Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW

Well. War with Iran it is. I had hoped it would not come to this juncture, but here we are. Some thoughts after the day’s fighting.

1. As an initial matter, the Trump Administration’s actions here are aggression and perfidy. This attack on Iran was unprovoked and occurred during negotiations in which the Iranians were by all indications willing to make significant and lasting concessions to assuage American and Israeli concerns about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program. Soon enough we will regret setting this precedent.

This is true, but it isn’t exactly a precedent. With Trump it has become SOP, and it’s a matter for perplexity that it should have worked to the extent that it did.

2. US and Israeli forces appear to have achieved tactical surprise by launching a limited decapitation strike first against senior figures in the Iranian regime. The measure of performance of the strike – did they hit what and whom they intended to hit – is currently the subject of… significant debate. The measure of effectiveness of the strike – did it dislocate the Iranian defensive response or cause panic and infighting in the regime – was negative. The Iranian military deliberately cleared what was at the time an airspace crowded with civilian traffic, brought air defenses online, and began launching retaliatory strikes about an hour later.

Yes, the true measure of Iranian preparedness is that they were able to respond quickly and effectively.

2A. The Iranians only brought their air defenses online after their airspace was clear of civilian traffic, suggesting they felt confident in their ability to absorb a limited first strike and also indicating that they very much wanted to avoid repeating Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with wild defensive fire.

3. Iran has thus far had some success penetrating US and Israeli missile defenses on the far side of the Middle East and considerable success smashing up US bases (and local critical infrastructure) in the Gulf and Iraq with their plentiful arsenal of short-range missiles and cruise drones. There’s nothing really new and game-changing here from the Twelve Day War, as I pointed out earlier. They have a lot of missiles and drones and seem more than happy to contest with us on throw-weight.

This is probably important. As far as we can tell, Iran has yet to expend large numbers of their heavy new ballistic missiles, but the Anglo-Zionists are expending huge numbers of air defense missiles.

4. As I pointed out earlier, the considerable standoff that US and Israeli aircraft are operating from has wrecked sortie generation. Coalition strikes on Iran throughout the day have been remarkably modest following the initial wave of attacks, likely due to a combination of delay from forced refueling, disruption to remote bases due to Iranian missile attacks, forced use of standoff weapons due to Iranian AD [Air Defense] coverage, and Iranian AD attritioning incoming salvos. Effects have not been particularly impressive either – I’ve seen a grand total of two strikes with noticeable secondaries.

The extra distances will also have the effect of quickly using up vast quantities of aviation fuel. The longer the war goes on—and Iran has been provided with ample incentive to keep it going—the more acute the logistics problems will become.

4A. As long as the Iranian IADS [Integrated Air Defense Network] network remains intact enough to deter Coalition forces from flying “downtown” into Iranian airspace proper, there’s very hard limits on the amount of coercive power that can actually be applied to Iran. We only have so many standoff missiles and don’t have a Russo-Chinese missile printer to call upon. And I remind the reader that our bigger and stronger adversaries (Russia and China) are very invested in ensuring that IADS network remains intact so as to preserve their ally.

5. There has been no noticeable regime fracture or civil insurrection in Iran. Everyone in the regime seems to have fallen in line immediately and all the demonstrations in Iran through the day have been pro-government. This is to be expected – the Iranians have not only rehearsed this, they’ve had multiple repetitions of executing it over the past year.

6. Mossad’s attack network in Iran seems to be well and truly dismembered – as I suggested it had been earlier. There have been no reports of commando or insurgent activity in Iran over the course of the day. The Iranian internet is shut down at the moment and nobody seems to be posting online via Starlink.

7. Oil shock is a real prospect here. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The Bab al-Mandeb is likely going to be interdicted soon by the Houthis. Iran has already begun limited strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the region. Air and missile campaigns are inherently indecisive, and Americans are not going to tolerate a weeks or monthslong campaign that spikes oil to $150+/barrel.

8. Claims are floating around – out of Israel, of course – that this entire affair was a scheme cooked up by Trump and Netanyahu and that the negotiations were always a sham. I suspect that isn’t the case, and that Trump was herded into action by Netanyahu threatening to attack unilaterally after the US “coercive task force” was finally fully assembled in the Gulf.

Continues…