For the first time since 1979, Iran is actually taking the initiative in Israel’s decades-long war against it.
Iran has shifted the entire calculus and achieved something long thought impossible. For years it was considered unthinkable that Iran would ever strike Israel directly, even after Iran was hit first. Then Iran began responding to Israeli attacks, first with ‘demonstrative’ strikes, then increasingly crippling ones.
Now Iran has established total strategic dominance of the escalation ladder to the point where it can treat Israel as Israel has treated other regional countries since its founding, punitively hitting it at will for violations that no longer necessarily include direct attacks on Iran’s home territory.
And the most shocking kicker of it all is that the US cannot do anything about it—and has even told Israel to ignore the attacks and stand down.
For nearly 50 years, Israel has cried wolf about Iran. And now, thanks to its own duplicitous attempts to enact regime change, Iran has not only been able to survive, but seize the initiative. Notice that this is the same way things played out over a much-compressed timeframe during the Iran-Iraq war, as Iran survived the Iraqi attack, gathered its resources, then began invading Iraqi territory after the exhausted Iraqi army ran out of steam.
The USA saved Iraq back then. But the USA is already all but played out in the Persian Gulf.
Larry Johnson has more details about Iran’s new military policy:
As the current head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, chairman Larijani announced that Tehran’s intervention in support of Lebanon constitutes a formal declaration of a new strategic doctrine. Under the terms of this doctrine, attacks on any component of the Resistance Axis (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) will trigger an Iranian response that extends beyond geographical boundaries and reshapes regional equations.
Larijani explained that Iran has entered a new phase in which it no longer waits for threats to emerge before acting to preserve its regional position, but instead will take the initiative. He also warned that any expansion of the conflict or attack on critical Iranian infrastructure would be met with a comprehensive and deterrent response.
This introduces a new, dynamic variable into the calculus of the Levant. This marks the first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 that Iran has committed itself to taking military action on behalf of Hezbollah and the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians. The conservative Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, reported that security officials admitted Israel did not expect Iran to fully follow through on threats, viewing it as a miscalculation. There was noted frustration that Iran dictated terms via the new “equation” and that Israel faced pressure (including from the U.S./Trump) to limit its response to avoid full war.
As usual, the liars assume everyone else is lying. But why wouldn’t they expect the Iranians are bluffing, when the Arab world has blown very little but hot air since 1948. Except I very much doubt an Iranian military that has defeated the US military and significantly expanded Iranian power in the region is any less inclined to bluff than an Israeli military that is hopped up on its successful regime change in Syria and its success in forcing the US military to join its war in the region.
