Armchair Warlord's End Of Day Roundup

Armchair Warlord has produced a thoughtful summary of the days events and their significance going forward. It’s worth reproducing in full:

Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW

Well. War with Iran it is. I had hoped it would not come to this juncture, but here we are. Some thoughts after the day’s fighting.

1. As an initial matter, the Trump Administration’s actions here are aggression and perfidy. This attack on Iran was unprovoked and occurred during negotiations in which the Iranians were by all indications willing to make significant and lasting concessions to assuage American and Israeli concerns about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program. Soon enough we will regret setting this precedent.

This is true, but it isn’t exactly a precedent. With Trump it has become SOP, and it’s a matter for perplexity that it should have worked to the extent that it did.

2. US and Israeli forces appear to have achieved tactical surprise by launching a limited decapitation strike first against senior figures in the Iranian regime. The measure of performance of the strike - did they hit what and whom they intended to hit - is currently the subject of... significant debate. The measure of effectiveness of the strike - did it dislocate the Iranian defensive response or cause panic and infighting in the regime - was negative. The Iranian military deliberately cleared what was at the time an airspace crowded with civilian traffic, brought air defenses online, and began launching retaliatory strikes about an hour later.

Yes, the true measure of Iranian preparedness is that they were able to respond quickly and effectively.

2A. The Iranians only brought their air defenses online after their airspace was clear of civilian traffic, suggesting they felt confident in their ability to absorb a limited first strike and also indicating that they very much wanted to avoid repeating Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with wild defensive fire.

3. Iran has thus far had some success penetrating US and Israeli missile defenses on the far side of the Middle East and considerable success smashing up US bases (and local critical infrastructure) in the Gulf and Iraq with their plentiful arsenal of short-range missiles and cruise drones. There’s nothing really new and game-changing here from the Twelve Day War, as I pointed out earlier. They have a lot of missiles and drones and seem more than happy to contest with us on throw-weight.

This is probably important. As far as we can tell, Iran has yet to expend large numbers of their heavy new ballistic missiles, but the Anglo-Zionists are expending huge numbers of air defense missiles.

4. As I pointed out earlier, the considerable standoff that US and Israeli aircraft are operating from has wrecked sortie generation. Coalition strikes on Iran throughout the day have been remarkably modest following the initial wave of attacks, likely due to a combination of delay from forced refueling, disruption to remote bases due to Iranian missile attacks, forced use of standoff weapons due to Iranian AD coverage, and Iranian AD attriting incoming salvos. Effects have not been particularly impressive either - I’ve seen a grand total of two strikes with noticeable secondaries.

The extra distances will also have the effect of quickly using up vast quantities of aviation fuel. The longer the war goes on—and Iran has been provided with ample incentive to keep it going—the more acute the logistics problems will become.

4A. As long as the Iranian IADS network remains intact enough to deter Coalition forces from flying “downtown” into Iranian airspace proper, there’s very hard limits on the amount of coercive power that can actually be applied to Iran. We only have so many standoff missiles and don’t have a Russo-Chinese missile printer to call upon. And I remind the reader that our bigger and stronger adversaries (Russia and China) are very invested in ensuring that IADS network remains intact so as to preserve their ally.

5. There has been no noticeable regime fracture or civil insurrection in Iran. Everyone in the regime seems to have fallen in line immediately and all the demonstrations in Iran through the day have been pro-government. This is to be expected - the Iranians have not only rehearsed this, they’ve had multiple repetitions of executing it over the past year.

6. Mossad’s attack network in Iran seems to be well and truly dismembered - as I suggested it had been earlier. There have been no reports of commando or insurgent activity in Iran over the course of the day. The Iranian internet is shut down at the moment and nobody seems to be posting online via Starlink.

7. Oil shock is a real prospect here. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The Bab al-Mandeb is likely going to be interdicted soon by the Houthis. Iran has already begun limited strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the region. Air and missile campaigns are inherently indecisive, and Americans are not going to tolerate a weeks or monthslong campaign that spikes oil to $150+/barrel.

8. Claims are floating around - out of Israel, of course - that this entire affair was a scheme cooked up by Trump and Netanyahu and that the negotiations were always a sham. I suspect that isn’t the case, and that Trump was herded into action by Netanyahu threatening to attack unilaterally after the US “coercive task force” was finally fully assembled in the Gulf.

I don’t buy that. IMO, this was inevitable after the 12 Day War. The support of China and Russia was transforming Iran’s military capabilities and Iran’s demand of a quid for a quo—sanctions relief in exchange for only reasonable concessions—was a redline for the Anglo-Zionists. Sanctions are essential to the very existence of the Anglo-Zionist Empire—a fact that Rubio enunciated 5 years ago.

So how does this end? Well, Trump has been quite explicit that he’s aiming for a short war (probably trying to beat the markets), so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is over relatively quickly. On whose terms... well, that’s another matter altogether.

Again, I disagree. The massacre at the girls’ school will likely provide Iran with sufficient incentive to keep this going until the threat is removed. They have no reason to accommodate Trump. I was initially surprised at the attention paid by Iran to the US bases, but it seems clear that they aim to drive the US out of the Middle East—or to the margins. Two commenters on Warlord’s thread drive this point home:

Shivan Mahendrarajah @S_Mahendrarajah

4h

On whose terms? Indeed. Iran will not be satisfied with a ceasefire because they know round # 3 will follow. They do not care if oil goes to $200. Tehran has said that crashing the global economy is the plan. Thanks to sanctions, Iran is insulated from crashes of dollar, equity markets, etc. However, by imposing economic pain on the world, they hope to force a favorable agreement through international pressure on US. I think they will fight until they can force a peace treaty, something approved under US Const. and/or UN that lifts sanctions, designations, etc.

Stoic Investor @Stoic_investr

4h

This war is built on the premise that the air strikes will degrade the regime enough so that the protestors might topple it from within.

I see no such thing happening so far. If Iran manages to stand strong after few weeks, then the whole dynamics will change. US doesn’t has enough troops in the region for a lengthy and protected conflict that might involve boots on the ground and occupation force large enough to pacify a country as large as Iran.

Now:

OSINTdefender @sentdefender

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) has announced that “the most massive and powerful offensive operation in the history of the Islamic Republic” is set to begin shortly against Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

My guess is that these are not empty words. They will attempt, at the least, to force Trump into a humiliating climbdown. Trump murdered the one person who for 35 years refused to allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. What comes next?

Simplicius offers some speculation on alternatives, while admitting that we just don’t know what could come next, allowing that this time feels different:

Of course, the stakes now are different. Both sides are trying to play for keeps—but at the same time, logistical realities force them each to consider the long-term outlooks. In other words, Trump may “want” a decisive victory this time around but, if Iran should double down on resistance and show no signs of faltering, he will know there’s very little long-term prospect of victory happening before US runs out of munitions.

Recall that Israel views this as their last chance before Trump is muffled for good by the midterm bloodbath likely to ensue, particularly now that Democrats are already paving the way for ‘Civil War’-style threats about Trump trying to “steal the election” and become “dictator” by taking control of the election process via executive order; that is to say, things could get ugly there.

As such, this one’s for all the marbles and Iran appears to be biding its time, playing this one more smartly, evidenced by latest claims of Trump’s “surprise” that Iran’s attacks have been “limited” so far. On one hand, this could be explained by the earlier theory that Iran is seeking an off-ramp, but at the same time Iran could simply be digging in for the long haul this time, and does not want to blow its load too early; these aren’t mutually exclusive.

Exactly. And Simplicius doesn’t so much as mention the Strait of Hormuz. That’s something that plays into Iran’s long game.