Premature Ceasefire?

It has been messy. After widespread acclaim for the US operation to end Iran's nuclear program through intensive strikes by the US, including the deep penetration MOPs, Trump has been speedy in announcing a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. 

It was not a fully negotiated affair, with Iran denying, then accepting, Israel accepting, then accusing Iran of breaking, and with missiles killing Israeli civilians. It also had a rather truculent Trump denouncing both Israel and Iran as if they were equally guilty of the violations. Bibi complied but was most probably smarting. It was another unedifying Trump performance. But, so far, the ceasefire is holding.

That seems to have been Trump's objective, but is it wise?

Israel had total control of the air and was systematically disarming the IRGC. The ceasefire stopped their momentum. Had they continued for a few more days, the regime may have suffered terminal damage and allowed for a popular uprising to replace the regime that has terrorized its people for over four decades.  Now, that may not happen. The IRGC has already been out rounding up anyone who showed support for the Israelis and could pose a threat to their rule. 

Equally significantly, there have been reports that the IRGC relocated enriched Uranium before the attacks on the known nuclear sites and even claims that the level of destruction of the sites was not as extensive as has been reported. If there is truth to such claims, it would make all that Israel and the US have invested into this battle be for naught.

Given the bombing occurred quite recently , it is too early to evaluate the veracity of such claims, but they are important. Once a ceasefire is in operation it becomes far more difficult to assess the truth, and more difficult to react if further bombing is required.

I am generally a Trump supporter, but I really cannot see the urgency in pushing a ceasefire before assessing the status of the nuclear program after the bombing.  Also, Trump has made it clear that he forced Israel to accept this ceasefire. Given Israel had taken all the risks of attacking Iran, executed the battle over 12 days, and had suffered 1000 missiles raining on her civilians, Israel should have had the choice of whether it wanted a ceasefire and when it should have been called.

Not good, Mr Trump!

He who hesitates..

Israel has , once again, had the courage of its convictions, attacking Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. This was high risk and fraught with uncertainty. It was done after extensive planning and executed with precision and professionalism. Given the task's difficulty, long distances, the likelihood of retaliation, and catering for massive barrages of ballistic missiles, the decision to act was not easy.  It was made at what Israel thought was the latest time possible to avert an even worse scenario, Iran developing nuclear weapons that would have put Israel at existential risk. 

While it would have preferred for the US to join in the attack, Israel decided that it could not wait and went in alone. It had advised Trump and his team, and unlike the Biden administration, Trump accepted Israel's decision and provided assistance in mitigating Iran's missile attack on Israeli cities.

This was just six days ago, and Israel's IDF's performance has been exemplary. Israel has achieved air supremacy; they have destroyed aerial defences, damaged many of the nuclear sites, and eliminated senior military and nuclear personnel. The Ayatollah has passed control to the next in charge, and he is hiding outside Tehran. Israel has freedom of the skies to destroy the IRGC military, communications, and energy infrastructure. Tehran is in chaos with long queues of citizens leaving the city.

On the other hand, Israel has suffered significant damage. Despite the Iron Dome's defence system's 90% success rate, 40 of the over 400 ballistic missiles sent by Iran have got through. They have inflicted damage to Tel-Aviv, Haifa and many other towns. Fatalities amount to some 30 people, but this number is increasing, and some 1000 Israelis have been wounded. These figures are far lower than expected, but the war is not yet over. Israel estimates they have destroyed some 40% of Iran's missile stocks. 

There is, however, a serious issue. Israel's attack's key objective was to destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions. While Israel is in the process of destroying all the known sites except Fordow, it has limited capability to attack Fordow, which was built inside a mountain. Israel has limited options for the Fordow site. They lack the US's bunker-busting munitions that can penetrate some 200 feet underground. The US is needed to destroy Fordow.

As of this minute, Trump has been hesitating. His team has developed the plans for such an attack, but says he has not decided to give the go-ahead. 

Why? While I understand that such decisions should not be made lightly, consider the alternative. If Fordow is left intact nothing is stopping Iran, no matter what regime takes over, from developing nuclear weapons in the future. If Iran did so, all Israel's efforts would be wasted, Trump's legacy would be shot, and Iran would again threaten the rest of the Middle East, Israel and the whole world with nuclear terrorism. 

This decision is not difficult. If Israel could make the decision to attack, given all that it had to lose, why can't Trump make the decision when he has nothing to lose; it only requires dropping some bombs in undefended skies. It does not need troops on the ground. Sure, the US could face attacks on US bases worldwide, but that has always been the case.

I believe Trump will make the right decision, but he should do it now. As soon as the US destroys Fordow, it will destroy the IRGC's dreams and precipitate an end to the war. While Fordow is intact, it keeps alive Iran's dream of nuclear weapons.

Don't take my word for it. Here is a short video by Historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson on this topic.

Iran's collapse frightens Russia

Israel has pulled off a spectacular pre-emptive assault on saber-rattling, terrorist-supporting, theocratic dictatorship. It has managed in just a few days to win dominance in the air, and is in the cleaning-up stages. This includes further attacks on nuclear-related sites, the IRGC assets, and some infrastructure. The latter is specifically to discourage Iran from using its ballistic missiles against civilian targets.

The war has not been all one-way. Iran showed a surprising lack of resistance to Israel's air attack. More on this later. On the other hand, it has launched multiple waves of drones and ballistic missiles against Israel's largest cities. Despite a highly efficient protective dome, destroying some 80-90% of such missiles, the remainder do penetrate, and we have seen substantial damage to buildings, and some casualties. The number of civilians who have lost their lives is relatively small, especially given the size of the onslaught. It was only possible due to Israel's defensive infrastructure, with shelters built in or near virtually every building.

Iran has targeted a few strategic sites, Israel's defence departments' building and an Oil Refinery in Haifa, but its primary targets have been residential areas. I expect that we will soon have the ICC issue warrants for the Iranian military leaders and the Ayatollah for such war crimes. And of course, the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway will put sanctions on these people. SO that will teach them. Of course, I don't really expect any such actions. But it does show the hypocrisy of the ICC and those virtue-signalling morally blind leaders of the UK, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and shamefully Australia.

While all freedom-loving people will applaud the success of Israel, and indeed thank them for taking the action against Iran. While Israel has done this as it faced an existential threat in Iran's moves to develop nuclear weapons after they had threatened Israel's destruction often enough. They had even boasted that Israel was a one bomb state. So they only had to make sure they managed to get one through, and Israel would be destroyed. So Israel had little choice, and they took the brave steps to protect their country. Yet, we have to accept that they have done us all a favour. The Islamists who rule, perhaps I will soon be saying ruled, but not yet, have threatened not only Israel but the West in general. A nuclear-armed Iran would have perpetuated a regime that had already supported terrorism around the world, through proxies, it had fought civil wars in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. It was a force for evil and should never have been accepted in the community of nations. The world could isolate such rogue states, but I will leave that for another day.

While the West celebrates Iran's now-likely fall, its allies, China & Russia, have a lesson to learn. Iran's inability to prevent Israel's air superiority despite anti-aircraft defence systems provided by Russia is sobering. While Russia did not supply many batteries of its best system, the SU-400, it had provided the SU-300. They turned out to be totally ineffective against Israel. To our knowledge, after 5 days, Israel has not lost a single aeroplane. That is remarkable.

So Russia's confidence in its ability to defend itself has taken a blow. Equally important, Iran was a major source of the drones that Russia had been using against Ukraine. That supply line has now been broken. Israel's success against Iran has dealt several blows to Russia.

Here is a video providing far more detail on the impact of Iran's failure on Russia.

Israel Pre-emptive Attack

 A few hours ago, Israel launched its much-anticipated surprise attack on Iran. It was not unexpected, but its timing may have been. It is too soon to gauge its success, though initial reports show -

• a large operation with some 200 planes
• Minor reported damage to Israel from Iran's defence systems
• widespread damage in many locations in Iran
• targets included anti-aircraft defence, high-value military personnel, missile manufacturing sites and most importantly, nuclear weapons factories
• The 'neutralization' of some senior personnel has been acknowledged by Iran, including the head of the IRGC
• Iran, Khamanei has vowed retaliation, and drones have been launched against Israel

These are but a few hours after the attack, so much too early to draw conclusions.

Israel has been a victim of unwarranted aggression by Iran for decades. Iran has been threatening, has been using proxies for direct attacks and just a few months ago launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles against Israel. Iran has declared war on Israel and has used everything in its power to attack Israel for decades. Israel has taken this step only due to the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons. 

So, by any fair evaluation, Israel was justified, and the free world will be better off if it succeeds. Success would be the elimination of Iran's nuclear threat. Even greater success would be the elimination of the terrorist theocracy that took control of Iran in 1979.

We can all hope that Israel achieved the former, and that the freedom-loving people of Iran take the opportunity of Iran's weakness to overthrow the regime.

A recent update.

Iranians calling on Israel to help bring down the Theocracy!

Given the weekly marches, protests, and demonstrations screaming genocidal slogans against Israel in many of the cities of the Western world, one would think that if this is happening in the Western world, it would be even more extreme in the Middle East. It is not so. While there is a core group of demonstrators in the West who are, let's say, impassioned in their hatred of Israel and Jews, it is by no means a large number. The vast majority of the silent masses stand in support of Israel and are sympathetic to their existential battle against the extremists incessantly threatening them. A recent survey in the US found support for Israel was at some 70%.

The demonstrators are not all of one mind and really include four separate groups. There is a core group of Middle Eastern Islamists whose enmity is based both on religious background and sympathy for fellow Muslims. Again, this group is only a small proportion of the wider Muslim community, but given the recent migration from North Africa and the Middle East to Western countries, even a small number represents an increase in such extremists.

The second subgroup comes from the hard left. These are Marxists, anti-Western zealots who will join any group threatening Western society. Finally, we have a group that could be best labelled as 'useful idiots.' With little knowledge of the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, they join in chants of "River to the Sea" without being able to identify the river or the sea, nor realizing they are calling for the annihilation of Israel.

Why, one could ask, are there so many of them? Indeed, why? What type of education creates such moral failure? And why are there so many in universities, where one would assume there are students who have the capability of thinking for themselves? One reason is no doubt due to the too many academics who are open or closet Marxists, critical of every aspect of Western civilization and indoctrinating their students.

So much for the West. In the middle east support for extremists has had a mixed history. In Gaza suveys have shown that support for Hamas just after the October 7 massacre was running at 80%. That is despite the barbarity of the attack on innocent civilians. So not exactly an encouraging result. When this survey was repeated recently after a year in which Hamas has been decimated and much of Gaza has been levelled, support for Hamas has dropped to just 8%! That is encouraging.

In Lebanon too, we can already see signs of the Lebanese rejecting Hezbollah. 

Many in the Middle East have already spoken out condemning Hamas, and even celebrating the death of Nasrallah In an earlier post (Palestinians speak out against Hamas .) I included YouTube videos covering this. 

Most recently following the direct attacks between Iran and Israel, Iranians are speaking out. They want Israel to destroy the Iranian leadership and allow Iranians to live the peaceful and prosperous lives they had before the Islamic revolution that created a dictatorial theocracy.

Here is the video; - 

The vocal minority is having an undue influence on our perception, especially in a world where opinions are amplified by social media, and the mainstream media has been corrupted to push agendas rather than objectively report and analyse .  

Did Israel Carpe the Diem?

A few days ago I speculated on the range of options Israel had for their response to Iran's unprecedented direct attack on Israel. (see my earlier Carpe Diem )

If you listen to the mainstream media it was 'ho-hum'. More significantly if you listen to Iran's comments it was also 'ho-hum, nothing to see here, not even a scratch'. So is this true?

Perhaps we should take a short detour and revisit Iran's attack. There is no doubt Iran's was a large scale direct attack on Israeli territory. Over 300 projectile weapons were directed at a wide range of military and non-military targets within Israeli territory. They included ballistic and cruise missiles, and drones. By all accounts a large majority of the drones were shot down even before they reached Israeli air-space, and virtually all the missiles were shot down without hitting their targets. The only injury reported is of a single young girl hit by shrapnel resulting from the destruction of one of the missiles.

Most significantly Israel was assisted by the US, UK and Jordan in directly shooting down the drones and missiles, and ground assistance (radar intelligence) was also provided by Saudi Arabia and UAE. The willingness of these Sunni states to join in protecting Israel from the Iranian attack is notable.

In many respects, Israel's success in repelling Iran's attack was already disarming for Iran. A miracle according to the account below.

After the large-scale attack by Iran, Israel's response seems minor. While Iran's attack was a major television extravaganza with extensive coverage by all media. Direct footage of projectiles being destroyed over Israel, including quite dramatic footage over the Al Aqsa mosque. 

In contrast, the attack on Iran was not covered widely at all. There were some reports of explosions around a military base in Isfahan. Iran reported they had shot down a number of drones. We also heard some sites in Syria and Iraq were bombed. No casualties were reported. Israel has not commented on its attack, at all. This allowed Iran to downplay the attack as insignificant. But is this true? Perhaps not.

Several reports have emerged that praise the strategic success of Israel's attack. The video below titled

No one could believe this happened! Finally Israel's supersonic missiles broke through Iran defense!

highlights Israel's success in penetrating Iran's air defences. 

I guess time will tell, but so far Israel has -

• successfully defended its territory against a direct attack by Iran with over 300 projectiles
• forged a de-facto allegiance with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE against Iran (this will not be publicized but when it came to action they were there )
• penetrated Iran's best air defence and bombed selected targets within Iranian territory in one of their largest cities
• demonstrated its defensive and offensive superiority
• allowed Iran to walk away from further aggression without losing face

All round not too bad.

Carpe Diem

Are we at the crossroads? Can we take the opportunity granted by recent unwelcome and unprecedented events to correct for the evil that we have seen seep into our world community? Is it time to seize the day?

The unwarranted launch of 300 airborne weapons by Iran aimed at both military AND non-military targets in Israel has opened a door. A door that was heretofore shut due to the likely condemnation of Western World sensibilities. Had Israel attacked Iran directly even despite the multiple attacks instigated by Iran against Israel but committed by its puppet armies, it would have been regarded as provocative and condemned. 

However, after the massive attack on Israel directly from Iran the game has changed. This was the first direct attack on Israeli territory from Iranian territory. The shadowboxing veil has been dropped, at least for this attack. Iran was trying to provide a disproportionate response to Israel's attack on a senior military personnel meeting in an annex to Iran's embassy in Damascus. Israel's attack had been a serious blow & embarrassment to Iran. For Israel, these were very valuable military targets, in particular one of the organisers of the Oct 7th Hamas massacre.

After Iran's attack, Israel has vowed to respond. No doubt Iran had expected this but hopes it is 'proportional', or limited. And the Western World has again lectured Israel about its likely response calling for it to be 'restrained'. Some of Israel's allies have threatened (USA, UK) and even ceased (Canada, Belgium) arms shipments. So much for so-called 'allies'.

Yet, having survived the massive attack by Iran, virtually unscathed, Israel has a singular opportunity to attack Iran without incurring the condemnation of the Western World. Of course, no matter what it does there will be some countries that will condemn it, but there is a clear moral right for Israel to respond.

There are many ways that Israel could respond. They can be broken into three categories

1. A short sharp proportional response  A relatively mild but sufficient response to show that it will always respond to an attack. This would be a response against military infrastructure only, but of sufficient intensity and value to give Iran a 'bloody nose'. Given Iran's attack had been thwarted any successful destruction of military bases would be a lesson, proving Israel to be more capable than Iran
2. A consequential economic attack A militarily simple but economically consequential attack on Iran's critical infrastructure. This could be oil pipelines, Oil refineries, oil export terminals, electricity power stations, water supplies, maritime terminals, etc. While these are soft targets, and not strictly military they would expose Iran's vulnerability and most importantly enlist the Iranian population into condemning the Islamist regime.
3. An all-out re-establishment of deterrence As a final option, Israel could go 'disproportionate' with a direct attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and eliminate a major threat to the entire Middle East and the World. A successful attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be welcomed by the world, and would, if successful, give Iran more than just a bloody nose, it would seriously embarrass the regime and elevate Israel. It would also prevent a potential nuclear catastrophe should Iran develop multiple nuclear weapons or even if not deployed would prevent Iran from being elevated above its neighbors as a nuclear weapon state.

While option 1 would most likely be allowed to pass without another attack from Iran, the other options would most likely have further consequences. The most likely being another barrage of rockets from Hezbollah, perhaps a full war, or even force Iran into a direct open war with Israel. 

There are high costs to any of these options. Although no immediate response to the first, it will leave Israel weaker and encourage further adventurism from Iran. In the long term maybe the higher cost options are preferable.

If Churchill had won the day in the early1930s and the Allies had attacked Germany before it built its formidable army, it would have saved 50 million lives!

In that case, Chamberlain won and the world lost.

Today Israel's decision may also have a heavy price.

Of course, these are nothing more than guesses. But we will see in the coming days.

 The consequence of this latter would be I see a couple of different approaches;t can respond by attacking military infrastructure