Israel gets the Gaza treatment

Typos, typos….

When I posted last night around 1 AM Japan time, I wrote that Israel has “unified Iraq”. Ummm….indeed it has unified Iraq– but I meant “Iran”. The typo remained after proofreading.

Sorry, I missed that mistake – which fortunately commenters caught. So now fixed!

Today— hopefully fewer mistakes. But I apologize in advance anyway.

Iran and the perils of analysis

As I said last night, it is always a mistake to try to analyze a conflict like this in the first three days, before the informational smoke has cleared a bit.

Whatever the mainstream media is saying, you can discount. The best sources are in the Middle East itself – but even if you have contacts there as I do, it is hard to verify facts.

I keep in touch with the network of mostly media connected ME sources that I set up when I worked for Toyota’s MENA division as their Media Advisor although I no longer in that capacity anymore. They include Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, and people in the oil states— intelligent, informed and just plain nice people.

But now it seems they are just as confused as everyone else.

Rumor rules.

Misinformation spreads

What to do?

I look for contradictions in what the Israelis and the Iranians are saying – as well as doing a lot of video and image analysis. I also pay a lot of attention to Russian analysis since, by and large, their perspective is the most objective.

The recent Israeli attack and the Iranian response fits a pattern with the Zionists escalating as their position in the international community degrades -and Iran responding carefully and strategically, playing the long game.

Israeli escalation is in proportion to its desperation – it’s emotional without apparent consideration of consequences down the road. The “Zionist entity” hasn’t been around that long. It is an ideological creation – a fake state – and a fake culture-- quite different from Judaism itself. It is impatient.

By contrast, Iran is a civilization with thousands of year of history. It can afford to wait.

However, to understand what is going on right now — and where it will lead— we must look beyond such generalities to identify recurrent patterns .

True Promise I (April 13 2024)

This was the first direct Iranian military action against Israel despite repeated provocations. In this case, the trigger was the Israeli bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1.

Iran targeted military facilities in Israel and the Golan Heights with around 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles.

The Israelis insisted that their layered air defense system had performed as advertised—99% -- omitting the help from American, French, British and Jordanian air defenses in taking down drones and cruise missiles. In fact, the actual Israeli kill rate was closer to 80%.

US intelligence gave a conservative estimate of 9 hits by ballistic missiles. Other estimates are as high as 15 or more. It doesn’t really matter – the point is that Iran demonstrated a capability to penetrate Israeli defenses – without using its most advanced weapons. It was shooting older missiles - maybe (depending on the analyst) Emad, Ghadr-110, Kheibar Shekan, and Shahab-3B.

The cost for Israel and its allies to defend the attack was about $1 billion, while the cost to Iran to make the attack was about $80 to $100 million.

For Iran, it was a successful test of capability. For Israel, it should have been a warning. Israel apparently did not get the message and retaliated with an unsuccessful drone strike. But it had plans for the future…..

True Promise II October 1.

In early October, the Israelis murdered Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and IRGC general Abbas Nilforoushan. Notice: I say “murdered” because that’s a more accurate word than “assassinated”.

The Iranians had to to respond. So they launched another retaliatory strike against Israel – a limited strike – about 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles -- mostly older ballistic missiles such as the Ghadr-S, t Ghadr-H, Ghadr-F, Kheibar Shekan and Emad (depending again on the analyst), a lot of drones, and very definitely a few hypersonic Fattah-1s.

Again, the Israelis insisted their AD defense system had worked and there was minimal damage, although independent analyses later revealed the Iranians had successfully penetrated Zionist defenses to hit military targets with good results.

Estimates for the cost to Israel vary but could be as high as $2 billion compared to no more than $15 million for the Iranians, a bargain considering that they only used a few advanced missiles.

You see a pattern emerging. The Israelis AD system cannot stop Iranian missiles volley fired with a lot of decoys and swarms of drones and cruise missiles. It costs the Iranians very little but the US tax payer ends up paying over a billion dollars. The Israelis don’t pay to play; the US does.

There is also a pattern to the information war. “We shot them all down”, say the Israelis. “No real damage was done”.“We hit our targets” say the Iranians. Of the two, Iran is a little more credible. Not that they are not willing to lie — just not as egregiously.

Oct 26 2024. Operation Days of Repentance.

Odd name.

The phrase “Days of Repentance” refers to the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in Judaism, known as the Ten Days of Repentance. During this period, people are called to reflect on their actions, make amends, and return to a path of integrity, leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Jerusalem Post https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-826137

Now, who was supposed to be repenting? The Zionists, half of whom are secular and don’t believe in God? Or the Iranians who don’t share the Talmudic injunctions.

Let’s face it, if you can’t give a military adventure a decent name, you’re screwed.

Israel struck back at Iran disabling its air defense system to force the country to repent and atone.

It seems that God didn’t approve because the operation didn’t disable anything. As before, the Zionists didn’t get the message. So much for repentance

It’s a huge distance from Israel to Iran, and even with refueling help from the Americans (Israel has only 7 tanker aircraft with just four or five operational at any time), Israeli aircraft found themselves detected by Iranian radar over Iraq.

The Iranians used decoys and EW and EC and the missiles that the Israelis fired were mostly shot down. Of course, some got through but little damage because:

• Iranian air defense assets are mobile and hard to hit

• Vital assets are deep underground

• The Iranian have built considerable redundancy into their system

• It’s a huge country.

Still, the Israelis story was that they completely destroyed the Iranian AD system.

Yet, they clearly realized that their next attack would have to be done differently.

Iran promised to respond to Days of Repentance “when the time was right”, but it clearly understood that another bigger, more serious attack was coming so they prepared, making good use of Russian and Chinese assistance and mutual support agreements.

Keep in mind, that Iran delivered vital support to Russia in the SMO, and the Russians don’t forget their debts.

For months, people kept on asking why Iran was not doing more — supplying missiles and weaponry to Hezbollah and the Houthis, for example, or getting involved in Syria.

Now we know. It’s all about patience.

June 2025 . Operation Rising Lion

Another fairly silly name. Lions sleep a lot, especially the male. They stretch and yawn. Most of the hunting is done by the females in the morning anyway—but they like to sleep too. Lions rise really, really slowly.

Another ill-considered name. Kinda like MAGA.

In any case, MOSSAD has been working for years inside Iran to destabilize the country, with sabotage, terrorism, and encouragement of separatist groups, such as the Kurds and others. Israel is the one of the world’s greatest sponsors of terrorism, apart from the US. And MOSSAD is really, really good at dirty tricks.

So, MOSSAD groups attacked residential complexes where IRGC leaders and nuclear scientists were living with ATGMs, killing a few prominent people and a lot of innocent families. They also sabotaged electronic communications, expecting to render Iranian air defenses ineffective for at least 3 or 4 days so the IDF could attack Iran from inside Iranian airspace. And they used their American supplied weaponry to attack AD sites.

Of course, the Iranians had know an attack was coming. They just didn’t know what kind or when.

Video and images from Iran show destruction of residential complexes – but this is from ATGM fire— not air-launched missiles as many MSM outlets say.

You will see video of missile explosions on the internet, but notice there are very rarely secondary explosions —although it is clear that the Israelis did hit fuel depots and oil refineries, which are …y’know…volatile.

This was not the devastating first strike that the Israelis wanted.

The Iranians had created a lot of decoys. As mentioned earlier, their AD systems are mobile and redundancy is built into their defense and command systems.

Communications were back on line in just 8 to 10 hours – with Russian assistance (according to Russian sources). And the IDF began to lose aircraft. The Iranians say 3 F35s, with one pilot captured, although they haven’t provided evidence for that.

The Iranian strike on Israel came about 12 hours after the Israel struck, despite Zionist expectations that Iran would out of commission for at least 3 days (according to Israeli sources).

True Promise III

As “true promise” implies, Iran

• keeps its promises

• has a consistent strategy.

True Promise III followed the same pattern as earlier strikes, which had taught the Iranians a lot about the Israeli defense system, along with endless blather about how those systems worked from the Americans.

Massive drone and cruise missile attacks were followed by huge barrages of ballistic missiles, first old kit that the Iranians didn’t really need. This time the strikes were all over the Israel.

As I have noted before in previous posts, the Israeli AD systems cannot handle volley fire since they fire off most of their interceptors at incoming missiles and then must reload, which takes more than 11 minutes. But hypersonic missiles take only 7 minutes to reach Israel from Iran, So Iran fires off old missiles it doesn’t need, followed by a few hypersonic missiles targeting strategic targets. What this means is that Israel is rapidly using up its stock of interceptor missiles, of which it probably has enough for no more than a week.

If you read my special articles, you know that Iran has thousands.

But the Iranians had some new tricks.

Based on the footage that was released, it seems that the Iranians were able to breach the data transmission and correction signal system at the early stage when the missiles were flying, using an inertial guidance system. As a result, the system misdirected the missiles, not toward their intended target, but toward Israel’s own surface-to-air missile batteries, leading to a strike on them. Yuri Knutov

Suddenly, Tel Aviv is looking like Gaza.

And as I also predicted in my special articles, the Iranians are targeting the electrical grid, plunging Haifa, the economic and industrial heart of Israel, into darkness.

Thje Iranians are also making progress in rooting out MOSSAD terrorist teams who have exposed themselves in their attacks on AD sites and residences. Their networks are rapidly being taken down.

A true promise delivers

True Promise III is, as I have predicted, devastating Israel – which will never be the same.

It has only just begun. Soon, Israel will have nothing left but nuclear weapons.

But Iran is backed up by Russia, a nuclear state – and also by Pakistan, another nuclear state.

Netanyahu is doing a Zelensky — crying for US help.

The US has been diverting refueling tankers to the Middle East, likely in a show of force -- but probably just that — “show” —since it would be foolish to enter the war directly. In the end, it doesn’t care what happens to its proxies.

It doesn’t matter what nonsense Trump says. He is rapidly losing support even from people who once backed him. How long before JD Vance replaces him?

Americans don’t like to see their people coming back in body bags – and there would be a lot, should the US try to intervene – which would also result in Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz — and the collapse of the US economy — although not Russia, China or Iran!

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