Yves here. Below is some additional information that may help readers better assess the background to Iran’s missile strikes on Israel and their impact.
Readers may recall that immediately before Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassim Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah and Iran Revolutionary Guard officials meeting with him, the US was broadcasting that it plus 12 countries, including some Arab states, were pushing hard for a 21 day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. We thought this was too obviously a White House serving gambit, that it was intended to kick the can of a wider war down the road enough for it not to the a hot issue for the US elections. We were very skeptical.
While we were drafting our post, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel immediately threw cold water on the idea and launched more airstrikes.
We now learn that Nasrallah had agreed to the ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated and Israel or the US was affirmatively duplicitous, as if that comes as a surprise. Antiwar summarizes a CNN interview with the Lebanese foreign minister:
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah agreed to a US and French-proposed 21-day ceasefire with Israel right before Israel killed him.
Habib said the US and France told Lebanon that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also agreed to the ceasefire proposal.
“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this, and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And, you know what happened since then,” Habib told CNN host Christiane Amanpour.
I would put my bet on the misrepresentation being US doing, to secure agreement from Hezbollah and then hope they could use that to browbeat Israel into what it would contend was a short pause. Recall that the US has presented ceasefire proposals as originating with Israel and later ‘fessed up that they came from Biden.
Second is a useful report from Electronic Initifada from Ali Abunimah, who videoed the incoming “river of missiles” as they flew over Jordan. He continues with verified videos of Iran missiles approaching and then striking in Israel. Recall the original estimates were 200 to 400 missiles. Israel is now claiming 181. Looking at these videos, a higher number seems plausible. Abunimah says he counted 24 missiles hitting the Navatim air bases in 30 seconds on one clip.
These videos show the large number of strikes on Navatim, where Israel’s F-35s lived, and, as Abunimah also points out was a key point of entry, for US weapons deliveries. There has been a lot of skepticism of Iran’s claim that it destroyed 20 of Israel’s 35 F-35s. None other than Military Watch treats that as credible, and further reports: Massive Iranian Missile Strike ‘Completely Destroys’ Israeli F-35 Base Nevatim: Stealth Fighters Destroyed – Reports. From that story:
A massive Iranian ballistic missile strike on targets in Israel launched on October 1 has targeted Nevatim Air Base, among other key targets in the country. The facility hosts both of the Israeli Air Force’s F-35 fifth generation fighter squadrons, and was previously intended to host a third squadron of the fighters after they were delivered. Iranian media sources have reported that the facility was “completely destroyed” in the attack. Footage from Israel has confirmed the impact of dozens of ballistic missiles which Israel’s air defence network failed to shoot down, with targets impacted including the headquarters of the intelligence agency Mossad, located in Tel Aviv which was levelled by the attack. Labelled “True Promise 2,” the operation follows a year of escalating tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, and represents a long awaited retaliatory attack after an Israeli strike on Tehran on July 31. Iran was previously reported to have agreed not to retaliate if Israel deescalated hostilities, with Israel’s invasion and intensive bombardment of Lebanon and assassination of the leadership of the Iranian aligned militia group Hezbollah having been seen to have broken this agreement.
Reports have indicated that the bulk of Nevatim Air Base’s F-35s – over 20 fighters – were destroyed in the attack, with the stealth fighters representing one of the most high value targets in Israel. The facility has been widely referred to as Israel’s “most important air base” due to the importance of the F-35 in the country’s fleet. Israel fields just two squadrons of the costly stealth jets, and relies on them heavily as the remainder of the fighter fleet relies on largely obsolete avionics and old mechanically scanned array radars. F-35s play a central role in Israeli plans for potential attacks on Iran, with their stealth capabilities and advanced avionics, including electronic warfare systems and other air defence suppression features, making them optimal assets for such operations. The destruction of F-35s is thus an important step towards limiting Israel’s ability to respond with further escalation….
The current state of the Israeli fighter fleet remains highly uncertain, and alongside the reported destruction of Nevatim Air Base, other fighter losses have been reported including losses of F-15s at Hatzerim Air Base.
Even though the headline quote comes from Iran, the intensity of the missile barrage shown below makes the idea credible. Even though US intelligence had picked up the coming attack and gave Israel some time to get air assets out of harm’s way. But there are limits to what could have been achieved. From comments yesterday:
shargash
Regarding Israeli f-35s, Hurricane Michael damaged about 1/3 of the f-22s stored at Tyndal AFB, because they were unable to fly (down for maintenance). F-35s have a much lower readiness than f-22s, so it seems unlikely to me that the Israelis could fly them all out.ISL
The full mission readiness rate of F-35s is 29%. As far as flyable, 50% undergoing maintenance and not flyable in a 2 hr window seems not a bad estimate.https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/engine-woes-dominate-f-35-hearing-but-other-issues-remain/
I am not an expert in airport/airfield design. Readers like to point out that runways are easily repaired. I doubt the same is true of the critical air control tower and related systems. If Iran merely destroyed those components, one might be able say Iran had effectively destroyed the airbase.
The video below also provides evidence that Iran did hit and may well have destroyed the Mossad Unit 8200 building. It also shows what look to be much faster, perhaps hypersonic missiles striking the Tel Nof airbase. That suggests it was a very high priority target. But I have yet to see much about those attacks.
Abunimah also observed that conducting the attack at night meant that it could be widely seen across the Middle East, greatly boosting morale, and correspondingly was also visible all over Israel. He points out the shocked and dismayed gasps on the Israeli videos, and that these attacks were nothing like the now-familiar Hezbollah rocket barrages.
Predictably, Israel refuses to accept any constraints. The Hill reports this morning: Israel defies Biden in Lebanon, testing US support.
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, the authors ofWar in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq
On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.
For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.
Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.
Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.
President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”
On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.
“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.
Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.
The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.
That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.
On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.
Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.
When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.
But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.
Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.
Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.
So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”
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Israel’s intentions are pretty clear when it kills the Hamas lead negotiator (reputed to have been a moderate) and then Nasrallah just after he had agreed to the White House 21 day ceasefire proposal.
There is no serious desire for peace in Netenyahu’s government.
Historically, when one nations murders the diplomats of another in the middle of a negotiation, that means only one thing – a declaration of war to the end.
“Madness? This is ISRAEL!”
Naw, expletive deleted is Israel.
The “enemy” in that movie, too, was the Persians, one might note. The original comic book author really meant it, too–he really was neoconnish in his thinking, iirc..
“Historically, when one nation murders the diplomats of another…”
I do not think there has been mention that Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan and George HW Bush each adhered to a policy of no assassination and the policy was made more explicit and strengthened with each president. The policy was discarded and immediately on Biden coming to the presidency the approval of an American assassination of an Iranian official by the Trump administration was applauded.
From my perspective, the Biden administration has been shockingly supportive of state violence from the beginning. Violent neoconservative policy has come to characterize Washington Democrats from the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html
July 5, 2014
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
>From my perspective, the Biden administration has been shockingly supportive of state violence from the beginning. Violent neoconservative policy has come to characterize Washington Democrats from the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State:
Well of course, none of their sorry asses or their kids are going to be heading into battle anytime soon when it comes to that.
Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani when, reportedly, he was on a peace mission. Of course, it could have been on Israeli instigation.
I’ve long thought that Trump thinks like a mafia Don and knows that violence can have comebacks ,something the Biden circus don’t seem to grasp.
Right from the start, Biden wanted to preserve the worsened relations with Iran which Trump had achieved by first withdrawing America from JCPOA and then killing Suleimani.
Biden preserved those worsened relations by rejecting the opportunity he had to bring America back into compliance with JCPOA. He preserved America’s withdrawal from JCPOA by demanding that Iran accept new extortionate conditions before America would return to the JCPOA. Did he design those conditions as a deliberate Rambouillet-style deal breaker or did he think he would do some cheap gang-boss type extortion? I don’t know which.
Thanks for this Yves. One of the best sourced and credible write-ups I seen and heard about the Iran strike.
More good news for your day, apparently Isreal attacked Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in Syria :(
https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-russian-air-defenses-confront-violent-israeli-attack-near-strategic-airbase
Other reports claim these attacks just happened “near” the airbase but Syrian media says the attacks happened an hour after Iranian planes landed there.
https://www.defensemirror.com/news/37819/Israel_Strikes_Near_Russian_Air_Base_in_Syria_Amid_Broader_Regional_Bombing_Campaign
The airbase is co-located with Bassel al-Assad International Airport, which may have been the intended target.
Today Russia is starting send humanitarian help to Lebanon, I wonder if it’s going trough Kheimim air base? I also wonder how the locals perceive the different approach Russia and USA have to the region…
I have no idea why but several months ago the head of Likud declared Russia to be an enemy of Israel. Well, Zionist Israel at least. This sounds like Israel is giving Russia in Syria a warning, by bombing so close, to not let Iranian planes land at their base. The same way that they threatened to shoot down Iranian passenger airlines flying into Lebanon. Is Netanyahu trying to drag Russian in a greater Middle East war as well? Do they really want to go there?
Netanyahu will do whatever he can to keep the war going for as many years as he can keep it going for so as to delay his court case on charges of corruption for as many years as he can keep the war going for.
If some major powers like Russia and China and America come to some sort of consensus on preserving some form of Israel in some form or fashion, they may decide that the time has come to apply Stalin’s wisdom: ” If a person is giving you problems, you eliminate that persone to stop them from giving you problems. No person, no problem.”
So if the Powers decide that some sort of Lesser Israel is worth preserving, they may start to jointly arrange for the untimely demise of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and other such, along with their sub-leadership cadres. I don’t know how likely such a decision would be, or how easy it would be to apply it.
Bear in mind that the End Times Rapturaniacs and Armageddonites need a Netanyahu-type leadership to keep power over Israel in order to get Israel to fulfill the role they have assigned for it in Rapturaniac-Armageddonite ” End Times Bible Prophecy”.
I was thinking about that and wether the Russians are prepared from an air attack or even special operations attack by Israel yesterday. Not that I conjured it, just hoping that there is enough alertness to expect such attacks and for capacity to repel them.
Russian ambassador to Israel warns Russian citizens to leave the country TASS
https://tass.ru/politika/22032721
What a mess this American perfidy has gotten us into.
It looks like we’re seeing the development of another proxy confrontation, driven by the Zionists, between Russia and the US. I don’t know about a front in Syria, but it seems very possible that Russian armaments and manpower will be engaged with US forces if there is an escalation involving attacks on Iran. Russia has been extremely patient in holding back from engaging NATO. I can understand why they would put a stop to it.
Judge Nap & Chas Freeman also talking about the dust-up w/Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQV_bmT2MUM
Israei officials have admitted (NBC story) that Nasrallah would only agree to a ceasefire on the fundamental condition that Israel withdrew from Gaza and Israel would not accept this so.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/lebanon-live-updates-rcna173122#rcrd57180
So, rather than have Hezbollah claim the moral high ground, assassinated him.
There are commercial satellite pictures emerging of the Israeli airbase damage but I have no skill in aerial interpretation. You can judge the claims of substantial damage for yourself but without before and after shots, it is really hard to tell.
https://nitter.poast.org/MyLordBebo/status/1841760963629891878#m
Hatzerim airbase, allegedly
https://nitter.poast.org/Schizointel/status/1841711617748115553#m
Nevatim airbase, allegedly (linkedin from Simplicius X account)
31.183828, 35.053953 ammo bunkers
31.209005535057777, 35.02887204056343 hardened aircraft shelters, roof is flush with the ground
31.20265579285154, 35.02034379323077 hangers with ammo bunker just to south, possibly where they ready them for a mission.
until I see hits on stuff like this, I’m skeptical of massive f-35 losses.
Obscure cultural reference.
Even though US intelligence had picked up the coming attack and gave Israel some time to get air assets out of harm’s way
I’m somewhat confused on this point since I’ve read that Iran actually informed the U.S. they were intending to fire missiles into Israel. Did U.S. Intelligence get tipped off by Iran, was it provided by Iran, or both? Seems odd, but that is also what was reported in the earlier Iran “demonstration” of their capabilities.
No, Iran has denied notifying the US.
The US may have picked up a big increase in electronic chatter and have inferred it could be prep for an attack. Better to over-predict than miss.
We also live in a world of ISR. Nothing on the ground anywhere is unseen. So perhaps the US saw movements consistent with launch prep.
Having said that, it is possible that Mossad or the US has gotten some very good moles inside the IRG, but there are other explanations that fit the fact set.
Or maybe satellite surveillance?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/spy-satellites-may-have-detected-preparations-for-iran-s-missile-attack-on-israel/ar-AA1rxy0D
That is included in ISR.
Iran may have warned the US in order to enable the US to get its military people on the ground ‘advising’ the Israelis out of harm’s way, denying the US the opportunity to claim Iran’s ‘unprovoked’ attacked killed American citizens as a casus belli.
Three to four hours before the attacks I started seeing blog posts saying “Iran is about to attack” despite Iranian leadership saying only a day or two before that Hezbollah didn’t need their help, they had faith that Hezbollah could handle whatever else Israel threw at them, etc. It seemed strange that the message would change so quickly. So I dismissed those stories as misinformation. But the plan change must’ve leaked from somewhere. Maybe Arab governments that got a heads-up from Iran.
I do wonder how many F-35s they could have gotten off the ground on a few hours warning though.
Biden is a longtime confirmed warmonger with senility and anger management problems. Like Dubya, he trips over his own words until he gets into talking about what he sincerely believes in—vengeance and bloodshed. I doubt he is trying to hold Israel back, more likely just providing cover for their plotting. I expect we may see irregular attacks on Iran (cyberattacks, assassination attempts, sabotage, instigated uprisings of US NGO-supported assets, etc.). Maybe followed quickly by some missile strikes. If Iran is left with the capability of hitting back, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Dimona will probably get flattened, maybe along with US bases in Iraq and Syria.
Flattening Dimona would spread corium radwaste all around the area. I wonder how the Palestinians would feel about that.
Bedouins. Dimona’s in the Negev.
Biden was probably assured by Netanyahu when the IDF went into Gaza that they would have the whole strip cleared out by Christmas/Hanukkah and the Palestinians would be forced to go to places like Egypt and other Middle east countries. That was the suggested plan at one stage. Biden thought that all he would have to do was to provide Israel with political cover for a coupla months while sending them every single bomb that he could and with the suck-up media, Gaza would be a forgotten topic well, well before the Presidential election campaigns even begun. Well it didn’t work out that way and and the Democrats can probably kiss the Arab-American vote goodbye. Good thing that they don’t need their votes. His whole policy was based on a promise of a quick victory and now all his actions have been doing since have been making it worse. Gaza, the Ukraine, Covid, Bidenomics – everything he touches turns to****.
The Israeli plan has always been regime change in Iran and Biden along with several administration figures seem to have signed on to this goal. To them, this is a once in a lifetime chance to remake the Middle East. Failure to follow through would mean Iran will undoubtedly build a bigger deterrent meaning nuclear weapons. I wish I had the power to stop these insane politicians.
Wasn’t the Iraq war a chance to remake the Middle East?
8 trillion dollars and maybe 1 million foreign citizens killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Do USA politicians not understand that many forms of blowback may be in the USA’s future?
The US has had several “once in a lifetime chance to remake the Middle East”. Probably the most successful one was the 1953 Iranian coup that worked well until 1979. Twenty-six years is not bad but it did lead to the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Iraq went so well that Iraq seems fairly Iran-oriented.
I suspect “Once in a lifetime chance to remake the Middle East” do not always work out well. The Crusades managed something around 175-195 years before the Franks were kicked out.
I doubt that the Arab Americans have anywhere near the ability to provide obscene levels of political campaign donations to both Democrats or Republicans that the Zionist lobby in the US has.
Maybe MBS should raid his petty change jar to help even out the contest?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
@vali_Nasr
is getting the point: whether we like it or not, whether it fits our political preferences or not, Iran’s close ally, China, is rapidly and robustly becoming the only superpower.
So Iran can afford to wait, as per Sun Tzu’s strategy.
Maybe Iran can afford to wait, but those in danger for their lives and those of their loved ones can’t. Maybe Palestinians can’t wait for Israel genocide machine to destroy the remaining 15% of Gaza infrastructure. Maybe the Lebanese need to adopt a Machiavellian strategy rather than Sun Tzu, as the US/Israel employ viz..
We now learn that Nasrallah had agreed to the ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated and Israel or the US was affirmatively duplicitous, as if that comes as a surprise
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/bidens-israel-policy-has-led-us-to-the-brink-of-war-on-iran.html
Thank you. This British government, which has been in the vanguard of irrational escalation in Ukraine, has also helped underwrite escalation in the Levant this week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2krlgekpxo. It is almost as though the UK wants to live up (or down) to the ‘Little Satan’ jibe.
Moreover, whilst sections of the US economy benefit significantly from oil/gas price spikes, given the present status of the US as a carbon exporter, the UK (which has been a net importer since 2004) does not. Having lately expressed satisfaction over falling inflation, and having argued for improved living standards, it is almost as though the Starmer government is intent on sabotaging what passes for its own economic policy, by pushing Arab countries in the direction of another price shock.
In 1973 the UK deliberately stood on the sidelines, and so was spared the OAPEC embargo (which was directed at the US and the Netherlands). Had the embargo been applied to the UK the inflationary shock of 1973-75 would arguably have been an order of magnitude worse. However, in 1973 ‘Arabists’ held the upper hand within the Foreign Office, whereas today they are almost stepping over each other to ingratiate themselves with US neocons.
I am starting to think that, whilst Starmer may be ruthless, he also has no notion of cause and effect (and is not perhaps the sharpest knife in the drawer).
Thank you and well said.
With regard to British diplomats ingratiating themselves with US neocons, in addition to that, there are Zionist shadows for British government departments and politicians. Jewish / Zionist officials are encouraged to form departmental community support groups and identify impediments to Israeli interests.
Biden has Amos Hochstein to keep an eye on him. Starmer has Assaf Kaplan.
Thanks Colonel, I had to look up Amos Hochstein. His name doesn’t come across the news feed very often. Rep Thomas Massie has stated every (Republican) member of congress has an “AIPAC babysitter”.
“Biden has Amos Hochstein to keep an eye on him. Starmer has Assaf Kaplan.”
Remember how Lawrence Summers and Bill Ackman ruined the president of Harvard in mere days for simply allowing a voice to students wishing to protect Palestinian civilians.
Look to the frightening portrayal of Tony Blair in “Page Eight”. Ralph Fiennes, in only a few moments, shows why Jeremy Corbyn could not be tolerated as Labour leader and why Labour had to be directed by the fiercest possible neoconservative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_Eight
2011
Page Eight
By David Hare
Part of the Worricker series with Bill Nighy in the eponymous role. Well worth watching.
Starmer may not be here much longer. The gossip is getting more public today. Apparently it is “the shape of his family”. The press have proof (birth certificate) that Starmer has children other than he pretends.
https://nitter.poast.org/danwootton/status/1841545681590173744#m
This would be a matter of a raised eyebrow only in France (Mitterrand famously kept a common law daughter a secret) but Labour monstered Boris Johnson for his affairs as Mayor as PM with Jennifer Arcuri and Carrie, to paint him as unreliable in matters of state as well as heart.
Well, he who lives by the (cough) sword….
So yes, no idea of cause and effect! Or, more likely, an overweening sense of impunity, in matters of state and the heart.
Starmer has also announced he has repaid some freebies but only 5%. This is a fatal error: he has established the principle and we are only arguing about the amount (as was said in equally pointed circumstances!). The press will not stop until he repays them all and now there are tax accountants pointing out how ordinary people would have to pay tax on gifts trade upon their employment or office, so why does HNRC treat MP’s and ministers differently?
So either he pays £50k of taxes or gives back £100k of compromising gifts – and so do the rest of Parliament. What a delicious dilemma!
Taxes and rules are for the little people….
“We now learn that Nasrallah had agreed to the ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated and Israel or the US was affirmatively duplicitous”
Seems like Nasrallah had never taken the following gems of wisdom to heart before shedding his mortal coil:
1. A fool and his life are soon parted.
2. Once bitten, twice shy.
IMHO, Israel did Hezbollah a real favor by moving an old chess piece like that out of the equation, because after everything the US and Israel had done, how can one fundamentally still “trust” Netanyahu and Biden al-Gaib? Perhaps the later had promised Nasrallah and the Hezbollah leadership an offer they couldn’t refuse, like some real hot American blondes to sweeten the pot? If I were Nasrallah, I certainly would not change my security routine just on the say so of some foreign devils, but it seems like he did?
Anyway, if there’s any silver lining to this, then I would say anyone in the resistance who still believes in the empty promises of the American government deserves to be eliminated.
Yeah if those reports are true it is dumbfounding to me that Nasrallah had agreed to a temporary ceasefire.
Perhaps he saw it as strategic, since from my vantage point their focus has been slowly overextending Israel and kind-of-but-not-really attriting them slowly.
Maybe I’m just a proper lunatic but the pagers were pretty clearly a sign to suit up. Unless Hezbollah were just about to discover the pagers, why blow such an opportunity if you weren’t willing to follow through?
Nasrallah had nothing to lose by agreeing to a ceasefire because he knew (as does everybody) that the Israelis would reject it. It was simply a tactical decision, although this does not in any way negate the diplomatic implications of murdering someone who pledged himself to making peace.
While it may be convenient to blame Biden and his gang for the mess we are in reality lies in a different direction. Presidents are limited by power-relations within the Washington and other centers of power–he or she must take into account power-groups that have “veto power” over policy like the Israel lobby, MICIMATT, Big Medicine, Wall Street/City of London are the traditional forces and each of those “lobbies” have their own internal dynamics that focus on particular issues that must be ironed out. Each of these lobbies have some connections with each other. The Executive part of government has many internal problems–the POTUS cannot just give orders and expect them to be followed–usually they are followed but sometimes not. Within the WH there will be rivals, secret plots (Washington is filled with plotters as any imperial capitol is) and so on. What I’m trying to say is that there is no one really guiding the Ship of State which is why some commentators who understand the situation are saying we are drifting into war in the same way we (the West) drifted into WWI.
Israel demands to be allowed to expel or kill Palestinians in territory Israel claims for itself in the WB/Gaza and maybe other areas it regards as Greater Israel. If you follow the vision of Zionists this reality HAS to happen. Netanyahu and his cabinet all want this result and they believe a hot war with Iran and the resistance axis is the sine qua non of this religious crusade. The Israelis (most of them) honestly believe, it appears, that their “God” (which is not, in my view, related to the Christian God or the Muslim Allah) will bring them victory despite the odds. How can anyone convince these people that their vision of reality is destructive and wrong? How do we convince the neoconservatives like Blinken who are, clearly, Israel-first traitors to the United States, that allowing Israel to destroy Iran and other countries with US help is a bad idea when their heart is with Zionism. Just so you know, I’ve met and talked to Zionists within the National Security State and I can assure you that those few I’ve talked to believe, at minimum, that the goals of the US should be the same as the goals of Israel. Their arguments are that Israel represents “civilization” and the Arabs and Iranians represent “barbarism” as Netanyahu and many other Zionist spokesmen/women have said for decades.
There is no “solution” of this problem and no avoiding war unless the US stops supporting Israel with its bombs, planes, missiles, ships, soldiers, and so on. There are factions that don’t want some kind of WWIII within the US government and within the community of oligarchs whose life consists, largely, of making money. We’ll see if they can move Biden and his gang to seek peace rather than the current war policy in West Asia. No matter who wins out in this struggle, we can be assured that the welfare of the people who live within the borders of the USA will not be a consideration.
Yes, since almost every single Congress crook supports Israel unconditionally, and this has been the case for decades, it does not really matter who the puppet emperor is, the policy is long-term and bipartisan. And it won’t matter who “wins” the election either since DT falls all over himself to prove he will assist Israel even more than KH. DT is even more Israel first – he pushed for US recognition of the illegal occupation of Golan, and moved the US embassy to J-lem.
As Ray McGovern and others have pointed out: the US MICIMATT profits the most from Israel policy. I don’t think Israel is a great place to be, they are on the front line, and the US can fight proxy wars with geographic “splendid isolation”. As Michael Hudson pointed out: the US can fight until the last Israeli and the last Ukrainian
I believe there are divisions–if the US goes to war with Iran the Straights of Hormuz would likely be closed which would be bad for “bidness” as we used to say. Also, if things really go bad we could all be radioactive. Current policy is headed straight towards disaster.
Yes, but plans for bombing Iran are bipartisan and have been around for a long time. Here is a proud moment in US politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7s5pT3Rris
The Chinese stand to lose the most from the Hormuz closing, I suspect.
“The Chinese stand to lose the most…”
This is incorrect.
China of course trades in goods and services all through the broad region, but China is both food and energy insulated or independent. After all, China has been threatened with “containment” since 2011 and have been planning with this in mind all the time since. Such necessary planning is a reason for Chinese investment emphasis.
China obviously would prefer Iranian oil, but it has access to plenty of Russian. Closing the Straits of Hormuz would push up the oil price to stratospheric levels. And not only the oil price; a US-Iranian war would take us closer to WWIII than ever and probably turn global stock markets into abattoirs.
When Rabin co-signed onto the Oslo Accords, did that mean he was no longer a Zionist? Or were Labor Zionism ( Rabin) and Revisionist Zionism ( Jabotinsky-Netanyahu) two different flavors of Zionism?
Many people wish for a cease fire in the current conflict, getting Israel to stop bombing Lebanon and Gaza, as if that would end the war. So what would a cease fire look like? I imagine that as a result of ¨negotiations¨ Israel would be required to cease the current bombing campaign in Lebanon, but the slaughter in Gaza would continue. Future random bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq would continue, as they have for the last twenty years when Israel thought it ¨necessary¨. Gaza would remain a heap of rubble, uninhabitable. The West Bank would remain a labyrinth of walls, military checkpoints, and ¨Jews only¨ roads and areas. Roaming gangs of thugs would continue to terrorize and kill the Palestinian residents at will, protected by the Israeli army while they destroy crops, ancient orchards and steal the residents´ homes? A cease fire is not enough.
It is important to realize that the war Israel is waging on its neighbors has been declared as existential for them. They will never give up. Never. As in not ever as long as the State of Israel remains in its present form.. Israel must lose. Too many Palestinians have died – have been massacred – to just say: ¨OK, that´s enough. We can go on like we were.¨ The clock cannot be turned back. Israel must not only lose, but be humiliated in order to honor the price paid by the tens of thousands of mostly innocent women and children the Zionist entity has massacred.
I don´t know how that can be achieved without a wider war. Hezbollah is a strong military force, but its strength is defensive. I doubt they have much enthusiasm for invading Israel although they would no doubt like to recover the bits of Lebanon current occupied by Israel. The rulers of Israel´s other neighbors, Egypt, Jordan Iraq and the Gulf statelets, are too afraid of the US to dare defy the Master. It is a tricky question: How does one confront a suicidal mad bomber? The role of Iran is crucial. As they seem to understand, they must degrade and possibly humiliate Israel without threatening its existence. Though Iran is the most capable of Israel´s antagonists, there are many possible points of pressure on Israel. I wish them luck.
Yes, this is one of the reasons we were derisive about a 21 day ceasefire in our earlier post on this topic. It is not going to lower temperatures and allow for a reset. The beneficiaries are the Biden and hoped-for Harris Admin, and the IDF, since it gets a rest.
But what would be in it for Netanyahu and the hard-liners, Ben Gvir and Smotrich? It does not advance their agenda of getting Hezbollah and Lebanon out of southern Lebanon to make those poor settlers feel safe.
“getting Lebanon out of southern Lebanon” . . . I like that. Exemplifies the insanity of the Zionist regime.
Stephen Leacock wrote a satirical piece in the 1920s in which the Japanese Foreign Minister “Viscount Itch” declared that Japan could no longer tolerate the United States on the other side of the Pacific and that it would have to be moved.
Reality catches up with satire at all levels in our modern world.
I may be overly optimistic, but I don’t think there will be a war between the US and Iran. At present, the US has no obligation to defend Israel, and it’s difficult to see Iran as a direct threat to the US. If Washington were to force the deployment of troops, many soldiers would refuse the order, believing that dying for Israel is above their pay grade.
Iraq was a direct threat to the US?
Iran would be a much more difficult war than Iraq, and the US Armed Services from leadership to private-ship know it. Maybe the leadership would use all the dark arts they know of office guerilla war politics against their war-with-Iran enemies in the US government to prevent and abort any such assignments. ( Except for the Rap-Arms within the services, and hopefully the rationalists can keep them off the office politics battlefield).
Maybe Brian Berletic is suffering from an idee fixe, but maybe he has parsed the tea leaves correctly. He observed that there is indeed an Empire, guided by an overarching, self-created divine mandate, which is by its lights to be pre-eminent over the whole planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRW8oX1y2Ac Interesting, in passing, how that echoes the more extreme versions of the Zionist aspirations. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2313795/jewish/Eretz-Yisrael-The-Land-of-Israel.htm
He notes a series of guiding documents largely the work of the RAND Institute which has figured prominently in formation of “policy” for the Empire and its subsidiary elements for quite some time. These state bluntly that the US is to have full-spectrum dominance over the Earth. The means to achieve that are the long-term demolition of any and all competing centers of power and wealth. Hence the many parts of the US imperial structure sowing chaos and death in each of the areas where alternatives to imperial hegemony might develop. Wars, armed and fomented by imperial agents like the CIA, State Department, “information agencies,” NGOs, and Lindsey Graham-level shills, serve very well to keep any organization of non-empire-dominated national and supra-national poles from forming or gaining sufficient momentum to challenge the imperial diktat. There seems to me to be an avowed commitment to an Imperial “Samson doctrine,” that “if we can’t own the world, we will at least rule over the ashes after we burn it down.”
I believe that notion is stated in the US guiding documents on the waging of nuclear war, which propose that a sufficient quantum of USianism should remain after a full nuclear exchange to reconstitute the empire, and that all other power centers should be totally demolished (whether “friend” or foe in the Great Game of RISK!) so that there can be no future challenge to US hegemony. https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/us-defense-to-its-workforce-nuclear-war-can-be-won/
Does not seem to be a way to avoid the drive to demolition inherent in the guiding lights of the ruling elite. I’d like to be wrong.
As reference, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Generals lobbied for an immediate attack on the USSR with ICMBs. The calculus was given that 150 million would die on their side and “only” 40 million on our side which the Generals believed was an acceptable price to pay to rid the world of the USSR. Would that be considered today as acceptable?
I’m sure Blinken and Wolfowitz and Nuland and their regime buddies think that would be just fine. Biden knows he is going to die pretty soon, or lose all cognizance of his circumstances, so what the hell does he care? Harris is obliviously Joyous. And as Berletic’s extracts from the “literature” of Armageddon, American-Style, illustrate, the people who remotely and dispassionately craft the Advanced Idiocratic Pap that passes for Serious Policy have baked all those “megadeaths” (anyone remember that term from the days of MAD?) into their “recommendations” and “prescriptions.”
The ruling elite expects to somehow live through the MADness and emerge from their hideouts with their blond Aryan maiden babes in tow to “repopulate and dominate.” Note that in movies like “Independence Day,” somehow “the President” survives to lead on into that bright future…
And I bet that somewhere in the bowels of the war planning structure of the Empire, there is an AI now calculating and constantly refining the match of destructive tech to perceived vulnerabilities and assumed threats from “adversaries,” seeking that sweet-spot moment at which to Release the Kraken! That tech includes nukes but also the development of biological weapons, cyber swords, weather modification, and a host of other idiocracy Initiatives.
Never a thought given to maybe playing a positive-sum game. never an iota of awareness that the games they play are full-on negative-sum. Fete someone burns the game board, there won’t be any Game of RISK! ™ any more.
One can’t help but wonder if there is a death wish built in to us dope humans…
“…in movies like “Independence Day,” somehow “the President” survives…”
Which is why Mars Attacks is the much better film.
At this point maybe we will have to rely on aliens to save us from our own stupidity.
Gen. Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove: I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our mussed. But I do say no more than 10-20 million. Tops!
https://youtu.be/bZm3qBdECdw?si=vsGVelhYhgjeE4XB
Several years ago here a paper written by a young-ish George Ball was featured on this site to show how Ball advocated and worked for a “liberal” flavor of the Corporate Globalonial Forcey-FreeTrade elite. He advanced the theory that Business Corporations would make all life better all over the earth because they could use and deploy resources more efficiently than those nasty old backward-concept “nation-states”, which the New Corporate Order would soon supplant and eclipse.
But that was millions of words ago and there is no way I could go back and find it now.
Tangent.
In the opener to yesterday’s Solov’ev Live television program, Solov’iev made the following assertion: that shortly after the pager bombing in Lebanon, Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei telephoned Nasrallah, and strongly suggested that Nasrallah had an Israeli target on his back and should temporarily relocate to Iran to wait out the danger. Nasrallah refused; it is not stated directly why, but implied that he figured “martyrdom” was not a bad outcome for either himself or the movement in general.
I have not ran down where Solov’ev got this information, mostly because I’ve been asleep, and I suspect the sources are either Iranian or Russian. But suppose that “someone” in Iran knew, or suspected, what the Israelis were going to do ahead of time, even if only a few days before. It would then make eminent sense to send Pezeshkian to act like a complete hippie peacenik slash trusting lamb in public, so that these “someones” – I suspect the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard apparatus, for starters – could then act from a position of “victimhood”, especially viz. BRICS countries. It’s a little like the theory that Putin & Co. – and I do not know this to be the case, it is just a theory – permitted the Ukrainians to go into Kursk, so they could then tamp down Brasil’s and India’s pressure to negotiate while smashing a chunk of the Ukrainian army.
Should Iran be playing a similar game, then I’d have to disagree with Alex Mercouris’ assumption, expressed in his last few programs, that Pezeshkian will be forced to resign fairly soon for his foreign policy “failure”. Better to let the guy run around acting all conciliatory while knowing that his efforts will most likely fail, and make yourself look the sympathetic victim to the Chinese and such. Besides, I have no idea what the guy’s domestic policies are like, and whether they’re working or not to everyone’s satisfaction.
As for the 20 F-35s…one would presume that any non-flyable aircraft (e.g. due to maintenance) would be sitting in fortified hangars or some equivalent. I suppose if they all sat in one-two hangars, instead of being dispersed around the base, and if that one hangar were hit by a couple of the 20+ missiles that hit the base…but until and unless someone produces satellite photos or some equivalent, and even then we cannot know for certain that a particular hangar contained F-35s rather than, say, F-15s, I would very much reserve judgement. Also, too, Military Watch is generally not a good source for this type of information, as they seem to take at face value anything and everything that flows across Russian, Iranian and Chinese social media sites (e.g. Telegram). They are not terrible, especially when writing about things that are not happening in real time, but there you are.
The ancient Persians did invent the game of chess, did they not?
The US would use B-1Bs to strike Iran, not F-15EXs (which are fighter-bombers, not “long-range bombers).
Not that they will, they know they would lose a direct conventional confrontation.
The point is that the Zionists in Palestine have the F15EX large fuel tank versions on order with the purpose being to reach Iran and drop bunker busters (or worse). The US doesn’t have to do the dirty work for its proxy.
Not to mention how Russia would react
I suspect Russia has gamed that and the Aerospace Forces are yearning for a chance to take them down
Iran has established that it can destroy heavily defended sites in Israel at will. This means that power generation, desalinization, and petroleum resources essential to the basic functioning of Israel are all at risk. It would be insane for Netanyahu to persist in escalation against Iran. Biden can’t change the military reality of Iranian missile capability. All he can do is offer token assistance and inflict damage on Iran. This will not end well for Israel.
It appears that not too much is being written of late about Iran’s ability to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. I recall reading that perhaps 20-25% of the world’s oil flows through the straits. Apart from oil company executives gleefully awaiting surging oil prices, it would seem like the world’s so-called economic recovery would not be so lucky, not to mention countlesss innocents caught in the cross-fire. Any strategy not directed toward peace in the area is utter madness.
It is better to look at Marseilles and Rotterdam and flows. Rotterdam is refinery centre and food supplier to U.K.
Qatari gas flows to Europe as does oil from West Asia. The only LNG plant in Western Med is in Egypt. U.K. is going berserk on Net Zero and closed last coal-fired generating set. The prospect is for Europe to collapse completely and enter Perma-Depression
Quite why politicians are hellbent on societal and civilisational collapse and why voters elect them is now an existential issue
Politicians do not control the nuclear arsenal, neither in the US, nor in Russia, China or France. The military do, and they know very well that it could not remain local and all the powers would be involved. If they like the idea that a nuclear war could occur for the Zionist cause then it can happen otherwise the politicians will go to bed with their ears down.
I have read that some Rap-Arms are placed fairly high up in the nuclear-relevant parts of the Air Force and the Missile Force. They would support such a war, but not “for” the Zionist cause. They would support it in order to get Israel and much else destroyed enough that the End of Times prophecy could be considered fulfilled and Jesus would come again to Rule the Earth for a Thousand Years.
The headlines making the rounds are that Israel plans to attack Iran nuclear facilities. U.S. officials are claimed to oppose. It sounds like groundwork for a nice cover story after the nuclear explosion.
Question: Why did you nuke Iran?
Netanyahu: Dude, we didn’t nuke’m. We dropped a bunker buster and it must of detonated an Iranian nuke. Or the mullahs detonated a nuke themselves to make us look like we are mass murdering, malevolent war criminals.
OTOH, maybe the US objection is genuine. There have always been neocons in the US wanting to hit Natanz. They probably are huddled with the IDF making plans. The objection to the plan may be from a non-neocon faction in the administration aware of plans to nuke Iran and are trying to stop it by exposing it.
/pleads guilty to uncontrolled speculation/
And the so-called opposition is calling for JB to be “tougher” on Iran and blame him for not being more “hawkish” with Iran in the past. Once again we see the consensus at work.
https://www.kron4.com/hill-politics/gop-leaders-press-biden-administration-to-get-tougher-on-iran-after-missile-attack/
How many of these GOP leaders are public or secret Rapturaniac Armageddonites? ( Perhaps I should invent the abbreviation RAs for them. Its simpler than typing Rapturaniac Armageddonite every time the subject comes up). If any of them are, they would have a Fulfillment of Bible Prophecy agenda, which is different from the Secure The Realm agenda.
Frankly I do not believe Netanyahu intends for Israel to survive. Rather I see him with a Masada Complex as his term comes to a close he takes Israel with him onto a huge funeral pyre
That would make Netanyahu a useful idiot for the RapArms who want to End the World and Bring Jesus Back.
If enough “wet-work adjacent” Israelis decide that is Netanyahu’s personal goal, they might take Stalin-inspired measures to solve the Netanyahu problem.
” No person, no problem.”
Yves’ take on the Nasrallah assassination being a setup is spot on.
I just posted my latest Substack on how Nasrallah was set up to be assassinated by the US and its allies and Israel:
How Nasrallah Was Tricked Into Dying
Wherein I explain how the US and Israel set up Nasrallah to be assassinated…
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/how-nasrallah-was-tricked-into-dying
And my previous article where I discuss Israel’s likely retaliation options:
:
Response To Reports That Israel Is Planning A Major Retaliation
Wherein another off-the-cuff analysis…
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/response-to-reports-that-israel-is
I suspect that now that Biden has alleged that the US and Israel are discussing an Israeli attack on Iranian oil facilities, and importantly, that the US doesn’t want Israel to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, that in fact the decision has been made by the US to green light – and support – an Israeli nuclear attack, possibly from either their Jericho missiles or their Dolphin-class submarines, on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That would certainly get the war going with a bang.
And for those who haven’t seen my earlier posts on the upcoming Middle East war:
Armageddon in the Middle East – Part 1 – Why It’s Inevitable
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/armageddon-in-the-middle-east-part-a9a
Armageddon in The Middle East – Part 2 – Correlation of Forces and Methods
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/armageddon-in-the-middle-east-part
Armageddon in The Middle East – Part 3 – Scenarios and Implications
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/armageddon-in-the-middle-east-part-8a2
Armageddon in The Middle East – Part 4 – The Nuclear Option
https://richardstevenhack.substack.com/p/armageddon-in-the-middle-east-part-b3e
I might be wrong about this, but, afaik, Unit 8200 is Istael’s military intel while Mossad is the “civilian” intelligence. IIRC, Unit 8200 HQ outside Haifa (not sure if it’s THE HQ of the unit) was hit by Hizb’ullah earlier while the HQ hit now is the Mossad one.
Secret Police is Shin Bet
Mossad is Foreign intelligence and Assassinations
Unit 8200 is ELINT electronic intelligence like NSA
This Ploy by the US deserves its own Codename and probably has one. I am surprised Nasrallah fell for it after Soleimani
There Soleimani travelled in civvies to Baghdad in a civilian plane to meet an emissary from Saudi to deliver Iran‘s response to proposals for better relations between two
US wanted this halted just as it halted Ukraine in Istanbul in 2022
When China brokered a deal the bird flew and Saudi and Iran restored relations
If they need to reflect consider how Israel murdered Count Bernadotte the UN Envoy or Lord Moyne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Guinness,_1st_Baron_Moyne