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A Face Saving Strike?

The long awaited retaliation strike from Iran was launched last night. It looks this morning like it did pretty much nothing. A whole bunch of drones were launched and it appears most were shot down, as well as some missiles. Some got through and caused what is being described as minor damage, although I trust reports out of the Middle East not at all. It seems that launching “suicide drones” on a flight that takes hours and is widely known is a great way to get them all shot down.

The question now is what Israel will do. Most nations are “urging restraint” from Israel. Iran has declared that this tepid response has settled the score. Since the attacks did nothing of significance, Israel certainly has every opportunity to scoff at the attacks as insignificant and do nothing. It probably comes down to how confident Israel feels about the U.S. backing them up if they decide to respond in kind or even to escalate the attacks. I am not an expert in the strategic situation in the Middle East but it certainly seems that Iran had more significant options at their disposal to strike back at Israel and chose not to. Iran had to do something to placate their people but again in my less than learned opinion it sure looks like this was an attack designed to do little damage and provide plenty of space for Israel to not respond while still saving face.

I guess we will see what transpires over the next couple of days. All I know is that my position hasn’t changed: This squabble between different desert tribes fighting over some ground in a desert shithole isn’t our business. If the Jews and Muslims want to fight, let them.

21 Comments

  1. TakeAHardLook

    Israel has manipulated the U.S. into supporting/funding/assisting in everything from border security to Iron Dome/Patriot batteries to U.S. carrier-based fighter support, logistics, and, eventually, U.S. boots on the ground.

    Ultimately, Netanyahu will “fight to the last goyim.”

      • saoirse

        @Sido
        Great way to cull those delusional morons from our herd. Let ’em all go over to their “promised land” shithole and perish defending the borders they really love! Take Hagee and the rest of the flock with you.

  2. Troy Messer

    I don’t think it was a waste of time. I saw a blurb on Telegram that the response of Israel cost 1 billion $. If true and If the attack cost Iran just a few million, then I see that as a kind of win for Iran.
    The war in Ukraine has showed us that modern wars are about industrial capacity and attrition. Swarming the expensive Iron Dome missiles with cheap, expendable drones puts the calculus in Irans favor. Can Iran make cheap decoys faster than Israel can make expensive Iron Dome missiles?
    Additionally, I’m guessing Iran got some intelligence data out of this attack. What drones did make it? I don’t believe the press releases from Israel that 120% of the drones were intercepted. I believe the videos on Telegram that showed a few missiles making an impact. How many failed on their own? How many rockets did Israel expend to protect it’s soil? How many were knocked out by jets? Of the few that did make it, why?
    I’ve seen commentator who say Israel is losing its war against Hamas. Stuff like this will just provide an additional pressure point against Israel, it’s economy, and national morale.
    I think Iran got its bang (pun intended) for the buck.

    • TakeAHardLook

      A few weeks ago the U.S. fired a $2M missile to take out a $1,000 drone. Brilliant.
      At that rate we’ll be bled white in no time.

    • Arthur Sido

      Of course Israel can replace the billion spent with another billion from us, you know there is pressure already on Congress to approve more funds as a response to this attack. If it gets out of hand we might get to see if an aircraft carrier can survive a hit from a hypersonic missile….

      • TakeAHardLook

        The scenario will be “Aircraft Carrier In A Bottle.”

        Even in the Med, an AC would be strategically boxed-in; in the area around the Straits of Hormuz it would be suicidal.

    • mike

      I agree, good analysis. A couple of more points;

      Knocking down all the decoy drones is not an indicator of victory for the defense. It is a sign that you are wasting expensive, high tech interceptors on low tech bait. This is how the Russians attrit the Ukrainian air defenses ahead of the real weapons arriving to hit the intended targets. It is unclear if Iran sent much of anything in the way of ballistic missiles to follow up and if so, what they hit. I’m sure Israel is not going to tell us. The UK and US air aircraft that intercepted this attack probably operated out of Jordan and Cyrus. Expect those airfields to take missile hits in the next round whenever that is while the planes are still in the air chasing the drones.

      The Houthis have evidently won as they forced a French warship to withdraw under pressure from the Red Sea after it used up all of it’s ammunition. The Frogs indicated that they used up everything from missile interceptors to belt fed machine gun ammo fending off unfair and unexpectedly savage drone attacks. The US has already said there is no military solution to this problem and has offered to talk to Yemen with the carrot of taking them back off of the dreaded Washington Big Baddie Terrorist list. The whole sideshow in Yemen was limited to Israeli targets only until the US made it its’ business to defend Israeli shipping with our forces and bomb Yemen on their behalf. The little shock and awe campaign has failed and US/Nato wasted untold stocks of ammo proving how ineffective they are. The whole world saw it.

      The US and UK taking the lead in intercepting the attack over Iraq and Syria proves that Israel cannot fight a regional kinetic conflict without the US taking the brunt of the fight on for them. Nobody here in stateside Clownworld seems to have noticed that we are now completely invested in protecting Israel from everyone else with our own direct military power. All those tripwire troops spread across Iraq and Syria are sitting ducks and more vulnerable then ever.

      There were reports last night that Hezbollah sent a large package of missiles or rockets during the Iranian raid. This would seem to be confirmed by large scale IDF raids deep into Lebanon today. Biden may have managed to get Bibi to accept a non-retaliation stance in exchange for the military help in the air, but the breathing spell will not be very long if they keep ratcheting up the exchanges with Lebanon. If they keep this pace up, I expect that they will start running critically low on interceptor missiles even without a full scale war breaking out.

    • LGC

      Yep beat me to it. I saw somewhere a few months back that Russia buys a lot of these Iranian drones at about 30,000 dollars a copy. So Iran spent maybe 30 million and Israel spent a billion dollars.

      Seems like a win for Iran.
      and now Israel AA stocks are even more depleted.

  3. Big Ruckus D

    Clown world really delivers. Even war has taken on the air of being fake and gay now.

    Of course, we get virtually nothing in accurate and timely information about what has actually happened, and most likely won’t unless something so big happens (massive destruction of a big city or major strategic target) that it can’t be stage managed or suppressed by govt and media. Consider how little real information we receive about what is going on in Ukraine for the last 2 years, outside a handful of bloggers. All this bullshit is half a world away from here, so the best info we can hope to get is from people on the scene of a attack posting video to Twitter, and ask yourself: how many times has years old video or pictures been out up falsely as evidence of a current attack?

    Point being that even in an age of instant worldwide communication, we can’t even trust that, and corporate media can manufacture – or effectively disappear – a story based simply on politics and whether they want it aired or not. It can often be days or weeks before lies and fabrications can be verified as fake. In the interim, we are left to debate over what we (think) we know. Which is very convenient, for TPTB to have us wasting time on bullshit while they continue to work against our interests.

  4. Bear in Indy

    Takes the focus away from “our border” crisis, the faltering economy, the rabid inflation, and the trators in Congress passing FISA. No surprise there, was it? One of the Republican Congressmen that voted for it was Greg Pence (treason must run in that family.)
    You are right, “we are being played.”

    Beair in Indy

    • TakeAHardLook

      Yes, the Banksters always start wars when their nefarious fiat currency manipulations fail to stop the hemorrhaging.

      The Middle East never fails to provide “mini-War” distractions for the taxpayers to ogle & gawk.

      At least “Shock & Awe” was televised, allowing us all to be voyeurs to the carnage.

  5. Bean Dip Tray

    Will Ivan come off the really good new toys that no one knows about?
    Naw, they will save those for NATOstan rumps and whatever 404 can round up.
    They should draft some Poles or Finns since they hate Russia so much.
    Barry and Valjarr won’t come out and openly root for Iran by the people’s champagne fountain?
    This was for enemedia screen views and profile pic updates as they violated the Tuco Pacifico rule of when it is time to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.
    It’s a good thing we have Rommel, Patton, Churchill at the helm during perilous times. (s/)
    Underrated car of the day-1987 Buick Grand National

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