Twelve post-Twelve Day Israel-Iran War Observations

A speculative, post-war debriefing:

1. Israel was done with its targets

Once Israel bombed the "countdown clock"—that counted down to the IRGC's planned destruction of Israel on September 9, 2040—it was clear that Israel felt it had done enough, you don't fly a plane 2,000 miles round trip for that. The operation set Iran back by 20 years and saw not a single Israeli or US military casualty. The Iranians were so totally defeated that they didn't even dare harm any US personnel, telegraphing their paltry face-saving response in advance.

2. The Players and the Played

When the books are written, Netanyahu and Trump will be revealed as the two players, with everyone else being the "played." Don't even be surprised if Trump's F-bomb comments were coordinated with Netanyahu to allow him to tell his cabinet hawks: "Sorry, Trump be crazy."

3. Regime Change?

The IRGC is totally spent and humiliated, and no attempts to put a brave face on it can save them in the long run. Their supporters are aging out. In effect, they are the unwilling vassals of Israel and the USA. Their leaders live and operate at their pleasure and can be eliminated on a whim. The only question is how much, and for how much longer, they are able to immiserate Iran's 90 million people. The "regime change" threats and the bombing of the Basij HQ were signaling what would be the next stage, and the 'permitted' and silly lashing out at Qatar was letting them off the escalation ladder into what is, in effect, a humiliating surrender. While regime change would indeed be a dream outcome, it is much better to come from the inside and not be tied to Israel or the USA. Iran is still a danger via its sleepers in the West—an asset they would still be able to use after their fall, but less so after an implosion. Furthermore, regime change might be messy, and there is no reason for Israel or the US to have that mess blamed on them. From a purely Machiavellian perspective, it's better to have a weakened, toothless regime in Iran, under constant Israeli attrition as they try to rearm, than a strong, new Persia. It provides a useful foil to help unite Israel with the Arab states.

4. Legacy at Stake

There was (in my mind, and I wrote as much) no doubt that Netanyahu and Trump would dismantle the Iranian nuclear program, since they had both said they would, making an Iranian nuclear breakout a legacy-destroying cataclysm for both. Now, with both claiming the program is destroyed, we can be assured that it actually is—since the destruction of both their legacies would be even more acute if they were proved wrong now. And there is also now minimal impediment to continuing to attrit the program.

5. IRGC Rebuilding?

The IRGC may indeed try to rebuild, but if it was hard enough and drained so much of their resources when they were merely infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, it will be much harder now that they live inside what, at any minute, might be Israeli airspace again. Also, with the regime so obviously penetrated from within, expect the levels of paranoia and recriminations to be off the charts. Expect plenty of executions of all the wrong people, while Mossad assets continue their work in safety, as usual.

6. Head of the Snake

The days of Israel not attacking the head of the octopus when the "tentacles" attack them are over. Israel will be chomping at the bit to use any proxy attacks as a casus belli to keep suppressing their rebuilding efforts. Since the Rubicon has been crossed and Iran's cards exposed as a giant bluff, any proxy attack is liable to bring kinetic responses on Iran. Proxy warfare is great—until the other side decides to bypass them. They might not even bother, since they fired over 550 ballistic missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel (in addition to at least the same number again they lost on the ground) and failed to kill a single serviceman or cause any strategic damage. What's the point of these programs? They can spend 5 years rebuilding their stocks at the cost of tens of billions just to kill a minibus load of civilians who didn’t make it to the bunker? A strategic player wouldn’t bother. Without the nuclear tips, these are no deterrence.

7. Trump’s Deniability Strategy

The war is over, and now Israel stands alone again. That's what Trump needed to appease the disinformation-infected parts of his base who promised World War 3. If war restarts between Israel and Iran in weeks or months because the Houthis start up again, Trump can disclaim all involvement. That's what today was about. The start of the war saw the opposite: The USA disclaimed any connection until it was clear the Israelis were crushing the IRGC handily, and then suddenly it was "we."

8. Eleven Days to Decapitation

This war unraveled 40 years of Iranian buildup and virtually decapitated the regime in 11 days—and did so without a single combat loss, either of men or manned equipment. There is simply no precedent for anything like this in world history. Nothing even close.

9. Israel Flips the Proxy Script

Israel has totally flipped the script. It can now attack Iranian proxies at will, with Iran not daring to fight back directly—the position Israel was in until 12 days ago. At the same time, what is now obvious is that Israel has extensive links with armed opposition inside Iran and is now free to mount an internal proxy war against the IRGC.

10. No Proxies When It Mattered

Forty years of Iran building proxies to attack if they dared to attack—and those proxies were totally absent when the time arrived. Simply brutal.

11. Israel’s Century Secured

Israel has secured its place in the Middle East for a century via overwhelming force, the only currency with any value in the region. Sinwar's folly sank the Axis of Resistance, which was the third great attempt to eliminate the Jewish state. now it is surrounded by states that are either allies, vassals, or like Turkey facing the Kurds, busy with internal issues.

12. The Uranium...

And where is the enriched uranium? Netanyahu publicly stated, with a glint in his eye, that they know where it is. Don’t be surprised if the most audacious part of this war will one day be revealed to have been a special forces operation to extract it. More likely Israel knows its under the rubble, and will be monitoring that rubble from afar for the foreseeable future...