It appears the end times have been avoided as Israel has been forced to take no for an answer and not escalate her war with Iran. The Iranians put on a show of force, apparently as part of a deal with Washington, as their answer to the Israeli attack on their consulate in Damascus. Israel has been making noises about “retaliation” but for now it appears they are not getting any support for it. At least for now, it seems the prospects for a regional war have ended.
On the surface this looks like a rare occurrence of realpolitik from Washington, as they used diplomatic channels to head off a major conflict. That or the hotheads who always want war were finally told no by the few remaining sober minded people left in the foreign policy establishment. Alternatively, it could simply be that Iran had other motivations in addition to avoiding war. In other words, dumb luck saved Washington from a catastrophe in the Middle East.
Evidence for the latter was on display during and after the attack. The first thing that was reported was an impressive number of drones put into the air from a variety of locations in Iran, northern Iraq, and Yemen. Israel had no trouble taking out these drones, but that is not the point. The point is Iran can fill the sky with cheap targets for the extremely expensive Israeli air defense system. Modern war is fought on the balance sheet and Iran can now fight on that front.
It was not just a drone attack. The Iranians launched a variety of cruise missiles mingled in with their drone swarms. This is a tactic the Russians used to deplete the Ukrainian air defense systems last year. They filled the sky with drones. This often overwhelmed the air defense systems, but also exposed the location of radars and launchers, which were targeted by missiles. The Iranians demonstrated the ability to coordinate this sort of attack, which is an ability they lacked to this point.
The third interesting bit from that attack was the use of liquid fueled ballistic missiles, which were able to penetrate Israel air defenses. These were the strikes that hit the airfield in the Israeli desert. To this point it was assumed the Iranians did not have the technology for this sort of missile. As far as anyone knew, they had solid fuel rockets, but now they seem to have taken the next step in rocketry. It also means their chemical industry has also made big strides.
The final item of interest is the accuracy of the attack. To this point it was assumed the Iranians did not have the ability to precisely target their missiles or guide them in flight, but it appears they now have the technology. Presumably, they now have access to GLONASS, which is the Russian GPS. It also means they have the ability to use this information in real time to adjust flight paths. The Russians most likely supplied this at some point over the last two years.
This is why the “dumb luck” option makes the most sense. The reason the Russians are willing to help the Iranians with this is the gross mismanagement of American foreign policy over the last decade or more. In the past, Russia and China avoided these sorts of technology transfers, in order to avoid sanctions. Now that the West has imposed every conceivable sanction on Russia, the Russia are free to act in ways that they never would have considered five years ago.
Of course, the fact that sanctions failed to dent the Russian economy has made the threat of sanctions into a barking chihuahua. The Chinese have been transferring technology to Russia, despite the threat of sanctions. The reason is they see how the Russians got around those sanctions. This also means the Chinese could be helping the Iranians with their missile program as well. Iran, after all, revolutionized the drone game with the Shahed 136, so have things to share too.
All of this is the result of mismanagement by Washington. The sanctions war on Russia was poorly conceived and executed, but the biggest mistake was not considering the downstream consequences. Iran now has the ability to make anti-ship missiles that the American navy cannot defeat. No one knows if they have taken this step, but now we know they can take that step. This would most likely not have been possible if not for the sanctions war on the world.
This incident between Iran and Israel is a good example of how the decline in aptitude accelerates in a managerial system. The selection pressure inside the foreign policy establishment has been in favor of conformity to orthodoxy over strategic thinking, which has resulted in an ecosystem in which people like Victoria Nuland rise to the highest reaches of the system. Like everyone else, she rose up the ranks due to her fidelity to established orthodoxy in spite of her incompetence.
You can be sure the collection of dullards and mediocrities that run the Biden administration are celebrating themselves for defusing this situation. Instead of recognizing what really happened, they come away thinking they are master chess players on the international stage. That is another thing about managerialism. Every failure is somehow turned into confirmation of their expertise. The result is a system packed to the gills with overly confident imbeciles.
The question that arises from this is when will these imbeciles run out of luck and do something from which they cannot be saved? The Soviets had the Afghan war debacle and then the Chernobyl meltdown. Taken together, these failures by their managerial class drained all trust from the system. Most likely it will take something similar to collapse American managerialism. People might want to look up the nearest nuclear power plant and make sure you are not downwind.
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