It seems amazing how far Ha’aretz are willing to go to pin Iran’s nuclear weapons programs on others (Bibi, for example) in an inversion of reality, but this is a calculated bit of commercially motivated propaganda. Reality begs to differ with Ha’aretz. You have an Islamist messianic regime with an antisemitic genocide of Israel obsession at its core. You have an actual rush to a nuclear weapon. There’s a unity in Israel around that being an existential danger. But then theres also the reality that Ha’aretz exists now to appeal to an international audience of anti-Israel kooks. With that hammer, everything is a nail.
I'm quite willing to believe that Iran genuinely intended to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, but wisely or not Trump was pursuing a nuclear agreement with Iran and Netanyahu consciously blew up the peace process. He can't expect to ignore the policy preferences of the American President and still count on US patronage and support, let alone if the duty of another 20-year occupation in the middle east falls on US shoulders.
That’s absolutely ridiculous. Israel has listened to the US preach restraint for 22 years. That’s how long the US has tried diplomacy and Iran went from 3.67% enriched to huge amounts of 60% enriched uranium and higher. It developed massive ballistic missile program while still promising to annihilate Israel. Nothing happens to the US immediately other than Iran ejecting it from the Middle East once they get nukes, but Israel actually gets nuked and you’re still claiming Israel had to listen to the Americans? How entitled can you be? If someone tried to shoot you I’ll insist that you sit tight while they take shots at you, and I try diplomacy. Absurd.
Trump gave Iran 60 days and Israel hit them on the 61st based on intelligence that Iran was rushing to the bomb under cover of dragging out negotiations. Trump himself pointed this out.
What peace are you referring to? Iran and its proxies murdered over a thousand US servicemen, diplomats and civilians. It’s murdered thousands of Israelis. It, Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis have engaged in a war initiated by Iran and its proxies since October 7. You’re delusional if you believe either the US or Israel are violating a “peace”.
Beyond that, the US has been in Iraq, Syria, Qatar and Saudi for its own interests. It’s never fought a single war for Israel. Israel is kicking the ass if Iran and all its proxies by itself - what on earth are you blabbing about?
Israel is heavily reliant on the US for a lot of stuff to maintain basic military functioning, as well as diplomatic cover. To some extent Israel could become more self reliant, but this would take decades even if there was a plan to do it, which there isn't. You may believe that Israel deserves this support for benefits provided, but it doesn't matter if you believe it. In the long term, it matters whether Americans believe it.
You claim it is entitled for Americans to dictate to Israel how it pursues its national security, but the reality is that right or wrong America has the ability to do this, and if you want support to continue you have to convince (other) Americans, not hector them.
Similarly Americans have to convince Israel that more restraint doesn’t lead them to another October 7 or worse, and Biden did that extremely poorly because his administration was infested with progressives who clearly would cherish the destruction of Israel. Trump’s administration has its dimwitted Tulsi Gabbard types, and she got her ass handed to her by her boss. You probably missed that while you were busy shitting on Israel.
The choices are to ignore this and run the risk of an Iranian bomb or attack and run the risk there was no bomb project. It's pretty clear which is the lesser risk.
As for the emotional blackmail that this has cost the lives of 24 Israeli citizens so far, one could say this resulted in a significant delay to an Iranian bomb.
The government can easily save the lives of 24 citizens at any time: just pass a national speed limit of 10 km/hr on all roads.
You're arguing that this gambit is to degrade Iran's nuclear program and missile strike infrastructure in exchange for some acceptable degree of retaliatory strikes. Meanwhile, you acknowledge that this may ultimately be counterproductive insofar as it further incentivizes Iran to pursue a nuclear deterrent, which they will be able to develop at the Fordow facility, which is nigh impregnable to Israeli weapons.
You argue that this gambit is wise, for two reasons: that there is significant risk in the alternative, which is to pursue a diplomatic solution; and for the sake of the strategic initiative itself.
In short, and with all due caution, my point is at this stage, based on the evidence we have, the gambit is wise because at the very least it will result in Iran being severely weakened.
Thanks for the clarification. Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more.
While Iran's launch capacity, air defense infrastructure, and political/military decision-making structure are paralyzed or degraded at the moment, Israel has begun an open-ended conflict with Iran with no real means or plan to resolve the conflict. Iran is a big country with a much larger population and industrial base than Israel. While Israel's defense industry is more sophisticated, it's also far smaller and more clustered. The same is true of its population. My point being, Iran can afford to absorb quite a bit of damage and continue to remain in the fight, both materially and politically. The same is not true for Israel.
In this case, embarking on an open-ended attritional strike duel with Iran is extremely risky, to the point at which it's almost nonsensical. Iran has thousands of missiles, and will adapt their launching systems to be more survivable after this initial disaster for them (a la Russo-Ukrainian war). They will maintain the ability to do serious damage to Israel, while Israel is effectively incapable of dealing a decisive blow or ending the conflict. The result will be a protracted strike campaign, with Israeli bombers playing whack-a-mole with Iranian missile launchers, and Iranian missiles/drones attriting Israeli air defense over time. The result is continuous damage to both sides, at which point it becomes a question of political will.
Strategically speaking (politics aside), this attritional conflict makes absolutely no sense for Bibi to pursue. The state of affairs I describe would result in perpetual crisis and Netanyahu probably being run out of office. But Netanyahu isn't stupid; I don't think that attritional conflict is what he's pursuing. I don't think he expected this blitz to be a knockout blow, either.
The only strategically sound reason for Israel to escalate is to bring the United States into the war. That's the gambit. Israel is attempting to goad Iran into taking action that would justify American intervention; once Americans start to die, then the full force of the USAF will be brought to bear on Iran. The US is the only power that *might* have the capacity to deliver a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program and the regime in general. Bibi knows that. Judging by the influx of American air assets to the Middle East from Europe, it seems that he might get his way.
Well we have to wait and see if you are right or not, but at this stage it's very clear that Iran is struggling to launch as many missiles as it would like, mainly because we have destroyed half of its launchers and we have strong intelligence. And we're not yet a week into this thing.
Agreed. Regardless, the question at the forefront of any military operation should not be "how much damage can we do", but "how does this work out for us in the long term." Pearl Harbor and Barbarossa come to mind.
Simply put, Iran can and will develop a nuke if they are subjected to protracted Israeli bombing campaign. I agree that there is zero appetite in the US for an occupation of Iran, but there's just no other way to enact a regime change and ensure that the following regime doesn't pursue the bomb. It is the rational thing to do from Iran's perspective.
How does the quote go? "America spent 20 years and 2 trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban"?
If what you say is true and regime change occupation will be necessary, then I don't think you're appreciating the full extent of the social capital Netanyahu has committed to burning here. Every up-and-coming US political pundit on both the left and right will despise Israel with a passion after this, and I'm not sure I'd blame them.
Let me back up and clarify my position - I don't think that the US will invade and occupy Iran. I'm saying that such would be necessary in order to effect meaningful regime change in Iran. What's more likely is that we end up in a state of perpetual crisis, in which Israel and perhaps the United States conduct and increasingly ruthless bombing campaign against Iran to no avail, with Iran maintaining a non-zero capacity to strike back at Israel. This may go on for months; both countries will suffer significant damage, while incapable of inflicting a decisive blow on the other.
Thanks for your analysis. I agree and would take it further. The operation by Israel is not a gambit. It is a clearly thought through well planned operation by Israel to remove an existential threat to its security and provide the opportunity to change the playing field in the Middle East and the world. Whether it succeeds or not remains to be seen as we are only in Day 5 of the warbut to date it has been a brilliant success.
What amazes me about the left / west is that they have lost the will to win. That is reflected in the comments and criticisms of the operation. They assume that when it’s over nothing will have changed and Iran will be in a position to go back to its previous behavior. That only occurs if you play not to lose. Even now we see in the G7 proclamation calls to de-escalate, in essence to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. That is the opposite of what Israel should be doing.
At this point Israel should be going for the knockout punch, to change the dynamic so that even if the Islamic regime survives they no longer will have the capacity to be a menace and if the try, Israel nips it in the bud as they are doing with Hezbollah. Of course the best case scenario would be a regime weakened to the point that it can be overthrown by its own people.
Nobody can guarantee that Israel’s strategy will work but to claim there is no strategy is western leftist whining because Israel has not followed their failed ideology and is playing to win.
It’s weird to see people warning about future escalation from a regime that might well collapse before the year ends.
People don’t seem to understand the power of air supremacy over their capital. Israel can attack the regime at will. It can snuff out new supply chains before they even get built, it can prevent reinforcements, it can hunt for ballistic launchers until they’re all gone. It can monitor Iran’s every move.
In war games, this usually leads to a complete rout. How are they even supposed to govern when Israel can sustain this pressure for months?
Iran hasn’t even begun to experience the economic effect of Israel’s early successes, but it’s certain to be catastrophic.
It's unclear if Israel can sustain this pressure for months. Certainly we can't live with everything cancelled because of the threat of missiles (although I would cautiously suggest that there are signs the air force is addressing that problem).
I understand to be careful about sweeping assumptions under the fog of war, but there’s a lot of compelling evidence that Iran’s ability to fend off these attacks has only declined since the first ambush, meaning Israel’s ability to sustain this is increasing.
Irans latest ballistic missile wave yesterday was dramatically weakened from the first few. I think they only mustered a couple launches. No hits. Compare that to Oct 1st last year when they could launch 250 ballistic missiles
Maybe Iran is feigning weakness before a stronger counter attack, but I doubt it. Signaling weakness will only embolden Israel, and I doubt they want that.
Perhaps a better metaphor than the Queen's Gambit would be the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Gambit, in which White gambits not just the flanking c-pawn, but the more valuable central e-pawn, the knight, and the bishop, but in exchange, hopes to gain not just central control, but a material advantage after capturing Black's queen.
In Israel's case, the gambitted material is very significant (hundreds or thousands of lives), while the optimal payoff is similarly substantial.
Much as we like to disagree with each other, I'm going to disappoint you in this instance. This is a very intelligent analysis.
Thanks Sheri!
It seems amazing how far Ha’aretz are willing to go to pin Iran’s nuclear weapons programs on others (Bibi, for example) in an inversion of reality, but this is a calculated bit of commercially motivated propaganda. Reality begs to differ with Ha’aretz. You have an Islamist messianic regime with an antisemitic genocide of Israel obsession at its core. You have an actual rush to a nuclear weapon. There’s a unity in Israel around that being an existential danger. But then theres also the reality that Ha’aretz exists now to appeal to an international audience of anti-Israel kooks. With that hammer, everything is a nail.
I'm quite willing to believe that Iran genuinely intended to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, but wisely or not Trump was pursuing a nuclear agreement with Iran and Netanyahu consciously blew up the peace process. He can't expect to ignore the policy preferences of the American President and still count on US patronage and support, let alone if the duty of another 20-year occupation in the middle east falls on US shoulders.
https://substack.com/profile/6502637-__browsing/note/c-126931503
That’s absolutely ridiculous. Israel has listened to the US preach restraint for 22 years. That’s how long the US has tried diplomacy and Iran went from 3.67% enriched to huge amounts of 60% enriched uranium and higher. It developed massive ballistic missile program while still promising to annihilate Israel. Nothing happens to the US immediately other than Iran ejecting it from the Middle East once they get nukes, but Israel actually gets nuked and you’re still claiming Israel had to listen to the Americans? How entitled can you be? If someone tried to shoot you I’ll insist that you sit tight while they take shots at you, and I try diplomacy. Absurd.
Trump gave Iran 60 days and Israel hit them on the 61st based on intelligence that Iran was rushing to the bomb under cover of dragging out negotiations. Trump himself pointed this out.
What peace are you referring to? Iran and its proxies murdered over a thousand US servicemen, diplomats and civilians. It’s murdered thousands of Israelis. It, Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis have engaged in a war initiated by Iran and its proxies since October 7. You’re delusional if you believe either the US or Israel are violating a “peace”.
Beyond that, the US has been in Iraq, Syria, Qatar and Saudi for its own interests. It’s never fought a single war for Israel. Israel is kicking the ass if Iran and all its proxies by itself - what on earth are you blabbing about?
Israel is heavily reliant on the US for a lot of stuff to maintain basic military functioning, as well as diplomatic cover. To some extent Israel could become more self reliant, but this would take decades even if there was a plan to do it, which there isn't. You may believe that Israel deserves this support for benefits provided, but it doesn't matter if you believe it. In the long term, it matters whether Americans believe it.
So? And?
I’m a naturalized citizen of the US. What else do you want to mansplain?
You claim it is entitled for Americans to dictate to Israel how it pursues its national security, but the reality is that right or wrong America has the ability to do this, and if you want support to continue you have to convince (other) Americans, not hector them.
Similarly Americans have to convince Israel that more restraint doesn’t lead them to another October 7 or worse, and Biden did that extremely poorly because his administration was infested with progressives who clearly would cherish the destruction of Israel. Trump’s administration has its dimwitted Tulsi Gabbard types, and she got her ass handed to her by her boss. You probably missed that while you were busy shitting on Israel.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/p/the-art-of-the-nuclear-deal
Brilliant analysis. Thank you
Thanks!
Excellent article, thank you
Thanks!
Very informative and clarifying analysis. Thank you
It's easy to criticize until asked about a better alternative.
There was credible intelligence in Israel that after Oct 7 Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon, creating separate teams for each of the components.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-found-iran-carried-out-key-tests-for-nuke-design-ahead-of-strikes-report/
The choices are to ignore this and run the risk of an Iranian bomb or attack and run the risk there was no bomb project. It's pretty clear which is the lesser risk.
As for the emotional blackmail that this has cost the lives of 24 Israeli citizens so far, one could say this resulted in a significant delay to an Iranian bomb.
The government can easily save the lives of 24 citizens at any time: just pass a national speed limit of 10 km/hr on all roads.
Interesting point!
Wise, informative, and interesting. As always. You should be Prime Minister.
Brilliant analysis.
Thanks for the idea of the gambit!
I'm not sure I understand your point.
You're arguing that this gambit is to degrade Iran's nuclear program and missile strike infrastructure in exchange for some acceptable degree of retaliatory strikes. Meanwhile, you acknowledge that this may ultimately be counterproductive insofar as it further incentivizes Iran to pursue a nuclear deterrent, which they will be able to develop at the Fordow facility, which is nigh impregnable to Israeli weapons.
You argue that this gambit is wise, for two reasons: that there is significant risk in the alternative, which is to pursue a diplomatic solution; and for the sake of the strategic initiative itself.
Did I get that all right?
In short, and with all due caution, my point is at this stage, based on the evidence we have, the gambit is wise because at the very least it will result in Iran being severely weakened.
Thanks for the clarification. Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more.
While Iran's launch capacity, air defense infrastructure, and political/military decision-making structure are paralyzed or degraded at the moment, Israel has begun an open-ended conflict with Iran with no real means or plan to resolve the conflict. Iran is a big country with a much larger population and industrial base than Israel. While Israel's defense industry is more sophisticated, it's also far smaller and more clustered. The same is true of its population. My point being, Iran can afford to absorb quite a bit of damage and continue to remain in the fight, both materially and politically. The same is not true for Israel.
In this case, embarking on an open-ended attritional strike duel with Iran is extremely risky, to the point at which it's almost nonsensical. Iran has thousands of missiles, and will adapt their launching systems to be more survivable after this initial disaster for them (a la Russo-Ukrainian war). They will maintain the ability to do serious damage to Israel, while Israel is effectively incapable of dealing a decisive blow or ending the conflict. The result will be a protracted strike campaign, with Israeli bombers playing whack-a-mole with Iranian missile launchers, and Iranian missiles/drones attriting Israeli air defense over time. The result is continuous damage to both sides, at which point it becomes a question of political will.
Strategically speaking (politics aside), this attritional conflict makes absolutely no sense for Bibi to pursue. The state of affairs I describe would result in perpetual crisis and Netanyahu probably being run out of office. But Netanyahu isn't stupid; I don't think that attritional conflict is what he's pursuing. I don't think he expected this blitz to be a knockout blow, either.
The only strategically sound reason for Israel to escalate is to bring the United States into the war. That's the gambit. Israel is attempting to goad Iran into taking action that would justify American intervention; once Americans start to die, then the full force of the USAF will be brought to bear on Iran. The US is the only power that *might* have the capacity to deliver a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program and the regime in general. Bibi knows that. Judging by the influx of American air assets to the Middle East from Europe, it seems that he might get his way.
Well we have to wait and see if you are right or not, but at this stage it's very clear that Iran is struggling to launch as many missiles as it would like, mainly because we have destroyed half of its launchers and we have strong intelligence. And we're not yet a week into this thing.
Agreed. Regardless, the question at the forefront of any military operation should not be "how much damage can we do", but "how does this work out for us in the long term." Pearl Harbor and Barbarossa come to mind.
But you're completely right. We'll see.
If Israel *needs* to suck the US into the war here then you'd better hope like hell they don't need to stick around.
https://substack.com/profile/6502637-__browsing/note/c-126931503
Simply put, Iran can and will develop a nuke if they are subjected to protracted Israeli bombing campaign. I agree that there is zero appetite in the US for an occupation of Iran, but there's just no other way to enact a regime change and ensure that the following regime doesn't pursue the bomb. It is the rational thing to do from Iran's perspective.
How does the quote go? "America spent 20 years and 2 trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban"?
If what you say is true and regime change occupation will be necessary, then I don't think you're appreciating the full extent of the social capital Netanyahu has committed to burning here. Every up-and-coming US political pundit on both the left and right will despise Israel with a passion after this, and I'm not sure I'd blame them.
Let me back up and clarify my position - I don't think that the US will invade and occupy Iran. I'm saying that such would be necessary in order to effect meaningful regime change in Iran. What's more likely is that we end up in a state of perpetual crisis, in which Israel and perhaps the United States conduct and increasingly ruthless bombing campaign against Iran to no avail, with Iran maintaining a non-zero capacity to strike back at Israel. This may go on for months; both countries will suffer significant damage, while incapable of inflicting a decisive blow on the other.
Thanks for your analysis. I agree and would take it further. The operation by Israel is not a gambit. It is a clearly thought through well planned operation by Israel to remove an existential threat to its security and provide the opportunity to change the playing field in the Middle East and the world. Whether it succeeds or not remains to be seen as we are only in Day 5 of the warbut to date it has been a brilliant success.
What amazes me about the left / west is that they have lost the will to win. That is reflected in the comments and criticisms of the operation. They assume that when it’s over nothing will have changed and Iran will be in a position to go back to its previous behavior. That only occurs if you play not to lose. Even now we see in the G7 proclamation calls to de-escalate, in essence to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. That is the opposite of what Israel should be doing.
At this point Israel should be going for the knockout punch, to change the dynamic so that even if the Islamic regime survives they no longer will have the capacity to be a menace and if the try, Israel nips it in the bud as they are doing with Hezbollah. Of course the best case scenario would be a regime weakened to the point that it can be overthrown by its own people.
Nobody can guarantee that Israel’s strategy will work but to claim there is no strategy is western leftist whining because Israel has not followed their failed ideology and is playing to win.
It’s weird to see people warning about future escalation from a regime that might well collapse before the year ends.
People don’t seem to understand the power of air supremacy over their capital. Israel can attack the regime at will. It can snuff out new supply chains before they even get built, it can prevent reinforcements, it can hunt for ballistic launchers until they’re all gone. It can monitor Iran’s every move.
In war games, this usually leads to a complete rout. How are they even supposed to govern when Israel can sustain this pressure for months?
Iran hasn’t even begun to experience the economic effect of Israel’s early successes, but it’s certain to be catastrophic.
It's unclear if Israel can sustain this pressure for months. Certainly we can't live with everything cancelled because of the threat of missiles (although I would cautiously suggest that there are signs the air force is addressing that problem).
I understand to be careful about sweeping assumptions under the fog of war, but there’s a lot of compelling evidence that Iran’s ability to fend off these attacks has only declined since the first ambush, meaning Israel’s ability to sustain this is increasing.
Irans latest ballistic missile wave yesterday was dramatically weakened from the first few. I think they only mustered a couple launches. No hits. Compare that to Oct 1st last year when they could launch 250 ballistic missiles
Maybe Iran is feigning weakness before a stronger counter attack, but I doubt it. Signaling weakness will only embolden Israel, and I doubt they want that.
I agree their ability has declined; I'll only accept our ability to sustain this is increasing if we're able to resume our normal lives.
Yea, that’s totally fair. It’s too easy for me to judge from afar. Stay safe out there!
Thanks!
Perhaps a better metaphor than the Queen's Gambit would be the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Gambit, in which White gambits not just the flanking c-pawn, but the more valuable central e-pawn, the knight, and the bishop, but in exchange, hopes to gain not just central control, but a material advantage after capturing Black's queen.
In Israel's case, the gambitted material is very significant (hundreds or thousands of lives), while the optimal payoff is similarly substantial.
See: https://www.chess.com/blog/epicNeev_1234/the-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-gambit.
"As NonZionism writes"
Link goes to the blog, not the comment.
Correct link is: https://substack.com/@mascilbinah/note/c-126212443.
The issue of Fordow is also discussed here: https://peterwildeford.substack.com/p/the-fordow-paradox-where-do-iran.