Israel - Iran Sitrep, 6/14/25: Geopolitical Considerations

As we’ve said, this is almost certainly just the beginning of the war of the Anglo-Zionists on Iran, despite Trump’s daft suggestion that Iran should now “negotiate”—TrumpSpeak for “surrender to my ultimatum.”

The_Real_Fly @The_Real_Fly

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US OFFICIAL: WE WANT TO REACH A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION WITH IRAN

We have batshit crazy people running this administration

Just to be totally clear about what Iran and the entire world knows—that Trump is a liar who cannot be trusted …

Is Iran-Israel About to Go Nuclear? with Professor Vali Nasr

Iranian-American Professor at Johns Hopkins Vali Nasr speaks just hours before Israel attacked Iran

Hours after we spoke to Johns Hopkins Professor of Advanced International Studies Vali Nasr, Israel killed multiple Iranian military officials in a strike against “Iranian nuclear sites.” Both Israel and the United States threatened “even more brutal” attacks to come.

Professor Nasr, whose latest book is Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, explains why Israel benefits from attacking Iran, and why they can’t do it without US assistance and consent.

Useful Idiots: Are you expecting some sort of military strike from Israel against Iran?

Professor Vali Nasr: I don't think Israel is actually able to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on its own without US assistance. It could perhaps hit Iran and then hope the Iranians would retaliate and then bring the United States into a war with Iran. But even in order to get to Iran, Israel cannot surprise the US. It has to go through US radar lines. This idea that Israel would attack Iran on its own without telling the United States, without US cooperation or US support, is just not credible.

But Larry Johnson makes an important assertion this morning. This war, he argues, is not simply USreal against Iran. It’s a major international operation that bears similarities to the attack on Russian air bases and the strategic bomber leg of the Russian nuclear triad. There are also other indications of international coordination (beyond French, British, and German participation with the US):

I believe that Israel’s attack was part of a planned international intelligence and military operation, which included the participation and support of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. We got the first clue on May 31, when a UN watchdog issued two reports designed to create a narrative that Iran is a rogue nuclear state:

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This tactic was employed in 2002/2003 to gin up a justification to attack Iraq, who the US insisted had weapons of mass destruction. We now know it was a lie, but the propaganda was effective in producing support in the US and Europe to invade Iraq. We’re seeing a similar effort today, only this time Iran is being falsely accused of enriching uranium to build a bomb. The Iraq WMD lie, like the current calumny against Iran, has only one purpose… to justify military action in order to achieve regime change.

As was the case with Ukraine’s failed attack on Russian strategic air assets on June 1, Israel’s first swipe at Iran was accompanied by AI-generated videos and images, along with breathless reports of massive, profound damage. While it is true that Israel hit a large number of targets in Iran, the attack failed to cripple Iran’s ability to fight back; which is exactly what it did today and will continue to do for the foreseeable future.

Let’s stop there for the moment. LJ doesn’t get into exactly what this major international op is actually directed at. As regular readers will be only too aware, I have long argued that Russia’s strong performance against the Western offensive through Ukraine is forcing the Anglo-Zionists to gin up a Southern Front against Russia (and China) through Iran and the Caucasus. The increasingly close cooperation between and among Russia, China, and Iran has forced the Anglo-Zionist hand. Regarding the attack on Russian air bases—which was eerily similar to the current attack on Iran—in this context that looks like a failed attempt to attain a weakening of Putin’s support, perhaps even regime change, as well as to set Russia back on its heels, to feel vulnerable and cautious. Netanyahu, be it noted, deployed his typical “Iranian bros, we’re really on your side, just get rid of your government and all will be forgiven” ploy. To go with the Trumpian ploy of, ‘Hey, c’mon, let’s do a deal while we bomb the shit out of you.’ It all does begin to look coordinated.

Putin has apparently reacted, as reported in a video that LJ linked:

By the way, Iran also increased the combat readiness of all its divisions. All of this indicates that a genuine regional war has begun. And if humanity fails to nip this war in the bud, the United States will have to join the war on Israel's side, which will in turn compel Russia to start providing military support to Iran, resulting in a risk that the world could plunge into World War III. US President Donald Trump also added oil to the fire. In particular, he officially stated that the United States would protect Israel in the event of a retaliatory strike from Iran.

Against this backdrop, insiders in the Kremlin confirmed that Moscow has already warned Washington about the inadmissibility of US military intervention against Iran. Simply put, Moscow has made it clear to the Trump administration that if the United States goes to war against Iran, Russia will do everything possible to ensure that Iran wins this war. Even though Russia itself is fighting against the Ukrainian army and NATO forces, Moscow has enough opportunities to strengthen Iran's military potential.

Was this exactly the response that the US attack on Russian air bases was meant to forstall? Could be.

To continue, multiple observers have noted the vulnerability that Israel will likely experience in a drawn out war—”drawn out” meaning, anything over a week or so:

Will Schryver @imetatronink

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This is consistent with @ArmchairW's "rope-a-dope" thesis.

I also note the same half-dozen or so video clips have now been circulating for two days as "evidence" that Iran's entire AD system has been obliterated.

Israel is trying hard to sell the "air superiority" claim in order to encourage the US to join the game.

Israel Cannot Win a War of Attrition Against Iran

24 hours ago, the Israelis were boldly talking about a two-week operation to denuclearize, disarm, and regime-change Iran.

I don't believe Israel can sustain high-intensity conflict against Iran for even a week.

LJ provides the numbers to back that assessment up. He also agrees with Doug Macgregor (and others) who believe that Iran is striking with its older missiles first—which are getting through—to attrit Anglo-Zionist AD assets before striking with its advanced missiles and massed drone/cruise weapons, which have not been deployed as of yet. The estimates I’ve seen are that Iran has no fewer than 2,000 missiles that can reach Israel. They’ve only used a few hundred, with the most powerful still in reserve.

The Silver Lining in the Dark War Cloud Over Iran

I think that Iran has an advantage over Israel when it comes to a sustained military campaign based on air and missile assets. Iran has more drones and more missiles than Israel. Israel, at least for now, is relying on hitting Iran with its squadrons of F-35s and F-16s. Here is the problem: Israel’s air capability will degrade over time as the jet aircraft suffer mechanical failures from extended use and normal maintenance.

As of the most recent data (2024–2025), the F-35 Lightning II requires about 10–14 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time, depending on the variant and operating conditions. Despite improvements over the past few years, the F-35 still requires significantly more maintenance than legacy fighters like the F-16, which typically needs about 5–6 maintenance hours per flight hour. The total flight time from Israel to Iran’s border, and back, is a little more than three hours. Do the math… every F-35 used to attack Iran will be undergoing maintenance for at least 30 hours. I doubt that Israel will be able to sustain its current operations tempo for more than a week.

Iran, on the other hand, has a clear advantage with ballistic missiles and drones. One tactic that Iran may employ is to fire older missiles and drones in a first or second wave attack in order to deplete Israel’s air-defense system. Iran can then follow up with launches of hypersonic missiles.

Now, Armchair Warlord has a very long and interesting post that takes a somewhat big picture look at the actual warfare:

Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW

D-Day update and thoughts on the ongoing Iran-Israel War - I was hoping it would be known as the One-Day War, but the sides seem to have resumed fire just now.

Items to discuss:

1. Israeli assassination campaign

2. Israeli air campaign

3. Iranian missile campaign

In #1, which I will skip over, Warlord argues that what we’re not seeing in Iran is the continuing process of the professional Iranian military extending control and replacing the IRGC. Read it and see what you think. The bigger argument he’s making is that Iran has turned from supporting proxies to its own direct action. I would point to Yemen as perhaps being the exception, perhaps because Yemen is a strategically located sovereign nation rather than a militia.

For decades, Iran has followed an "aggressive proxy" strategy of confronting Israel under which they provided arms, technical know-how, and occasionally direct military support support to proxy forces positioned to directly attack Israel.

…

… in the last two years we've seen a rapid transition away from direct confrontation with Israel and towards a strategy of defensive deterrence, with the Iranians abandoning proxies in Lebanon and Syria and striking back at Israel directly when their interests were threatened.

Again, YMMV. We’ll move on to #2 and #3, which seem quite shrewd.

2. The Israeli air campaign

I pointed out last night that the Israelis didn't seem to be accomplishing much with their air campaign, and I stand by that assessment - the Iranians don't seem to have lost anything they couldn't afford to part with. Many Israeli attacks in the last day seem to have hit dirt, hardened facilities they could not successfully penetrate, or at best "soft" dual-use aboveground facilities. They manifestly failed to knock out Iran's hardened military nuclear facilities, missile forces, air defenses, or a decisive balance of their command and control nodes.

NB: The Natanz enrichment facility—which was damaged—is older, smaller, and not deeply located—like Fordow.

This goes back to the rope-a-dope remark I made earlier tonight - Iran's air defenses seem to have taken a 12-hour siesta at the start of the battle and only "woke up" as the sun set. When they came online, however, they did so all at once and in full force - to the point there were rumors of Israeli aircraft shot down and the IAF seems to have become markedly more circumspect with multiple reports late in the day of large strike packages assembling and then aborting.

But the aircraft involved in those aborted missions still require extensive maintenance—for nothing gained.

The explanation making the rounds for this is that this was due to an Israeli cyberattack. I don't really think that's particularly plausible given the near-total lack of any air defense response for much of the day, without even much manual antiaircraft fire seen. I think it's rather more plausible that the Iranian air defenses were ordered to hold fire and remain in hide sites while the initial Israeli strikes went in.

Why would they do this? Because the Iranians could be reasonably confident those strikes would not fatally damage their hardened strategic infrastructure and those strikes - many of which would be directed at known or templated air defense positions those launchers and radars would not be occupying - would largely expend the IAF's limited inventory of standoff weapons. Lest we forget, the main combat mission of the IAF is milk runs to bomb Gaza, not complex SEAD. When the IAF transitioned to attempting to run aircraft directly into Iranian airspace late in the day to attack with conventional bombs the (still very intact) defenses deployed out of hiding and illuminated, immediately and drastically crimping the IAF's campaign plan given they were then faced with a largely intact air defense network their initial long-range strikes had failed to destroy. Ergo the "rope-a-dope" analogy: the Iranians sat down and waited as they took a beating - one they knew would exhaust their enemy worse than it would hurt them.

3. The Iranian missile campaign

There's not much to say about this that I haven't already said in previous rounds of Iran-Israel skirmishing. The Iranians have ballistic missiles that can penetrate the Israeli missile shield, they have enough of them stockpiled that they don't seem to be in any immediate danger of running out, and this force was manifestly not destroyed nor even suppressed by Israeli attacks today. And as of today they've revealed a willingness to throw them at the heart of the Israeli state and its strategic infrastructure if sufficiently threatened.

Moreover we haven't even seen Iranian drones and cruise missiles launched yet, at least as far as I've been able to gather. Some from allied militias in Iraq, certainly, but nothing from Iran proper. You can bet the Iranians have an apocalyptic stockpile of these relatively cheap and simple weapons ready to launch at a time and place of their choosing.

This “apocalyptic stockpile” of easy to shoot down weapons could suddenly become formidable if the Anglo-Zionist AD assets are depleted in fruitless efforts to stop the early missile launches.

Going forward? I hope there's a ceasefire soon, I think by now both sides have made their point and there's little purpose in continued fighting. The IRGC hardliners who would have agitated for a nuclear attack on Israel are dead or discredited, the Iranians have established they can eat Israel's worst and bounce back, and deterrence has been adequately established going in both directions.

What’s working against Warlord’s hopes is the possibility that LJ (and I—Brian Berletic also supports this) are correct that this is simply part of the bigger war on Russia and China—but represents an escalation born out of increasing desperation. Again I remind readers: Trump’s talk of “peace”—with Russia, China, or Iran—is NOT what it sounds like. “Peace” means “I win,” as in his “ultimatums” to Iran: make a deal—or else. This has been tried with Russia already and has failed. But it’s also important to understand that Trump is the frontman for an international consortium. The Supreme Frontman, if you will:

DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics

Today's outfit for Supreme Leader Donald — and folks, it's truly something — will be worn at the most tremendous, spectacular, absolutely historic military parade the world has ever seen. Happening right in Washington D.C., not some third-world dump, okay? The fabrics? The best. The colors? So patriotic, it'll make your head spin. Everyone's talking about it — generals, celebrities, even people who don't like him (but secretly do) — saying it's the greatest parade outfit in the history of parades. Maybe ever.

7:26 AM · Jun 14, 2025