The clash between Israel and Iran has been on the cards for such a long time and there is so much investment in the West in normalizing the bombing of Iran, our senses are so dulled by the pounding violence from Gaza, to Lebanon, to Syria and back to Gaza, that it takes a conscious effort to comprehend just how extraordinary this war is.
Israel's claims of air supremacy over Iran are so wrong they are laughable and just PR for Western audiences. Strikes from Israeli jets are very limited and mostly intercepted by indigenous Iranian AD which is better than Russia's. On the other hand, Iran claims it downed four F-35s in the first days of the war. The reality is that most of Israel's strikes are using drones activated by Mossad operatives inside the country (very similar to Ukraine's attack on Russia's strategic air force), car bombs, and other forms of conventional terrorism. Iran overwhelmed the Iron Dome in the first days and now only needs one or few missiles to strike targets in Israel at will. Israel claims it is already running very low on interceptors while Iran claims it has the ability to wage this war for months. Iran is currently rationing its missiles as the imminent war with the US looms.
There is also a lot of booster rockets being found in Syria and Iran suggesting that air missiles are being fired before f-35s get to the Iran border and they promptly turn back.
Generally all the available news in western media comes from Israel (which is why we see pictures of single unharmed Israeli babies on the front of our newspapers rather than the blocks of hundreds of residents destroyed that Iran would have us show.
yeah all the telegram chats im in are pretty explicitly showing serious damage in Israel but you go onto western liberal democratic media and you see none of it. also quite precisely hitting targets from so far is impressive, anyways this is all so avoidable and sad.
Thank you - I will let that sink in (it is extraordinary how much information you always manage to give us at short notice with regards to these very instantaneous developments about which we mostly only hear very sparsely in the usual reports).
There is simply no "huge international effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke". Iran has never claimed it wants or is developing nuclear weapons. Instead, nuclear weapons are forbidden by a fatwa by Khamenei. Unlike Israel, Iran is a signatory of the NPT and its nuclear facilities are routinely inspected by the IAEA, which was revealed to be compromised by Israel just before Israel's aggression. Iran has long insisted it wants a Middle East free from nuclear weapons.
As already stated by the publicly available 2009 Brookings paper "Which path to Persia?", nuclear negotiations are just a bad-faith ruse by the US to declare war on Iran. The unintended consequence, of course, will be for Iran to obtain the nuclear weapon, as it seems the only clear deterrent against US-Israeli aggression. It is not a matter of "weeks" or "months" until they get nukes - Iran already has the existing parts in separate rooms and only has to assemble them together if attacked by the US. Mohamed El-Baradei already warned that this US-Israel strategy is very problematic as it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It may be the pretext by which the US can destroy the NPT.
I think you might have slightly missed Adam's point. There is a huge (Western) effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke but that doesn't say anything about whether Iran are actually developing nukes - I read it as "the west are propagandising again" as the Brookings paper effectively proves.
In fact the question about whether they're building nukes is kind of a dumb question. They're entitled to do it as a sovereign state (though if they wanted to be honest about it they'd withdraw from the NPT) so this pretence that the west has the right to dictate is noise aimed at distorting and distracting from what's really going on which is the west trying to maintain/regain global hegemony. That ought to be obvious to everyone.
They don't have nukes, but they have the parts for nukes. What's the difference exactly? If you try to bring a disassembled gun onto a plane you'll end up in handcuffs.
Nuclear weapons aren't just magically made with enriched uranium. They require the actual warheads, launchers, and other logistical systems, which Iran does not possess (this much the IAEA has confirmed repeatedly). The enriched uranium itself is mainly a negotiating tactic, used for leverage.
This just creates an arms race. Hypersonic missiles, missiles with multiple warheads, etc. What you will really have, eventually, is orbital missile satellites. Comfortable. Blanketed. A society which if it were viewed by an interstellar civilization, would rightfully be judged as insane, the gun pointed at it's own head.
Thankyou, an interesting post. It gives me something to think about. I always knew we were an important protector for Israel but I never thought about how much we use them for testing modern war weapons. It along with Ukraine more and more remind me of the role the Spanish civil war played in WWII.
This switch from jet aircraft to long range missiles really dates back to 2018 when Russia announced its development of hypersonic missiles. Parallel to that Russian Air defence stepped up a gear to the point that no one wants to use Patriot or Thaad systems anymore (Israel passed its Patriots to Ukraine recently).
The big US investment into Aircraft Carriers has become just a feet of very vulnerable white elephants. Yemen forced the withdrawal of carriers, so they are quite unlikely to be used against Iran.
The start of the SMO included a March 13 2022 missile attack on Yavoriv, the military training base near the Polish border around 1000km from Russia. Reporting on this was limited in the west, perhaps because of suggestions that a large number of Nato trainers were caught in it.
So can Israel Iron Dome and other system protect it from Iran's missiles or will it simply run out of AD missiles anyway? We will find out soon, but for now we only have Israeli assurances that it will last.
Adam carries water for the western elites and although being a lefty, he is a full paid member of the western Professional Managerial Class.
This doesn't mean I don't appreciate most of his work - for instance, the point made in today's chartbook, about the enshitification of US statistical data. Stephen Harper did that with the 2011 Canadian Census, when the chief statistician resigned and that year is not even called Census data. The point is that waht you don't want to manage appropriately, you don't measure: problem solved.
As for this posting, with the sing and dance for Israel (obviously, not in such words) and the underhanded take on ever sanctioned Iran, which is doing all the defense work and attack work on its own sweat and toil, while, as with Ukraine, Israel is just the proxy for Uncle Sam and the combined West, who try to gut any idea of a sovereign and independent polity.
It is not that the regimes are "bad" (because how can one claim that KSA regime is good, or Israel's apartheid is good, or Ukraine fascist and corrupt government is good), it is that Africans, South Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Russians, Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis, etc, wanted to be independent and sovereign. "Sovereignity and independence" were the most used words by Nicolae Ceausescu. He ended up shot and the country is all trampled over by scoundrels that would sell whatever at bottom prices to the west and that wouldn't mind to have the Russian missiles targeting the country. And so, elections are stolen and candidates removed without anyone batting an eye.
Russia not wanting US medium ranged missiles installed in Ukraine, as the US promised in early 2022 that will happen through the voice of Blinken/Sullivan is a first reason to remove the ultranationalists in Kiev.
The negotiations in March 2022 proved that Russia wasn't really after land (Crimea is too strategic and too Russian and wanted out of Ukraine since 1991).
Please look at the post in your own eyes: US is still in Syria, stealing Syrian oil and wheat, still in Iraq, threatening to block all Iraqi billions (which must go first through US banks and most stay there) if they insist US has to leave.
Presently, the real steal is done by Israeli with the western full support: stealing from Palestinians, stealing from Syrians, stealing from Lebanese.
I mean you also just responded just as quick. I think our own State Dept has more money to throw around, how do I know you aren't posting from Eglin AFB?
I'm kidding.. but for real people need to lay off kneejerk "you must be a Russian troll" responses whenever someone has a anti-western foreign policy viewpoint. It shouldn't surprise you that a lot of people in the world sincerely hold that view, considering, you know, how the west acts.
"the huge international effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke;"
Quite - the idea that Iran could be put on an equal footing with Israel by both having nukes.
N Korea showed the world, no nukes and you are treated like shit. 2 or 3 nukes and Trump calls you sir.
"But, unlike Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, Israel and Iran have no land border. There is no “frontline”. The countries in between - Syria and Iraq - are not directly involved in the conflict."
Or course the countries in between were destroyed by USA on behalf of Israel Much like Poland was in 1939-41.
The one thing I don't see any of the anti-israel commentators here saying is how Iran has been saying for decades, "Death to Israel". But yeah, let's carry on here like Iran is angelic. 😬
Thanos openly declared he wanted to snap his fingers and eliminate half of humanity. Iran has openly stated it wants to destroy Israel. The Avengers tried to keep the stones from Thanos, but failed. Israel doesn't need to be a hero, but it needs to be stronger than the Avengers, bc we won't get a do over in 5 years if Iran succeeds to any extent.
So now the unprovoked war of agression by Israel against Iran is a "clash." So too is the genocide in Gaza, etc.
Mr. Tooze you use the word :anodyne." Don't you think the Israeli attack on Iran is something more than "anodyne." Perhaps too much time on the Upper West Side of NYC results in atrophy of the moral sense.
Hey Adam, a question - what exactly is the technological and military difference between Iran's exo-atmospheric missiles and the ICBMs? And am I right that ICBMs were never actually used in war?
Iran is using Medium Rang Ballistic Missiles (MRBM). Their largest has a range of 1000 to 2000km, depending on payload.
ICBMs have a much further range, hence being 'intercontinental'. Russia's new ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, has a range of up to 18,000km. There are smaller ones, but it should give you an idea as to the difference.
You're right that ICBMs have never been used in war. They're very expensive and while they can be used to deliver a non-nuclear payload, it would be cost prohibitive and potentially be misread as a nuclear launch. You can't tell if an ICBM has a nuke on it until it explodes.
Israel's claims of air supremacy over Iran are so wrong they are laughable and just PR for Western audiences. Strikes from Israeli jets are very limited and mostly intercepted by indigenous Iranian AD which is better than Russia's. On the other hand, Iran claims it downed four F-35s in the first days of the war. The reality is that most of Israel's strikes are using drones activated by Mossad operatives inside the country (very similar to Ukraine's attack on Russia's strategic air force), car bombs, and other forms of conventional terrorism. Iran overwhelmed the Iron Dome in the first days and now only needs one or few missiles to strike targets in Israel at will. Israel claims it is already running very low on interceptors while Iran claims it has the ability to wage this war for months. Iran is currently rationing its missiles as the imminent war with the US looms.
There is also a lot of booster rockets being found in Syria and Iran suggesting that air missiles are being fired before f-35s get to the Iran border and they promptly turn back.
Generally all the available news in western media comes from Israel (which is why we see pictures of single unharmed Israeli babies on the front of our newspapers rather than the blocks of hundreds of residents destroyed that Iran would have us show.
yeah all the telegram chats im in are pretty explicitly showing serious damage in Israel but you go onto western liberal democratic media and you see none of it. also quite precisely hitting targets from so far is impressive, anyways this is all so avoidable and sad.
Thank you - I will let that sink in (it is extraordinary how much information you always manage to give us at short notice with regards to these very instantaneous developments about which we mostly only hear very sparsely in the usual reports).
There is simply no "huge international effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke". Iran has never claimed it wants or is developing nuclear weapons. Instead, nuclear weapons are forbidden by a fatwa by Khamenei. Unlike Israel, Iran is a signatory of the NPT and its nuclear facilities are routinely inspected by the IAEA, which was revealed to be compromised by Israel just before Israel's aggression. Iran has long insisted it wants a Middle East free from nuclear weapons.
As already stated by the publicly available 2009 Brookings paper "Which path to Persia?", nuclear negotiations are just a bad-faith ruse by the US to declare war on Iran. The unintended consequence, of course, will be for Iran to obtain the nuclear weapon, as it seems the only clear deterrent against US-Israeli aggression. It is not a matter of "weeks" or "months" until they get nukes - Iran already has the existing parts in separate rooms and only has to assemble them together if attacked by the US. Mohamed El-Baradei already warned that this US-Israel strategy is very problematic as it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. It may be the pretext by which the US can destroy the NPT.
I think you might have slightly missed Adam's point. There is a huge (Western) effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke but that doesn't say anything about whether Iran are actually developing nukes - I read it as "the west are propagandising again" as the Brookings paper effectively proves.
In fact the question about whether they're building nukes is kind of a dumb question. They're entitled to do it as a sovereign state (though if they wanted to be honest about it they'd withdraw from the NPT) so this pretence that the west has the right to dictate is noise aimed at distorting and distracting from what's really going on which is the west trying to maintain/regain global hegemony. That ought to be obvious to everyone.
They don't have nukes, but they have the parts for nukes. What's the difference exactly? If you try to bring a disassembled gun onto a plane you'll end up in handcuffs.
It's been made very clear that the nuke line is Israeli propaganda - even US intelligence services are saying so.
Nuclear weapons aren't just magically made with enriched uranium. They require the actual warheads, launchers, and other logistical systems, which Iran does not possess (this much the IAEA has confirmed repeatedly). The enriched uranium itself is mainly a negotiating tactic, used for leverage.
Hopefully someday the whole earth can be blanketed in safe, comfortable layers of redundant air defense
This just creates an arms race. Hypersonic missiles, missiles with multiple warheads, etc. What you will really have, eventually, is orbital missile satellites. Comfortable. Blanketed. A society which if it were viewed by an interstellar civilization, would rightfully be judged as insane, the gun pointed at it's own head.
Methinks he was being ironic.
you're probably right lol. Was just feeling especially angsty this morning I guess.
Thankyou, an interesting post. It gives me something to think about. I always knew we were an important protector for Israel but I never thought about how much we use them for testing modern war weapons. It along with Ukraine more and more remind me of the role the Spanish civil war played in WWII.
This switch from jet aircraft to long range missiles really dates back to 2018 when Russia announced its development of hypersonic missiles. Parallel to that Russian Air defence stepped up a gear to the point that no one wants to use Patriot or Thaad systems anymore (Israel passed its Patriots to Ukraine recently).
The big US investment into Aircraft Carriers has become just a feet of very vulnerable white elephants. Yemen forced the withdrawal of carriers, so they are quite unlikely to be used against Iran.
The start of the SMO included a March 13 2022 missile attack on Yavoriv, the military training base near the Polish border around 1000km from Russia. Reporting on this was limited in the west, perhaps because of suggestions that a large number of Nato trainers were caught in it.
So can Israel Iron Dome and other system protect it from Iran's missiles or will it simply run out of AD missiles anyway? We will find out soon, but for now we only have Israeli assurances that it will last.
Strange how Israel and the U.S. are pressuring Iran to do what Israel least wants Iran to do. And vice-versa. I know a good therapist...
Adam carries water for the western elites and although being a lefty, he is a full paid member of the western Professional Managerial Class.
This doesn't mean I don't appreciate most of his work - for instance, the point made in today's chartbook, about the enshitification of US statistical data. Stephen Harper did that with the 2011 Canadian Census, when the chief statistician resigned and that year is not even called Census data. The point is that waht you don't want to manage appropriately, you don't measure: problem solved.
As for this posting, with the sing and dance for Israel (obviously, not in such words) and the underhanded take on ever sanctioned Iran, which is doing all the defense work and attack work on its own sweat and toil, while, as with Ukraine, Israel is just the proxy for Uncle Sam and the combined West, who try to gut any idea of a sovereign and independent polity.
It is not that the regimes are "bad" (because how can one claim that KSA regime is good, or Israel's apartheid is good, or Ukraine fascist and corrupt government is good), it is that Africans, South Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Russians, Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis, etc, wanted to be independent and sovereign. "Sovereignity and independence" were the most used words by Nicolae Ceausescu. He ended up shot and the country is all trampled over by scoundrels that would sell whatever at bottom prices to the west and that wouldn't mind to have the Russian missiles targeting the country. And so, elections are stolen and candidates removed without anyone batting an eye.
Mr. Tooze's leash is not very long...
Russia wants to be sovereign so bad they have to steal it from others. 🙄
Russia not wanting US medium ranged missiles installed in Ukraine, as the US promised in early 2022 that will happen through the voice of Blinken/Sullivan is a first reason to remove the ultranationalists in Kiev.
The negotiations in March 2022 proved that Russia wasn't really after land (Crimea is too strategic and too Russian and wanted out of Ukraine since 1991).
Please look at the post in your own eyes: US is still in Syria, stealing Syrian oil and wheat, still in Iraq, threatening to block all Iraqi billions (which must go first through US banks and most stay there) if they insist US has to leave.
Presently, the real steal is done by Israeli with the western full support: stealing from Palestinians, stealing from Syrians, stealing from Lebanese.
It's funny how Russian supporters always respond instantly. It's almost like it's your job. 🤔
Whatever the US has done does not justify the Russian invasion of a sovereign country. End of story.
I mean you also just responded just as quick. I think our own State Dept has more money to throw around, how do I know you aren't posting from Eglin AFB?
I'm kidding.. but for real people need to lay off kneejerk "you must be a Russian troll" responses whenever someone has a anti-western foreign policy viewpoint. It shouldn't surprise you that a lot of people in the world sincerely hold that view, considering, you know, how the west acts.
"This has allowed Israel to establish freedom of operations for its jets which can now operate seemingly at will in the skies above Iran."
That's just untrue, Adam. Either your drinking the Zio kool-aide or youre sympathetic to them.
"the huge international effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke;"
Quite - the idea that Iran could be put on an equal footing with Israel by both having nukes.
N Korea showed the world, no nukes and you are treated like shit. 2 or 3 nukes and Trump calls you sir.
"But, unlike Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1941, Israel and Iran have no land border. There is no “frontline”. The countries in between - Syria and Iraq - are not directly involved in the conflict."
Or course the countries in between were destroyed by USA on behalf of Israel Much like Poland was in 1939-41.
The one thing I don't see any of the anti-israel commentators here saying is how Iran has been saying for decades, "Death to Israel". But yeah, let's carry on here like Iran is angelic. 😬
There are plenty of villains in this play, no doubt, but I assure you likewise that there are no heroes.
Sorry to disabuse you of the notion that we are living inside a Marvel comic ...
Thanos openly declared he wanted to snap his fingers and eliminate half of humanity. Iran has openly stated it wants to destroy Israel. The Avengers tried to keep the stones from Thanos, but failed. Israel doesn't need to be a hero, but it needs to be stronger than the Avengers, bc we won't get a do over in 5 years if Iran succeeds to any extent.
So now the unprovoked war of agression by Israel against Iran is a "clash." So too is the genocide in Gaza, etc.
Mr. Tooze you use the word :anodyne." Don't you think the Israeli attack on Iran is something more than "anodyne." Perhaps too much time on the Upper West Side of NYC results in atrophy of the moral sense.
Extremely informative. Also, makes one depressed. Billions of dollars spent on defence systems --- very little hope for humanity.
thanks for making it all a lot clearer!
Hey Adam, a question - what exactly is the technological and military difference between Iran's exo-atmospheric missiles and the ICBMs? And am I right that ICBMs were never actually used in war?
Iran is using Medium Rang Ballistic Missiles (MRBM). Their largest has a range of 1000 to 2000km, depending on payload.
ICBMs have a much further range, hence being 'intercontinental'. Russia's new ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, has a range of up to 18,000km. There are smaller ones, but it should give you an idea as to the difference.
You're right that ICBMs have never been used in war. They're very expensive and while they can be used to deliver a non-nuclear payload, it would be cost prohibitive and potentially be misread as a nuclear launch. You can't tell if an ICBM has a nuke on it until it explodes.
the netherlands and spain did trade blows over the head of france.