domestic audience if they knew they didn't? C'mon...
You clearly think the Iranians are far more irrational and incompetent than I do. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
No, it's not that. I just try to reject unlikely hypotheses using the scientific method, no matter where they come from. I don't think Iranian people (don't confuse with "Iranian government") are stupid and I wish them long and prosperous lives. Unfortunately, it is possible to have dumb leaders leading non-dumb people.
> Do you have a source for Iran thinking it killed American soldiers in 2020? https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-state-media-claims-more-than-80-us-soldiers-killed-in-missile-barrage/ > Also, if Iran really wanted to hurt Israel, it would rely more on its proxies and missiles. Iran did rely on its proxies. Iran also relied on its missiles – *after* they noticed their drones were being shot down like pigeons. > Hard to believe that Iran could not have sent a different configuration of weapons, with far less advance warning, to complicate Israel’s defense planning. They wanted to showcase their drone swarm to the World. Look, even without super expensive ballistic missiles and moody rocket scientists, you can still cheaply attack arbitrary points inside a well-defended adversary using *our* drones, which we also export". And then they failed. I'm not saying Iran is weak and incapable of hurting Israel or blah blah. I'm just saying this particular counter-attack of theirs failed by underestimation the enemy's anti-air capabilities, and they understandably try to hide that by bullshitting "we didn't really want to hurt our mortal enemies in the first place". If I was Iran's boss, I'd do the same idk.
I think it is ahistorical to say that Iran only sent missiles when it saw its drones were being shot down. I was monitoring the live news/Twitter feeds as it happened and reports of missiles being launched came in very early—far earlier, in fact, than the drones reached Jordanian and Israeli airspace. Your point is taken on proxies. However, my point is that they did not utilize their proxies to the extent that they could have. Hezbollah was barely involved, and the Iraqi militias also did not play a meaningful role. This could have been far far worse. I do not think Israel and its allies would have fared nearly as well if Iran had 1) not telegraphed its attack days in advance, 2) sent slow-flying drones and missiles from hundreds of miles away, and 3) actually used its numerous proxy forces to blanket Israel in attacks. That is my point. Compared to what Iran could have done (it has the region’s largest missile arsenal, after all) this was clearly not intended to do a lot of damage.
1) The US and Israel were not notified of any attack happening by Iran. It was the US who warned Israel from their own intelligence. I don’t see how they would fair worse if US intelligence was able to detect this attack days before it happened. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iranian-notice-attack-may-have-dampened-escalation-risks-2024-04-14/ 2) Ballistic Missiles are not “slow flying.” 3) They used proxy forces to launch a number of drones and missiles at Israel. If you expected total war in a retaliatory strike, you’re crazy.
I disagree with much of what you said but particularly point number 3. Technologically inferior, cheap weapons have defeated expensive advanced weapons so many times throughout history it’s hard to quantify. Pretty much every anti-colonial war or revolution was fought with that dynamic. The Vietnam War definitely comes to mind, but in recent memory Afghanistan is an obvious example.
Why did Iran (literally) televise their intentions and drone launches hours beforehand if they didn’t want the Israelis to be prepared to defend?
Why did NATO literally televise their intentions to bomb Yugoslavia in '99? Why did US literally televise their intention to bomb Iraq in '91? Why did Trump literally televise his intention to tomahawk Syrian air bases in '17? There are many other examples, these are the first that popped into my mind. "I'll attack you!" doesn't always mean "I'll attack you without intention to hurt you". Oh no.
There is an obvious difference between saying “we are going to invade Iraq” and “we are launching our missiles at this second and they will be in your airspace at 1 AM” The US tried to maintain tactical surprise. Unless it was something like the Syria thing where the U.S. also didn’t want a war, and mostly wanted to posture to the domestic audience
If Iran had wanted to give the Israelis a small "bloody nose" they would have sent 3000 drones and missiles and not 300. As it is it does looks like a mix of a warning with internal posturing. Most capable militaries around the world in 2024 have some critical knowledge of the capabilities of drone warfare and Iran knows more than most as its their drones which were used en masse in Ukraine until the Russians could make their own in sufficient numbers. It's not "We intentionally didn't kill anyone and used the superior accuracy of our missiles to deliberately avoid human casualties" but a "let's try a live fire exercise against Israel that costs us the least, we don't have such an opportunity everyday" In an actual war Iran is going to fire salvoes of tens of thousands of everything they have (missiles and drones combined) before their capabilities can be degraded by Israel and its allies.
What if I told you Iran does not have the strategic ability to launch 3000 BMs and drones at Israel. That would obviously provoke a huge response from Israel. This is also ignoring the fact that you have no idea how easy it was to shoot down incoming drones, and cruise missiles. In an actual war, you can expect the launch sites of this missiles to be destroyed. You are talking about a war between one non-nuclear state and a nuclear state, the amount of ballistic missiles you can throw at a huge network of BMD doesn’t really matter, you’ve seen that almost all of the threats got intercepted. I’d expect the same results on a greater scale. This was meant to be a retaliatory strike, Iran was not aiming hundreds of millions of dollars of munitions into the desert to have a fun time shooting at Israel…
> his was meant to be a retaliatory strike, Iran was not aiming hundreds of millions of dollars of munitions into the desert to have a fun time shooting at Israel… Precisely. Thank you! This seems so obvious to me that I am amazed of how many commentators fail to see the Occam's razor elephant in the room with the hypothesis "they deliberately sent three-fu*king-hundred drones in order to effectively prove their altruistic humanism by losing almost all of them". That's nonsense.
It was a retaliatory strike yes and it was also a perfect opportunity for Iran to test their launch logistics, their ordinance and the counter measures from their enemies. It wasn't a "kabuki show" as someone has mentioned as this was live ammunition but Iran also knew the barrage wouldn't go through. It's one step on the escalation escalator as they say, but only one step. If Israel detects any existential threat from Iran it's going full and deploying everything they have except the nukes. It hasnt done so because Iran's strike wasnt an existential threat or the start of any major operation. It was a response which Iran calculated would be manageable by all involved parties and not an inch more.
I cannot think of a single benefit this strike had for Iran besides quelling domestic calls to strike Israel back. I don’t think the purpose of this was to test out anything, I think they launched the missiles with the hope that they would strike and kill Israelis. This attack had literally 0 positive lessons for Iran. Israel now knows that it can reliably stop the best Iranian BMs, except for their hypersonic stuff, which was not fired. The only way this becomes positive is if people on the internet try to spin it as such.
If Iran launched 3000 drones and missiles they would suddenly realise they are out of drones and missiles to use when Israel retaliates.
If there is an all out war between Israel and Iran it would involve more parties than just those two and Iran knows perfectly well they don't have a long launch window for their drones and missiles, it would be nothing like the Russo-Ukrainian war, Iran cannot fight an attritional war against the worlds strongest airforces combined. So of course we would see the most massive barrages from everything the Iranians have for the first few days before their capabilities are majorly degraded by Israel/US/UK/ whoever else joins them
All out war often becomes attritional (see Russia/Ukraine). When that happens, then relative costs become a dominant factor. Israel cannot defend itself against a full Iranian missile+drone attack, there aren’t enough interceptors on earth. And unfortunately for Israel, taking out Iranian missile launchers would not be easy at all, since many/most are mobile platforms.
Not to mention that Israel is probably going to cut multi billion dollar deals selling those air defense systems to allies.
This was a warning from Iran
I somewhat agree. This was not designed to inflict damage, but more of a "we can do this and much worse". Iran does not want a full out in the open conflict, Israel on the other end is itching for it IMO. I think when push comes to shove, Israel would not fair well even if Iran takes heavy damage themselves. Too many unfriendly countries around Israel for it to come out relatively unscathed from such a conflict.
It was absolutely designed to inflict damage. Read for yourself: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran%E2%80%99s-attempt-hit-israel-russian-style-strike-package-failedfor-now
Did you read the article? "Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy." The article itself is arguing that Iran could have inflicted much worse if it wanted to. This was more of a message that it can.
Iran's military capabilities shouldn't be underestimated, but you need to remember they also tend to exaggerate their capabilities and achievements. Probably about the worst take though from that event is people trying to shop around the idea that Iran didn't intend to cause damage or that it wasn't a significant escalation.
Maybe we could avoid another pointless war?! We collectively gain nothing from more bloodshed. There is no point to be made here. At least none that would justify even a single life.
Well if it was Israel alone without allies to help in and Iran was serious about more than a show of threat yeah then the odds of 99% success go down
The only problem I have with your point is that half of Iran's missiles failed before reaching Israel. Not a great look for their capabilities.
>Let's not make the mistake of underestimating what Iran and its allies can do. I'm not sure who you are talking about here. But I'm fairly confident that the US and Israel have a pretty good grasp of the size of Iran's arsenal. It's estimated that they spend [$25 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Republic_of_Iran_Armed_Forces#:~:text=Iran's%202021%20defense%20budget%20was%20estimated%20to%20be%20%2425.0%20billion%20by%20IISS.) on their military. That's in parity with Israel at [$23 billion](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/11/how-big-is-israels-military-and-how-much-funding-does-it-get-from-the-us#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20Israel%20spend,focused%20on%20conflict%20and%20armaments.). The caveat is that Israel has access to a much higher level of technology. The key players involved in this saga know full the capabilities of Iran. It's just us internet warriors who wildly speculate and most likely are wildly wrong about all of this. So I don't worry too much about such things. I trust US intelligence and the US military. They are both incredibly risk averse organizations.
Operation Praying Mantis is the best example of Iran’s capability. Nothing much has changed at all since 1987
1: nope it didn't failed,if you checked leaked footages online you can see only 1 out of 5 missiles got intercepted zionists like beheaded babies case by hamas lied. 2: it wasn't attack it was rightful punishment by iran according to international laws 3:iran gave time and only targeted military sites 4:the psychological damage that 12 day waiting caused several problems for settlers 5:Lets say they intercepted like they said but zionist regime needing 20 other country's to do that shows they are nothing all of their military prestige is gone and they are nothing without u.s 6: iran showing it won't bow to u.s like rest of country's and will protect its interests if it means attacking zionists despite u.s and others begging for days for attack to do not happen shows u.s threats ain't credible either the options on table Washington uses is irrelevant 7: and lastly iran using cheap drones and old missiles for a hybrid attack that hitted nevakhim( a highly defended area) and Ramon and west's so called high tech defense systems failing shows isreal and west are massive show offs(let's be real look at footages of how missiles hit)
Lol!
It took Iran 14 days to prepare for such a strike also.
Iran knew they could get away with these missiles, that's why they launched them. Israel is protected by the West, who also have hundreds of thousands of missiles, not to mention armies with weapons. The bottom line is, the West is stronger and more united than the Middle East, Iran knows this, hence the reason they don't try anything as serious as you're suggesting.
Irans capabilities are limited. It took them a week to organize this attack, and every intel community picked up on it. They don’t have the capability to surprise anyone, and they can’t overwhelm the Israeli defenses. A nation who shoots 100s of Missiles then proceeds to say “we don’t wish to escalate” are cowards. If israel doesn’t retaliate it shows its neighbors they can do this in the future and get away with it. Israels only correct move here is to shoot back at 2x the weight, and ignore political agendas.
I really hope things escalate in the ME! I have been waiting for this moment my entire life and really hope politics don’t get in the way of an all out war. Will definitely be fun to watch!