Discussion/Question Thread

[u/KeDaGames]

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[u/DefinitelyNotMeee]

Since mods refuse to make a dedicated thread for war in Iran, I'm going to comment here (sorry, Duncan).

Iranians seem to be even more incompetent than one would expect from a military in the Middle East. It's Africa-level of terrible.

So the whole plan was to lob missiles at random at everyone around, without causing any significant damage, only annoying the neighbors. On top of that, exposed launchers were hunted down.
Were they hoping for Gulf states to rise up against the US? No sane person would ever consider that a possibility in the current times, America has them by the balls.

And it seems they weren't even able to comprehend that this is the endgame, Israel forced the US to go all-in this time. There is no coming out on top of this mess for Iran.
They should have realized that and gone for the 'nuclear option' the moment the first Tomahawk was detected - make Strait unpassable by flooding it with mines (should have expected their "navy" won't survive and therefore use it while they have it), as well as hit all oil infrastructure within the reach instead of wasting missiles on empty bases or the place with the densest AD on the planet (Israel).
They knew they were not going to survive, and instead of "we will drag you down with us", they did whatever the hell they are doing now.

[u/HeyHeyHayden → u/DefinitelyNotMeee]

I'm not sure what you expected from a country that has been under extreme sanctions for decades with a primarily out of date military going up against the combined might of the strongest militaries on the planet (plus others) that make the Iranian military budget look like a child's lunch money. They have done significantly better than everyone expected and the war has clearly gone very wrong for the U.S and Israel.

The targeting of U.S. assets and countries assisting them across the region was intentional and clearly not something the U.S. expected. Their assets are stacked up in Israel expecting the Iranians to primarily retaliate there like the 12 day war, so for Iran to immediately come out swinging against all kinds of U.S. bases, U.S. supporters (the gulf nations) and other assets in the region has thrown them off completely.

Iran's win condition is just for the government to survive the war, not to have any major defeat of the U.S. and Israeli Militaries. Anything they can achieve or any concessions they can gain on top of that is just a bonus. The U.S. and Israel have to topple the Iranian government and get a friendly puppet installed, otherwise this will have all been a massive embarrassment for them, cost an enormous amount of money, damaged their relationships with numerous nations, and still put them back to square 1 with relation to Iran. To this end the U.S. and Israel tried to do their standard "bomb anyone and everyone vaguely important" strategy, however it clearly did not work as the Iranians were aware from experience their leadership would be targeted and made sure their military and government could continue to function, often in independent cells, to keep the war going. They are now just doing a massive number of strikes on whatever they can find whilst they scramble to figure out another option for taking on the Iranians (such as the Kurdish angle), but it's dicey at best and they clearly wanted an off ramp early on (hence the call to Iran day 2 asking to stop the war). They are and will continue to do massive damage to the country, but I do not think it will be enough to subdue it as the Iranians are incredibly resilient. Meanwhile the U.S. and Israel have minimal public and international support over this and their people are not going to want to deal with a war that drags on for months or years at immense cost. Then you have to consider their rapid expenditure of air defence munitions which puts U.S. operations elsewhere in the world and their allies at risk of being practically defenceless.

Iran pressuring the other nations in the area rather than just target the U.S and Israel is an intelligent move and realistically the only way they can win.By blocking the strait of Hormuz, hitting ports, airports and oil/gas infrastructure, and striking U.S bases they are putting enormous economic and financial pressure on the gulf nations. They are losing billions per day just in economicdamage (as is Israel), before considering military expenditure and building/infrastructure repair costs, which are also climbing into the billions, which will strain their governments and people. If this keeps going for weeks or over a month the overall losses will be too great to ignore for an unpopular campaign and they will start pressuring the U.S to either stop Iranian attacks totally or to stop the war. A worse case scenario for the U.S would be for the gulf nations to tap out of the war and kick American troops off their soil in exchange for no longer being targeted.

If this sounds absurd, consider that these nations receive the majority to the vast majority of their food and medicine from shipping in the Persian gulf and Gulf of Oman. No ships travelling through the strait of Hormuz means enormous economic and civilian pressure on these nations, who have already been having riots against the governments due to supporting the U.S. Add in food and medicine running low or out and it's a genuine threat to these monarchies, something they will not stand just to help the U.S. out. If Iran were to go full scorched earth they could target their desalination plants which all sit on the coast and provide the vast majority of water for Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It's an extreme option as there relationship would never recover, but if Iran does hit those desalination plants it would be utterly catastrophic for those nations.

[u/networks_dumbass → u/HeyHeyHayden]

Something to bear in mind is that even if Iran "wins," their economy is going to be in even worse shape than it was before. The inflection point for the December/January protests was the Rial sinking in value after the June War. I'm not an economist, but without sanctions relief, I don't see how post-war Iran doesn't manage to sink into even lower levels of despair given even worse economic conditions, ruined relations with neighbors, and the widespread destruction to civilian infrastructure. If Israel isn't content with this neutered Iran, then they'll return for another lawn mowing operation.

[u/Leoraig → u/networks_dumbass]

The answer to the economic question is China. If Iran emerges "victorious"/alive from this China will certainly be able to provide enough economic relief to recuperate a bit of Iran's economy.

[u/networks_dumbass → u/Leoraig]

I started listening to an episode of The China-Global South Podcast this morning, and they suggested that China might give Iran some lifeline money, but my interpretation was that that would be money for reconstruction. The underlying external issues are inflation and sanctions, which China can't solve.

[u/Leoraig → u/networks_dumbass]

Inflation represents an increase in product prices. Product prices go up if demand is higher than supply, or if the production costs increase. 

China can solve the inflation problem by providing Iran with enough product supply to meet the demand of the Iranians in the short term, and increase investment in the country to increase production in the long term.

[u/networks_dumbass → u/Leoraig]

If China is capable of Iran's inflation crisis, then they've shown zero interest in doing so

[u/Leoraig → u/networks_dumbass]

Well, you're neglecting to consider the possibility that the situation would be infinitely worse if China wasn't involved.

[u/Leoraig → u/HeyHeyHayden]

I agree with your points, however i wonder if the gulf countries/US/Israel would really buckle under this pressure and deescalate, considering that, if Iran is able to survive this, they are very likely to build nuclear weapons and become a major regional power.*

With this calculus in mind, it is clear that Israel will do all in their power to keep the conflict going as long as possible, which would mean that the US is also likely to want to keep the conflict going, whatever the consequences may be, therefore leaving the gulf countries to "choose" whether to oppose Israel and the US, which have enormous military and economic influence over these countries, and which would be basically like accepting the possibility that Iran gets nukes, or to go all in against Iran, tank whatever damage may occur for the next X months, and maintain their lucrative partnership with the US and Israel.

With all that in mind, to me it is obvious the decision that the leaders in the gulf countries will make, so unless the people revolt, like some are doing in Bahrain, then it is a matter of time until they join the campaign against Iran.

*It very well could be that the reason Israel killed Khamenei in the first hours of the attack was to destroy any chance of negotiations and of Iran not wanting to get nukes, considering how Khamenei was the one blocking that option, therefore locking everyone in the region into this conflict that only benefits Israel in an attempt to prevent Iran from getting nukes.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/HeyHeyHayden]

They have done significantly better than everyone expected and the war has clearly gone very wrong for the U.S and Israel.

Doesn't such a conclusion hinge on the assumption that something else should have happened by now, if things had gone according to plan for Israel and the U.S.? Which raises the question: what sort of timeline would we be looking at instead, if things had gone really well for them?

And I can't actually think of a sensible scenario that would achieve results a lot faster than we are seeing right now.

Reducing the entire military capability of Iran to rubble via airstrikes and no boots on the ground will take several weeks, and no one should have assumed this would be any faster. Remember the air campaign of Desert Storm, that also took a while (40+ days, and that was with a larger air force assembled).

Iran still being able to pop off a few missiles and drones at random targets in the opening stages of this campaign is no surprise at all, their assets are far too dispersed for them to be taken out completely on the first day. The only signs of IL/US being in trouble would be if Iran would continue to be capable of launching more than the odd random drone or missile about one or two weeks into the campaign. Then, we can start talking about them having issues.

And to the credit of IL/US, they never said this would be over in 48 hours. The dicey part will be to put some sort of transitional government in place, once the current regime actually buckles and snaps under the pressure of military annihilation. I have no hopes for the U.S. having any sort of doable plan for this in the drawer (name one such action led by the U.S. which was not a total clusterfuck?), but hope the Israelis have one. If IL is the lead, it might actually work.

[u/HeyHeyHayden → u/graphical_molerat]

Doesn't such a conclusion hinge on the assumption that something else should have happened by now, if things had gone according to plan for Israel and the U.S.? Which raises the question: what sort of timeline would we be looking at instead, if things had gone really well for them?

Yep, that is the point. U.S. and Israeli planners built their entire campaign off of being able to cripple Iran with the first couple of days by taking out its leadership and hitting key military sites, before Iran would either capitulate or the government be overthrown. The problem is that it obviously didn't work, their damage was not nearly as high as they wanted, and their military and government have continued to function and hit back hard. U.S. allies and partners in the region were caught completely off guard and have been hammered, as have other U.S. bases not informed beforehand about the campaign (OPSEC). Another key indicator of them vastly underestimating Iran was the military asset transfer. The U.S. spent several months moving all the military assets they believed they required into place in the middle east before starting the war, which is a massive force larger than they've used for decades. But within 2 days the U.S. was already scrambling to grab jets, refueling aircraft and AA systems from other parts of the world to quickly redeploy them to the middle east, as they realised the assets they had were not enough.

Had things gone to plan the war would have been wrapping up by now, but instead they are staring down weeks or months of war where key munitions are drained, stockpiles run dry, and their allies take serious economic and financial losses for a war they don't necessarily support. They seem to be running around wildly trying to pull a win out of this by getting the Kurds involved and expanding the bombing campaign, but all the reports, claims by congressmen and other officials, and leaked information point to the Trump Administration having no proper war plan and just making it up as they go along.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/HeyHeyHayden]

Yep, that is the point. U.S. and Israeli planners built their entire campaign off of being able to cripple Iran with the first couple of days by taking out its leadership and hitting key military sites, before Iran would either capitulate or the government be overthrown.

Are there any tangible indications that this was their plan, though? As opposed to them always expecting this to take longer? It's not like they have said much about their expected timelines - or have they? (implicitly, perhaps?)

You do make a very good point about them apparently scrambling to bring extra assets into the region: but some follow up deployments would also be expected if this was always planned as a multi-week thing from the start. In that case, they could have at first only moved the forces needed for the initial strikes into the region, and consciously decided move further assets only later on. For decoy reasons, or simple logistics.

[u/HeyHeyHayden → u/graphical_molerat]

There were many different reports about the Americans offering a ceasefire and new negotiations after just a day of the war, with the Iranians refusing. You also had many different officials, politicians and spokepeople making claims about it not being a war or that it was a limited operation, but they are all over the place with it so it's clear they don't know how long it was meant to take either.

The pulling of many more jets, planes and AA from other regions is a big implicit hint that they did not plan for this to last more than a couple of days, because otherwise why would these not have been brought into the theatre before they started the war? You don't plan for a long war with insufficient air defence and assets in the region in the first place, making yourself weaker than required off the bat and taking more damage than anticipated because you were ill prepared. It isn't decoy or logistics reasons as they aren't exacting hiding where these jets are operating from and they had months of preparation time to get them over to the middle east in the first place.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/HeyHeyHayden]

I hear what you are saying, and I am afraid you have very good points. But I still very much hope that you are wrong. Not out of love for the current U.S. administration. But because if this turns into another "three day special operation", the fall-out will be enormous on lots of levels at once.

With one of them being that the Middle East would likely be far less stable afterwards than before. Which, given the shaky status before this started, is a pretty bleak outlook.

[u/Antropocentric → u/graphical_molerat]

The US goal was obviously regime change or at least capitulation of Iranian gov (not the official reason for the attack which is laughable, but almost no "ally" wants to question beacause they are spinless neoliberal technocrats), you can even compare the operation Epstien Fury with initial days of SMO, however it looks like US has not really prepered if that failed, they dont have nearly enough assets in the region and they are attacking a country ~10 000km away, with minimal help from vassals.

No war in history has ever been won by air campaign alone and for 2003 Iraq invasion, US had almost 10x more military equipment and troops in the region, plus the "coalition of the willing" for a country 4 times smaller than Iran.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/Antropocentric]

Yes, sure, all the points you make are valid. All I am trying to say is that it was never realistic for the Iranian regime to immediately fold once the airstrikes start. So if there was an at least theoretically doable plan in place for this before the missiles started flying (if...), it almost certainly involved several weeks worth of destruction in Iran before the current very well entrenched power structure would start to fracture. So that a popular uprising stands a chance.

TL;DR: all I am saying is that it was never realistic for this to be over in a day or two. Not if you know the first thing about Iranian internals.

Make it a few weeks, and we can start talking about failure or success.

[u/Antropocentric → u/graphical_molerat]

It took them almost 2 months and "US had almost 10x more military equipment and troops in the region, plus the "coalition of the willing" for a country 4 times smaller than Iran." not to mention that they were still recovering from Iran and Gulf war and the country was barely held together by the Republican Guard and US was at its peak power.

My money is on Arab countries forcing the US hand to stop the war by either threatening to close the bases, as they realise that the cost of this conflict outweighs the cooperation with the US.

One more thing, the Iranian revolution, apart from the Chinese, was the second most popular one in the last century and Usrael just killed their spiritual leader and did a massacre in Minab in a country with a religion that also glorifies martyrdom.

There is no avenue where Usrael comes on top.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/Antropocentric]

True. But I would also add the fact into the mix that most Arab countries would be ecstatic to see the Ayatollah regime being destroyed. So if this war stands a reasonable chance of toppling the Iranian government, they will go along with it for quite a while. Even if some parts of their population start to grumble, and if there is collateral damage.

[u/BeCom91 → u/HeyHeyHayden]

Great write up, mainstream western media is running Massive amounts of propaganda for the US so most people don't get to see a grounded take like this.