Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Middle East Page 1 of 26

Hypocrisy, Ansar-Allah, and the Military Revolution

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On October 12, 2026

16 Comments

There have been a lot of condemnations of Ansar-Allah for hitting airports in Saudi Arabia. (They have hit every major airport except those in Mecca and Medina, multiple times and civilians have been killed.) I think a reminder is in order.

First, that this new war started when the Sauds hit Sana’a airport, but also:

The Saudi-Emirati coalition conducted more than 227 airstrikes on Sana’a Airport between March 26, 2015, and February 2022. (The airstrikes are documented in the United Nations)

2015: 67 airstrikes

2016: 62 airstrikes

2017: 7 airstrikes

2018: 47 airstrikes

2019: 7 airstrikes

2020: 15 airstrikes

2021: 12 airstrikes

2022: 10 airstrikes

Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni were killed by the Saudi/US blockade of food. The Sauds regularly hit hospitals, weddings, funerals — all the usual. They might as well be Israelis.

So I don’t want to hear crocodile tears now. The airports that are being hit are, unlike Sana’a during the siege, military targets. The Houthis have no airforce.

In addition to airports Ansar-Allah has been hitting refineries, pipelines and other oil infrastructure, essentially at will. The Sauds CANNOT protect their infrastructure. It is impossible.

This is a military revolution. Defense against missiles and drones is very hard, even Russia can’t stop constant attacks on their oil infrastructure, and they still have a decent stock of interceptor missiles. The Sauds are basically out, because America’s stocks are terminally low and Saudi Arabia is low on the priority list for what few there are (Israel gets first pick, then America.)

But even when there are lots of interceptors, drones and missiles are hard to stop, and the new offensive weapons are easier to make and cheaper than the defensive ones. This is especially the case for drones, but is also true for many missiles. In such a case, the strategy is to just to run the defenders out of missiles or overwhelm their launchers with huge strikes.

Over 10 years ago I wrote that drones would be a weapon the weak. This is half true, but it’s true enough, and it’s now been proved over the board.

Understand clearly that this IS a revolution in military affairs, and that it means that any nation which is serious and decent sized can create a missile and drone deterrent that is very hard to stop. If they have a lot of mountainous terrain, even better, but Ukraine is almost entire flat land.

Right now the US is still able to bully Latin American countries, but its clear that it’s lost the ability project power significantly bey0nd the Americas. The Iranians have picked up strikes against tankers, and it’s clear that the previous slow pace was a decision, and the decision has changed.

During the initial part of the war they effectively destroyed all US bases in the Middle East, including radars. It would take tens of billions to rebuild them, but since they can’t be defended (the US had plenty of interceptors at the time) that’s pointless. Odds are that most of the permanent US military presence in the Middle East will never return.

It is impossible to overstate just how much the calculus of force has changed: the US can no longer simply sit aircraft carriers off any prepared country’s coast and bomb the hell out of them.

Likewise this makes building up troops for ground operations very difficult. Think about trying to invade Iran. Where would you stage the troops that Iran can’t hit even as you’re trying to bring them in? There will be no major invasion of Iran, because it’s straight up impossible. In the Gulf War the Americans spent months building up forces nearby, that can’t happen any more.

Now Iran and Russia and China and Ansar-Allah were early adopters of this technology, and there are still lots of countries which have no significant drone or missile forces, but only complete incompetents haven’t noticed how effective they are, and you can be sure the technology will spread. If Ansar-Allah, in the most impoverished country in the world, can build drones and missiles (with some Iranian help) and if Iran, the most sanctioned country in the world could do so, there are few countries which couldn’t do the same if they really wanted to, and there are plenty of helpers available for them: China, Russia, Iran, even Ansar-Allah.

So this military revolution will spread, and as it does, the ability of the US to project power will be radically reduced. Further, in time, the tech for long-range missiles capable of striking the US will be developed and spread, and the US will no longer be able to go to war and think “but they can’t hit the homeland.”

All of this will come to be. It cannot be stopped, only slowed. And with Chinese sanctions on the US and Japan crippling their war industries, plus the US’s pathetic financialized military-industrial complex being ridiculously expensive and slow to manufacture anything, the US will not even be able to keep up.

Plus, a lot of countries are target poor. The US and its allies aren’t. One of the reasons Ansar-Allah is going hog wild hitting Saudi infrastructure is that after over a decade of being bombed to hell there isn’t much for them to lose. Their missiles hit targets which matter, while the Sauds mostly are reduced to terror bombing, which won’t stop the Houthis any more than it did the North Vietnamese.

The world is changing, things are happening, and the world order is changing completely.

 

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Saudi Arabia Has Truly F**cked Around & Is About To Find Out

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On October 7, 2026

17 Comments

Saudi Arabia made a major counter-offensive against Ansar-Allah with mercenaries. It took a bit of ground, and is now being pushed back hard.

No one with sense is surprised. The Yemenis are far tougher than mercenaries or any Saudi troops, which are an international joke.

Now:

The Sauds started all this by attacking Ansar-Allah’s capital airport. The Houthis hit back and told them for peace they had to stop all attacks and end their decade long blockade, which has killed hundreds of thousand of people.

Back in the 1920s the Sauds took two provinces, Najran and Asir from Yemen. Mohammed Bin Salman better hope that’s all they take away from him because unless either Turkey or Pakistan are willing to commit a large ground force, I don’t think the Sauds can defeat Ansar-Allah.

And while the Sauds were able to get oil flowing thru the pipeline that was taken out earlier faster than most of us, myself included, expected, it doesn’t really matter. An Aramco refinery was hit yesterday, which is actually even worse, since it’s distillates like diesel, jet fuel and bunker fuel (used by large ships) which is in short supply.

Meanwhile even for crude, ignore the futures prices, and check the spot. Here’s the spread:

Futures markets have been highly manipulated, but the spot is the actual price. Nor can I see any likelihood that spot oil or distillate prices will be cheaper in a month, Iran has been hitting tankers hard, and unlike before they’re aiming to do serious damage to them, not just disable them.

MBS is the worst leader Saudi Arabia has ever had. Like Trump, he just can’t conceive that he should make peace. He’s got a crap army, the US is now helping somewhat but is overstretched and his only hope is Turkey and Pakistan.

If he’s not lucky he may be Saudi Arabia’s last leader. Very few people will miss the House of Saud.

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Defending Most Infrastructure Is Now Impossible But No One’s Getting It

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On September 14, 2026

11 Comments

After Ansar Allah grabbed a huge chunk of territory, including coast and islands which let it control the Red Sea, and after blowing up a pumping station and pipeline which will require weeks to repair, the Sauds are doubling down with airstrikes and missile attacks.

And I’m wondering what’s going thru their heads.

Because we’re in a period where, with a few exceptions, anything can be destroyed by missiles and drones if you’re within range. That especially mean port infrastructure, airports, refineries (which have also been hit) and, yes, pipelines.

Whatever one thinks of Ansar Allah, they have shown an ability to absorb massive amounts of damage, and frankly, they have almost nothing. If it comes to a tit-for-tat exchange, they can take the punishment, while Saudi Arabia has all sorts of vulnerable infrastructure.

It’ll take, supposedly, six weeks to repair the pipeline.

Then it can just be hit again, because there is no way to protect it.

This is the new calculus of missile power. It’s hard to defend against, and in the context of western interceptor stockpiles being almost depleted, it’s effectively impossible.

In Ukraine/Russia this favors Russia, because they can hit more. In Yemen/Saudi Arabia it favors Yemen because what they can hit matters much more.

As with the Iran war, the correct play here is peace. Yemen wants an end to the blockade. Give it to them.

Saudi Arabia’s army is an infamous joke. They’re flirting with the end of the House of Saud here, because if the money stops, then their population will become a serious threat. The military is weak to avoid a possible coup, but that means it can’t stop a major uprising or invasion. The secret police are scary, but they only work at stomping out small fires, they can’t stop anything major.

Everyone hates the Saudi Royals. I’ve never met anyone who dealt with them who didn’t despise them, even if they were being paid well by the Sauds, they hated them.

This is a new world. Saudi Arabia bet on America to protect them, and that worked for generations. But America can’t any more. The royal family needs to find a new way, and so far the Pakistan/Turkey alliance is a dud.

It’s not looking good for them, but the first thing they need to do if they want to survive is get real about their situation, and about how warfare has changed.

I rather hope they don’t.

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The Iran War Has Just Had A Major Phase Change

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On September 10, 2026

18 Comments

Recently the US started hitting Iranian oil tankers. The Iranians had said that if this happened, they would escalate and they have done just that. This is a very serious change in their strategy: before they retaliated, but did their best to keep casualties low, rarely made serious attacks on US naval ships, and their attacks were relatively small. That’s all changed.

(Footage of the US firing off more than 100 patriot missiles to try and stop an attack in Jordan.)


As best I can tell the interceptors also mostly failed to stop the missiles. The attack was much larger than normal, 30 to 50 missiles, showing that the previous smaller attacks were a choice, not an operational necessity. According to CBS 9 planes were damaged on the ground.

The change in doctrine was also confirmed:

Iran Threatens 20 Strikes For Every 2 Targets Hit

General Mohammadi says Iran has reached a new stage of retaliation and laid out its demands to END the War:

1) Completely END the war and military attacks

2) STOP further threats against Iran

3) WITHDRAW Israeli forces from Lebanon

4) END the siege of Yemen

5) RELEASE $24 BILLION in frozen Iranian assets

6) STOP interference in Iran’s NUCLEAR program 7) STOP interference in Iran’s MISSILE program

He says the era of limited retaliation is over.

Attacks on US ships have yet to take any out, but they force the use of interceptors and ships have very limited stockpiles. When they run out they have to pull back and wait for naval resupply or go to Diego Garcia for resupply, since all closer naval bases are no longer operational.

Jordan is the last shield before Israel. They routinely intercepted attacks against Israel from Iran during the early part of the war. Once their ability to do so is damaged, Israel lies open. In addition, the US is running very low on patriots – less than 900 before this attack seems to be the consensus estimate. And they just burned off 100 to protect from one attack.

As I said day one of the war, the math is on Iran’s side: the US will run out of interceptors long before Iran if Iran chooses to go all out. They didn’t because once the Strait was at least partially interdicted, they figured that the long term math favored them economically: the US and world economies would crack before they did. But that calculus changes if the US is going after Iranian tankers, so they’ve escalated. They’ve also been hitting far more tankers from other other countries than previously, again showing that hitting only 3 or 4 a day was a choice, not something they had to do.

Since Iran keeps saying that Israeli occupation of Lebanon is a red line (they’ve dropped Gaza, as I suspected they might) and since the war won’t end as long as Israel tells America to keep going, this war is moving back towards direct attacks on Israel.

This follows the Supreme Leader replacing moderates with hawks in various key positions.

To put it simply, Iran is now on the offensive. It does show that they have a weakness: they need at least some oil sales getting thru, but it also shows that they are militarily dominant in the region, especially against land based assets. And my guess is they still aren’t seriously trying to take out naval ships, but are just firing enough missiles and drones to drain interceptors and force a withdrawal.

Iran also needs to put more pressure, fast, on the US economy before the mid-terms.

Meanwhile, in Yemen, the Houthis are advancing aggressively.

The Yemeni Armed Forces through a series of rapid operations, have achieved significant advances in the Taiz and Hodeidah provinces within just a few hours, covering an area of approximately 2,600 square kilometers, and have liberated numerous areas, including the strategically important port of Al-Mokha.

On the Taiz front, the Yemeni Armed Forces have made rapid progress in the districts of Al-Wazi’iyah and Mozah in western Taiz province. During these rapid advances, with the support of popular committees, the Yemeni Armed Forces have cleared the Al-Wazi’iyah and Al-Mokha, the important Khaled bin Walid base, and areas in the Al-Wazi’iyah district, including Al-Hania, Al-Aqma, and Al-Gheil, extending to the outskirts of Al-Shaqira, the center of the Al-Wazi’iyah district.

In southern Hodeidah province, the Yemeni Armed Forces have taken control of the important towns of Hays and then Al-Khukhah, and by continuing their advance along the coastal strip and liberating Yahtal, they entered and took control of the strategically important port of Al-Mokha.

The advances of this morning are reminiscent of the rapid advances made five years ago in the Hodeidah province, when, in November 2021, the Saudi-led coalition forces were forced to withdraw from the entire coastal strip, from within the city of Hodeidah to north of Al-Khukhah in southern Hodeidah province.

The intense pressure exerted by the Yemeni fighters on all fronts in western Taiz province and southern Hodeidah continues, and the forces of Tariq Saleh are reportedly fleeing the fronts towards Aden.

Overall, with the advances made over the past three days, the conditions have been created for the complete liberation of the southwestern coast of Yemen, and also for the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

The Houthis are just better fighters than the mercenary forces Saudi Arabia is using, and the Saudi Army is a joke in any case.

The real battle of the Iranian war is yet to come: once Iran has cleared away the US forces protecting Israel, they will need to force Israel to tell the Americans to go to peace. By clearing the forces they will also make it much harder for America to hit Iranian tankers and infrastructure

Stay tuned. This is the most important war of the last 50 years.

Update:

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Capacity v.s. Desire: What I Got Right & Wrong At The Start of the Gaza Genocide

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On July 30, 2026

33 Comments

Regular readers will remember that I thought the resistance could defeat Israel over the genocide in Gaza. Iran, Syria, Iraqi militias, Hezbollah and Ansar-Allah.

I was right.

They could. But the decision was made not to.

I base this on the fact that Iran is defeating the US and Israel.

If they can do it now, they could have done it then, when they still had Syria and Hezbollah hadn’t been mauled.

They didn’t because they didn’t want to. They still don’t: what has changed with the leadership is a willingness to defend Iran and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The MOU failed, ultimately, because Israel would not stop attacking in Lebanon.

When the US and Israel took out the previous leadership, they changed the desire: what Iran wanted to do. Iran is no longer willing to play nice, and it is willing to stay at war to help Hezbollah. It wasn’t willing to go to war to help Hezbollah or stop the Gaza genocide before, and it won’t stay at war to stop the genocide now. It will, however, try and stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Southern Lebanon, which is more than the Lebanese government will do, so there’s that.

There are three parts to understanding in situations like this

  1. What can be done.
  2. What elites will do.
  3. What the consequences of action or inaction are. The real world has the final say.

The consequence of Iran not intervening was the death of substantially all of their senior leadership, and the same happened to Hezbollah. Oh, and at least half a million deaths in Palestine (if you believe the official numbers you’re so stupid I’m surprised you can breathe.) And, of course, the loss of Syria.

(Slightly inaccurate, one other person survived)

There was a complete insistence on never seizing the initiative or even responding significantly to Israeli or American attacks, so they just sat their and let Mossad and the CIA line up their ducks and knock them down.

This is always the hardest part of analytic prediction of events. There really is a lot of freedom at the top: they have a great deal of choice about what to do and what not to do. (Trump has shown that, contra arguments I heard for decades, that in fact, the President can “just do things”.)

Constitutionally cautious, Iran’s leadership was unwilling to ever fire first, or if fired on, to even fire back in a genuinely painful fashion. They certainly weren’t willing to shoot a missile to save an ally.

And so, emboldened by their apparent weakness, the Israelis and America eventually went to war with them: after stripping them of their Syrian ally, shattering Hamas and badly damaging Hezbollah: after weakening their allies, whom Iran refused, repeatedly, to defend.

But, and this is the important point: Iran always had more missiles and drone and production ability to run the US and Israel out of interceptors. It always had the ability to win a war, its leaders just didn’t have the desire.

I got the capability right, and the intention wrong. A lot of people got it the other way around: they assumed America and Israel were stronger than Iran in a local fight, and that Iran was holding back because they were weak. Since they thought Iran was weak, starting a war made sense.

It’s good that Iran’s new leadership has decided there’s an ally they won’t let die rather than do nothing, even if it comes after half a million dead Palestinians and the capture of Syria by actual terrorists. And it’s also true that Iran has done more than anyone nation except Ansar-Allah (oddly, the only actually ethical nation in the entire world: the only one actually willing to go to war to stop a clear genocide). So I don’t want to be too harsh.

But the bottom line is that if Iran, under its old leadership, had fought sooner they’d have had a lot more allies, and been in a stronger position militarily. Perhaps being 100% the clear victim and reasonable party is worth the losses, there are those who argue it is so.

But that’s a lot of dead, maimed, tortured and raped people to get to “we’re the reasonable victim.”

 

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Rahm Emanuel Turning On Israel Is Good

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On July 13, 2026

26 Comments

Rahm Emanuel might be the biggest asshole in politics. That was certainly the consensus back in the 2000s when I had lots of political contacts. He’s also filth in many, many ways and I don’t trust him.

But this is good. This is very good:

“Over the last five years, Israel has evolved from being lauded as the start-up nation to becoming, in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s words, a modern-day Sparta,” Emanuel said. “You have turned from being known for your technological prowess to being considered primarily a territorial pariah.”…

… “If I have anything to say about it, every Israeli found attacking Palestinian civilians or their property in the future will be sanctioned,” Emanuel said.

You are free to doubt Rahm’s sincerity. I sure as hell do.

Rahm is a very skilled political operator without any real principles. He gets things done, he’s a leader in the party and he’s genuinely feared by other politicians. His personal presence is intimidating.

And this is the sort of guy you need to turn. He was pro-Israel before not out of principle, as he claims, but because it was politically expedient. And he’s anti-Israeli now because he wants to be President and he’s not stupid like Harris, he can see that support for genocide is electorally toxic. If he wants to win the primary and the election he needs to be anti-Israeli.

Years of Americans seeing video after video of Israelis killing and torturing doctors, children and women have finally moved past the point that even Zionist control of essentially every major media outlet can mitigate. Generations of belief that “Israel are the good guys, the David facing Goliath” have been burned up in the fires of a live-streamed genocide.

So, this is good news. We don’t get a lot of it. Feel free to be cynical about Rahm, I sure as hell am. But that someone like him has turned matters and it gives other politicians permission to turn, because Rahm genuinely is a leader in the party.

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Brief Iran Update

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On June 26, 2026

24 Comments

So, Iran closed the Strait because Israel wouldn’t leave Lebanon. Some ships tried to leave to Iran struck the ships. Trump called that a violation of the truce and struck targets in Iran.

As predicted, there is no peace possible if the US won’t control Israel.

Meanwhile in Lebanon the government signed an agreement with Israel saying that Hezbollah is to be disarmed. Hezbollah straight up said:

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah: ‘Hezbollah considers the Lebanese presidency and government illegal and unconstitutional. We shall not permit this unconstitutional institution to implement any deal on the ground.’

The Lebanese army can’t disarm Hezbollah, Hezbollah is far stronger. I doubt they’ll seriously try, whatever Aoun orders. The deal would amount to ceding southern Lebanon to Israel permanently. Aoun might not care, it’s all Shia land, but Hezbollah won’t go along.

No peace is possible if the US won’t either restrain Israel or cut it loose. “If Iran and Israel fight, we will not intervene.”

Controlling Israel is easy. What Kissinger and Nixon did was just stop weapon shipments. That’s all it takes.

Oh, and Israel lost its battle to take Ali Taher Hill. Wound up begging Hezbollah to allow them to retrieve the corpses of their fallen soldiers. The Israeli ground forces really are absolute crap.

The MOU was very one sided: everything was what Iran wanted, not what the US wanted. That’s because the Strait being closed really will wreck America. This remains true. Iran appears to believe this, and they are willing to go back to war or semi-war until the US disciplines Israel. No signs of cutting Hezbollah loose.

Hope you’re looking forward to very high food prices, bare shelves and eventual food riots. Because if the US doesn’t make peace these are all coming to America. Oil prices have been held artificially low by market manipulation, but there is a real world and in that real world distillates like diesel are running very low.

At this point it’s clear Trump has to go, for America’s sake. Vance is scum, but he’s realistic scum. If it was up to him, there’d be peace.

Here’s hoping the MOU gets back on track. I don’t like the world where it doesn’t.

What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

Israel’s Support Is Eroding In the US

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On June 19, 2026

14 Comments

A friend pointed out to me that Israel’s support is eroding hard. The elite consensus is shifting. Point in case:

The hard core Zionists will keep opposing this deal, of course, but there are two groups that are shiftable. The first is the one that Tapper belongs to: he’s an authority follower. He’s been hardcore pro-Israel and loathes Muslims, but his first instinct is to follow the leader. Trump’s made a clear turn, and Jake is following.

The second group are those who need administrative favor. Their livelihood or plans depend on the levers the President controls favoring them. They were for Iraq, for Ukraine, etc… but they have no strong ideological commitment, only self-interest.

Trump made a mistake letting hard core Zionists roll up media and social media, but there’s still enough run by self-interested or follow the leader types that if Trump stays solid, the American elite zeitgeist will shift towards his stance. Israel is an ideological commitment, it’s not, for most elites and courtiers, all that involved with making lots of money or being part of the in-group. If the window shifts, they’ll shift with it.

At a fundamental level what happened is that America got itself involved in a war which it couldn’t just walk away from. Losing in Vietnam was embarrassing but really, who cares? Just walk away. Losing in Afghanistan, likewise.

But the Iranians have the West’s balls in a vise and the vise was slowly tightening. Key reserves were way down. Oil at Cushing OK is near historic lows. Distillates are getting scarce. Market manipulation of the price of oil was very successful, but actual physical shortages were on the way, starting in a month or so. (Ironically, price manipulation meant that oil reserves drew down faster than if actual price discovery had been allowed.)

There is a real world, and a real economy and Iran had control of it. The econo-morons talking about how the effect of this has been less than the oil shocks are right when looking at market numbers, but it wasn’t going to stay less and even Trump figured that out.

So the neocons and the hard Zionists will attack, but if Trump had the least concern for the actual economy, he had to make a choice.

Meanwhile Israel is still fighting in Lebanon and the first real battle of the Lebanese invasion is taking place.

Both Hezbollah and Israel are concerned there’ll be a new, actually real ceasefire and Israel is seeking to create facts on the ground. Ali Taher hill is an important strategic objective, giving whoever controls it sight lines for miles around. This is the first large engagement I’m aware of in this invasion where Hezbollah has chosen to stand and fight, instead hitting and fading. (That’s not a criticism. Guerilla warfare makes sense for them.)

And so far they’re doing well, because the Israeli ground forces are actually crap.

The Iranians have not gone to Geneva for the signing or negotiations. They are holding firm on Lebanon. And that means Trump can either rein in the Israelis or the vise starts tightening around America’s balls again.

America cannot win this war. It is impossible. Even using nukes probably wouldn’t work fast enough. That’s why they agreed to a deal that is very pro-Iranian.

That has not changed. They can rein in Israel or cut it loose now, or they can do it in two months when the US is in much more pain, or in 4 months when there are food riots.

There’s a real world. America lost a war that matters. There’s going to be a price for that. If America is smart and not completely controlled by Israel, they’ll pay that price now and if necessary cut Israel lose, because the price will go up every day if the MOU fails.

What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.

 

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