They Really Are That Stupid

I have been trying to wrap my head around the events in the Persian Gulf for a week. Really, no one has seen this kind of thing before. Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to convince successive American presidents to attack Iran for decades but none of them have been stupid enough to do so. They realized that attacking and militarily defeating a country the size of Western Europe, with a population of around 90 million people is a virtually impossible task. Then Mr. Netanyahu met Donald Trump and all of that changed. Some are asserting that the Israeli PM has some Epstein dirt on Donald Trump but I do not believe that. I think Donald Trump is just that stupid. In all likelihood PM Netanyahu appealed to Donald Trump's narcissisms and the rest is history.

The other piece of stupidity is the Israeli PM's belief that they could have ended this war in a few hours by taking out the Iranian Supreme Leader. That man was 86 years old. The plan to succeed him was well established. I stated in a post in June, during the first attack on Iran by Israel, that Israel just seems to underestimate Iran, its leadership, its will to fight and its people. At this point it is almost looking pathological.

So how does this end? Damned if I know.

Here are a few things we do know:

• The US and the Israelis have a limited number of interceptor missiles. They are already showing signs that they are running low.
• The US and Israel have a massive number of offensive ordinance but even that is finite and not quickly replaced. The consensus I see from some of the experts is they have between two to six weeks of ammunition left
• It is unknown the exact number of missiles and drones the Iranians have, which should have stopped any notion of attacking them from the beginning. Like last June this war is going to come down to who runs our of ammo first. The people who planned this war should have taking that into account.
• The Strait of Hormuz is closed and the international insurance industry will make certain it stays that way until the war ends and there are assurances that ships will once again be able to go through it without being threatened with being attacked.
• Energy prices are increasing and that will be the X-factor going forward. 
• Iran is taking a beating but so are the US bases in the Gulf and Israel. 

The American and Israeli current strategy (Their strategy seems to change on a daily basis) seems to be to level Iranian cities as quickly as they can. The Iranians seem to have the same approach but they have decided that this is going to be a marathon instead of a sprint so they are moving slower. Some have argued that this is a sign of them running out of ammunition, and that could be true but it is just as possible that this is all part of the plan. After all, if your strategy was to use ballistic missiles and drones against your enemies, and those enemies have a supply of anti-missile missiles, then you would work to deplete that supply before launching the real weight of your attack. That is what I would do and I am just some guy tapping away on a keyboard in Canada. I am certain if I could figure this out someone who makes a living developing military strategy could also figure it out.

Long-term what will happen? That depends on how this all ends but here are some possibilities.

If the Iranians do not suffer a strategic defeat, and it is possible they will suffer such a defeat, then they will survive and develop nuclear weapons before the end of the decade. They do not need many. Their principle enemy is Israel, which could be destroyed as a functioning state by three to five 100 kt warheads. So Iran would only need 50, assuming as hit rate of 10%, to destroy Israel. They will probably announce they have them by 2030 and the power dynamic in the Middle East will change forever.

Israel is not going to come out of this war in a good place. Just the shear amount of destruction to its cities and military, political and social infrastructure will require huge amounts of money and resources to repair. Before this war many Americans were coming to realize the oversized influence Israel has on its politics, and not liking it, and that is probably only going to become worse. That could preclude them from providing all of the aid Israel will need to rebuild as quickly as they would need to. As well, there is a chance that Israel will actually suffer a strategic loss in this war, probably equal to the chance of Iran suffering such a loss, in which case Israel could go through an existential crisis.

As for the US, that is more complicated and deserves its own post, which I will publish in the coming days.