Simplicius believes that Iran will not retaliate by attacking Israel with anything more than symbolic gestures:
Israel is at a crossroads, which I have described before: the country is in a downward spiral and has only one remaining chance to seize history to secure its survival. Why? The reasons are almost too long to list in this one brief article alone, but they include demographics, as well as the decline of Zionism and rise of “noticing” in the West which means in a generation or two, support for Israel may dwindle to the point where it will be engulfed by regional enemies.
The other major reason: nascent technologies have created parity between Israel and its foes, where groups like Hamas and Hezbollah can use cheap but highly technologically effective weapons to deal accurate, disabling damage to Israel’s most critical and sensitive infrastructure. The same goes for Iran: the country has come of age and mastered rocketry and newfangled drone warfare to the point where the numbers simply do not work in Israel’s favor in any future war.
Israel once had the backing of the world’s most dominant ‘superpower’ alliance of Western nations, now the tides of history have simply shifted against Israel’s favor.
Now there are reports Iran may “declare war” on Israel. I remain skeptical for the following reason: Iran has no true overriding capability to fully ‘submit’ Israel into a state of debellatio. Israel has the nukes, and presumably, Iran as of yet does not. No amount of conventional missiles could make Israel simply surrender, and as such a declaration of war has no real meaning. Neither do the two countries share a border so it’s not like Iranian troops can somehow flood Israel to capture its capital.
Any overwhelming attack that could critically wound Israel may provoke an Israeli nuclear response—further proving Iran does not have the escalatory advantage or trump card. That is like Ukraine “declaring war” on Russia—what possible meaning would that have? Ukraine does not have the escalatory dominance to ever ‘submit’ Russia in any way, and the only objective of true ‘war’ is just that—total victory and the subjugation of the adversary. Thus, I see no logical way war can be declared, unless Iran did finally secretly hatch that bomb and is ready to use it. The only other possibility is for PR reasons to satisfy the demands of the angry populace, before declaring victory after some arbitrary objectives have been carried out via a series of strikes, and calling it a day.
I think his analysis is perspicacious. The attack on Iran is far from devastating, and the loss of a few Boomers in charge is hardly debilitating or even necessarily unwelcome to their younger successors. There were not Israeli jets flying over Tehran as if it were Lebanon; the attack mostly consisted of missiles launched from well outside Iranian airspace combined with a secret drone attack from within Iran that suspiciously resembles the recent attack by the Kiev regime on Russian airfields.
And, as Simplicius pointed out, at present, Iran’s ability to defeat Israel is nearly as impossible as Israel’s ability to defeat Iran.
But as with China vis-a-vis the USA and Russia vis-a-vis NATO, time is on Iran’s side. Israel didn’t attack Iran yesterday out of a position of strength, but rather, weakness and desperation. It attacked Iran while it still can, while it still has enough of a technological and operational advantage to do so.
Therefore, it would probably be wise for Iran to settle for a few symbolic missile and drone launches before following the lead of its Chinese and Russian partners in simply waiting for the US support that sustains Israel to collapse, as it is already in the process of doing.
Of course, the fact that this makes long-term strategic sense doesn’t mean that events will proceed accordingly. But given the restraint shown by Iran on previous occasions, I think Simplicius is correct to anticipate that similar restraint will be shown here.
An analysis of the effectiveness of the Israeli strike, which makes it sound as if the initial reports were highly exaggerated, and therefore makes it even more likely that any Iranian response will be symbolic.
An Israeli attempt to decapitate the Iranian military leadership also appears to have largely failed, with only one reasonably confirmed senior casualty at this time – GEN Salami, commander of the IRGC since 2019. I’ve seen a report that he was quite ill and thus remained in his home unlike the rest of the Iranian senior leadership. Recall that Khamenei was taken to a secure location some time ago, so it’s not like the Iranians didn’t have warning or were complacent about getting into shelter. Two or three people connected to the Iranian nuclear program also seem to have been assassinated, but in real terms this isn’t going to affect a program that is already largely – if not entirely – complete.
DISCUSS ON SG
