by Mike Whitney, The Unz Review:
Israel now has its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East. We must act now to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime. We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran stands exposed. Naftali Bennett, former Israeli Prime Minister
For Israel to achieve its regional ambitions, it must lure the US into a war with Iran. In order to accomplish that feat, Israel must strike Iran with enough force to provoke a violent and destructive retaliation. As soon as it looks like Israel is in trouble, the US will ride to the rescue with “guns blazing”. But, first, Israel must initiate a provocation big enough to ensure the outcome that it seeks. In short, Israel’s real target is the US because it is the US that must be hoodwinked into fighting Israel’s war. Regrettably, duping America is what Israel does best.
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Americans are under the illusion that the United States will prevail in a war with Iran. But it’s not true. Iran has been preparing for a war with the US for over two decades, and they are ready-to-go. They have developed a missile technology that far exceeds anything currently available in the Pentagon’s arsenal and they are fully prepared to conduct a protracted asymmetrical war that will trigger a cataclysmic disruption of critical supply lines followed by the thundering crash of global markets. Bottom line: If the US attacks Iran, Washington is going to suffer a withering knockout blow that will end its dominance in the region and perhaps the world.
The top brass in the Pentagon know this as do many in the Intelligence community. They know that a war with Iran is a bridge too far and a fast-track to the dustbin of history. That is why Israel has delayed its retaliatory attack on Iran for so long, because Tel Aviv and the Pentagon are not on the same page. Even so, Netanyahu is charging ahead assuming—quite rightly—that the US will rescue Israel if its survival is seriously threatened by an Iranian missile attack. But, make no mistake, US generals and military leaders do not want this war, and that is why Israel’s attack on Iran has been delayed. It’s not merely a matter of selecting the appropriate targets (as the media would like you to believe); it’s a question of whether the United States is prepared to go to war with Iran and (potentially) its allies, Russia and China. (It’s worth noting that Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited Tehran just two days before Iran launched its ballistic missile attack on Israel. This suggests that Iran got the green light from Moscow to take action that meets the legal definition of “self defense.”)
Keep in mind, it’s been 9 days since Iran attacked Israel and inflicted severe damage on military bases and a gas platform off the coast of Gaza. Most analysts expected Israel to respond immediately which was what many of the Israeli leaders (including Netanyahu) had promised. But now, more than a week later, nothing has happened; and the reason nothing has happened is because there’s a split between the gung-ho Israeli-firsters at the State Department and the White House and the sober-minded realists at the Pentagon. (The Pentagon does not want a war with Iran.) And while the matter has not yet been settled, it looks like Bibi is about to pull-the-trigger with or without a formal declaration of US support. Once again, Netanyahu assumes that if Israel gets into trouble—as it undoubtedly will—Uncle Sam will join the fight.
The problem, of course, is that the United States cannot win a conventional war with Iran and, if it tries to do so, it’s going to see its military bases, airfields and a sizable number of its servicemen vanish in a pillar of black smoke. Check out this blurb from Scott Ritter who explains what lies ahead:
Let’s remember that when Trump was president, the Iranians shot down a Global Hawk Drone worth over $100 million dollars. ….which enraged Trump. And, he said we need to strike the air-defense sites that took down the Global Hawk. The Pentagon told him that if ‘we do this’ you are going to set into motion a cycle of escalation that will end with Iran destroying every single one of our (military) bases (in the region) and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. …as well as shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting global oil supplies triggering a collapse of the global economy. And you are going to order us to invade Iran. But we can’t do that right now. ...It would take us months or years to assemble the forces needed to take the action you are talking about, and, even then, there is no guarantee of victory. “Are you sure you want to do this Mr. President”? And Trump said “No”.
That same calculus exists today. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have already been briefed on this reality. Donald Trump is already familiar with it. We cannot defeat Iran in a conventional fight. And here’s the gamechanger: The IRGC came out with a press release saying….”The Islamic faith allows things to change over time if a threat emerges against the Islamic Republic. And, if this threat does manifest itself, Iran will reconsider its stance on nuclear weapons. Iran is literally days away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. If the US or Israel wants to play nuclear games, Iran is ready to play that game. And this changes everything because Israel can no longer say, “We can nuke you, but you can’t nuke us”. Iran has put all the pieces together, and it would be a matter of days before they have a functioning nuclear device capable of being mounted on a missile that cannot be shot down and that missile will be fired against Israel or American targets in the region.
This is a gamechanger. The days of the United States intimidating Iran are over, passed, finished. And the same with Israel. Israel can be wiped out tomorrow. Iran is prepared to fire 2,000 missiles at Israel in the span of a few hours. These missiles would destroy the entire infrastructure of Israel including every power plant, every water purification plant, everything that deals with modern civilized society will be eliminated because it can’t be defended and because Israel has nothing to fall back upon. They will literally bombed back to the Stone Age, and that’s without using nuclear weapons. Three to five nuclear weapons will wipe Israel off the face of the earth. There will be no Israel. That is the reality facing Israel today. That is the weakness that Benjamin Netanyahu has brought on the Israeli state and the Israeli people. Scott Ritter and Judge Napolitano: The Middle East One year after October 7th 2023, You Tube; 10:15 min
While Ritter does an excellent job of explaining the potential pitfalls of any conflagration with Iran, other analysts have focused on the basic geography of the battlefield and how it might impact the outcome of the war. Here’s an excerpt from an article that shows just how vulnerable US bases in the region really are.
