A good analysis of what’s been happening over the past day in Iran.
1. The Israel-Iran war: The first day.
— נדב איל Nadav Eyal (@Nadav_Eyal) June 13, 2025
We are now about 15 hours after Israel launched what it labels a *preventive strike* against the Islamic Republic of Iran – targeting its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile sites.
Here’s a short recap of what’s happened – and what…
It seemed pretty clear that something was going to happen when we evacuated embassies in the region.
[Update early afternoon]
Iran has been waging war on us for over 45 years, while we've been pretending they weren't so we didn't have to do anything about it. We got away with it because they hadn't yet developed the capability to hurt us other than killing our soldiers in the region (it certainly wasn't…
— Not-So-OK Boomer (@Rand_Simberg) June 13, 2025
Iran has been launching retaliatory missile strikes against Tel Aviv, with most of them intercepted. I don’t think I’d want to be on Kharg Island on any day, but definitely not today.
Finally…
Excellent. Iran delenda est. No mercy. No quarter. No prisoners.
The Israelis were just shooting Tabriz.
https://x.com/ForumStrategic/status/1933506279588442476
“Our president will start a war with Iran cause he absolutely has no ability to negotiate he’s weak and he’s ineffective.” Barack Obama
Yes, Barack Obama said many stupid things. We’ve been at war with Iran since 1979. It’s time to win it.
I’m sure the people in Iran who revolted against the regime – expecting help from Obama and who died because he didn’t give it – have their own notions of weak and ineffective.
Iran, it seems to me, is now in an interesting position.
Iran’s main choice at this juncture is to decide whether to just hit Israel (such as the ballistic missile attack today) or, hit one or more US facilities in the region as well as Israel.
One might think that, seeing as they’re losing to Israel, Iran might not be overly eager to draw the US (which has both more capabilities, and more convenient bases) into the war on Israel’s side. However, it’s not that simple.
The Iranian regime has been very vitriolic in its statements about the US. The regime also has domestic worries (a population where the majority hates them). Those domestic worries (possible revolution) likely trump their military worries. So, my guess is, they might seriously consider striking US targets to make themselves look strong to their domestic audience.
Their hope would be to get a casualty count to paint as a “win”. Their further hope would be that the US would settle for playing a weak tit-for-tat response, and that’d be that.
So, I think it’s possible (though far from likely or certain) that Iran will hit US targets. They might even go for a terror attack in the US. I think doing either would be a miscalculation of their part. However, from the regime’s point of view, a slim hope is better than none, so if they see it as lessening the chance of a revolution, they might think it best to roll the dice.
All I’m saying is I hope the US has its eyes very much open, both domestically and in the middle east, in case this occurs. Looks to me like we do, but, it’s always a concern.
It’s a legitimate concern, but I think it’s much less of one now than it would have been, say, a year ago.
200% agreed, Rand! Not only would we be less likely to take the threat seriously a year ago, it would’ve been more likely to occur due to our idiotic “proportional response” policy.
I’ve never understood why telling your enemy that you’ll, at worst, hit them back only as hard as they hit you counts as deterrence. It’s actually the opposite.
BTW, Iran just directly threatened the US (without naming it) by declaring that they’ll attack anyone helping to defend Israel. I’m pretty sure this is in response to Tehran residents currently chanting “Death to dictator” and “Death to Khamenei”. My current take is that the odds of the scenario I worried about in my original post are going up; the regime, due to their domestic concerns, could well prefer dragging the US into the war. A further factor is that they’re the type that, if they know they’re going down, would prefer to drag as many with them as they can. My current guess is the odds of Iran hitting US assets are now just over 50%.
Remember not long ago many smart guys fell for the Ukraine is winning Russia is getting wiped out propaganda videos? Don’t feel you may have seen this movie before? AI deep fakes are so much better than they were just 2 years ago.
If you think Russia is winning its disastrous war with Ukraine you are definitely not one of the “smart guys.” Do you think Ukraine’s Operation Spider’s Web was, somehow, a great Russian victory? Every day that passes, Ukraine’s ability to savage Russia’s interior increases and Russia’s ability to defend decreases. It’s not a question of whether Russia loses the war, just a question of when.
Here’s another little something for you to chew on. Most of the drones Russia now sends against Ukraine are supplied by Iran. Where is Russia going to get more of those once Israel has ground Iran into powder?
The imminent fall of one notorious scumbag nation will contribute to, and accelerate, the fall of another.
Ha I thought I heard from someone with authority and access to intel 3 months ago, that Ukraine is not in a good position that doesn’t have a card to play and they are gambling with World War 3. They are running low on soldiers. They should take any cease fire they are offered.
So who am I to believe ?
The Israel-Iran war is looking like a speeded-up version of the last 18 months or so of WW2 in the European Theater of Operations. At that point, Germany no longer had an air force capable of hitting England. Iran barely has an air force at all. But Germany could still hit England with V-1s and V-2s. Iran can still hit Israel with ballistic rockets. The RAF and the US 8th Air Force were busily pounding the Third Reich into rubble including launch sites for Nazi rockets. The Israeli Air Force is busily doing the same to Iran. Unlike the analogous phase of WW2, though, the current Israel-Iran war is not going to take anywhere near 18 months to conclude. 18 days will probably be more like it.
For the last 80 years (Post-WW2), the US has had a bad habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so we’ll see what happens next. As for a terror attack on the US awakening the Woke, well 9/11 didn’t really do it. I mean. remember how we “wiped out” the Taliban? Oopsie-daisy.