Category: Middle East Page 2 of 21

On December 11, 2024

I’ve noticed something interesting. Every time I write about what might be done to stop the Israeli genocide, actions which would require serious fighting, people say “well I understand whey they don’t want to do that because Israel will bomb the hell out of them.”

And that’s true (though not as true when it comes to Iran, which has plenty of effective AD.)

The issue here is that there’s a genocide going on. My estimate for casualties is over half a million, and other people are starting to make the same estimates. For the past two months Israel has basically let no food into Northern Gaza. The number at the end will probably be over a million dead.

So you’re either willing to do what it takes to stop it, or you aren’t. Both Hezbollah and Iran pulled their punches and let Israel set the tempo of engagement, choosing when and where to fight, instead of engaging it when Hamas still had a viable fighting force. Iran had the missile capacity to wreck Israel’s air defense and air bases. Instead they let their proxies fight alone, and that went very badly for them.

With the fall of Syria, well, it’s no longer possible to stop the genocide. Senior Iranian leadership told their juniors they were going to intervene, then didn’t.

At least half a million people are going to die because no one was willing to do what it took to stop it.

It’s unfair this was on Iran and Hezbollah. It’s an amazing indictment of every great power in the world, and the local Arab states that none of them did anything meaningful to stop a genocide and that many helped the genocide along.

As for Iran, they themselves have pointed out that one has to resist America and Israel wherever they attack, because the plan is to end up taking out Iran. Khameini, if he hasn’t already, needs to get his head out of his ass and build nukes. And if Russia and China want to keep Iran as part of their great alliance, they need to take action.

As for Hezbollah, well, they’re cut off from land resupply from Iran. Israel and America will get to them. Playing everything cautiously did not work.

America is falling, there is no question about that. But Empire’s rarely go quiet into the night. The Age of War and Revolution continues.

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The Generational Divide Inside Iran’s IRGC

On December 9, 2024

The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp) is the most important part of the military. It’s supposed to guard the revolution: put down any internal revolts or coups. But it’s also the primary arm involved in places like Syria and Lebanon.

Among the information coming out after the fall of Assad one of the most interesting bits was on internal tensions inside the IRGC. It seems that the younger members are far more radical than the older guys currently in charge of the Republic. Khameini changed recruiting to invite only and upped indoctrination to 50% of training time, and, well, it worked. The younger members are true believers. They wanted to go into Syria and save it. They want more military action against Israel and find the missile strikes inadequate and pathetic.

Iranian leadership is renowned as cautious and conservative. They move slowly and think everything thru and risk little.

But the people who keep them in power aren’t like that: they’re happy to smash heads because they are true believers.

To make things worse, Khameini is 85. He has to arrange for a transition. And if he picks someone the youngsters won’t follow, Iran’s regime will be in great danger.

I’d say that the great problem with Iran during this last year and a half has been that it has been too cautious. Caution has served Iran well, but there are times for caution and there are times when for swift and decisive action. Iran has fumbled the war. They proved their missiles forces can break through Israel’s defenses, but have barely used them. They could have taken out Israeli air defenses and airfields directly if they were willing to be involved and not just operate thru proxies. Once they did so, Hezbollah’s strikes would have been much more effective.

The youngs were chomping to go fight and so were many of the Iran supported Iraqi militias, but they didn’t allow that. Khameini has repeatedly refused to get a nuclear deterrent, and Iran needs one. All along they have let Israel, the US and Turkey hold in the initiative and choose when and where the fighting would occur, only reacting, not forcing their tempo on the enemy. The result has been the massive weakening of Hamas and Hezbollah and the loss of Syria.

The youngs are right, and the olds are wrong. Iran needs to fight because just sitting their letting its proxies be taken out makes it look weak and untrustworthy and has degraded its actual strategic situation.

The best thing for Iran would be for the generational change to happen sooner, not later. Iran has enemies and it needs to fight, because those enemies are re-shaping the Middle East to massively reduce its power.

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Israel Is Systematically Disarming Syria

On December 9, 2024

Israel’s air force is destroying every air defense system, missile stockpile and air asset they know about, while the Jihadis whine that they aren’t Israel’s enemy.

By doing so Israel makes sure that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge of Syria: they can hit anything they want at any time and not only can’t Syria defend itself, they can’t even strike back. (Hezbollah can’t defend against air strikes, it can strike back so has some deterrence, but not enough.)

Turkey should just cut bait and directly conquer and annex Syria. Operating thru proxy forces has too many disadvantages and the days when borders were nearly sacrosanct are over. The US won’t like it, but so what? They can’t cut Turkey loose, it’s too important, and they’ve already pissed Russia and Iran off.

Looks Like Assad Is Done

On December 8, 2024

Seems the Syrian army just wouldn’t fight and its allies couldn’t prop it up this time, which given the speed of the advance makes sense. This is one of the most pathetic shows of bad army moral and corruption I’ve seen in my entire life. There weren’t enough troops willing and able to fight to even make a stand at the capital.

I don’t see how Hezbollah or Iran or even Russia could have saved Assad from an army this bad. The Syrians had to be able to at least slow the enemy down. Hezbollah and Russia no longer had significant numbers of ground forces in the country and couldn’t get enough there soon enough.

This is terrible for Lebanon, Palestine, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Russia likely loses its Med port and airfield (if they don’t, that will be very interesting); Hezbollah lose its land route for supplies and Iran its easy ability to reach its allies. Let this be a lesson about what happens when you allow frozen conflicts. Syria was cut off from its oil fields, that was allowed to stand, and without any real fiscal capacity the Syrian military became even weaker and more corrupt.

I hope the new conquerors of Syria are more tolerant than I expect them to be.

Israel will seize another chunk of Syria. Tanks are already attacking into Syria from the Golan Heights.

Huge victory for Turkey here. I’d like to think Turkish proxy forces would help Palestine, but Erdogan has been all talk, no action so far when it comes to Gaza. This would allow him to cut off oil supplies to Israel if he wants to though.

The Kurds are going to get it in the throat, which is what happens when you ally with Israel and the US.

No tears for Assad, mind you.

Syrian Allies Try To Hold At Homs

On December 6, 2024

So, according to Magnier, who usually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the Middle East:

Syrian government forces are expected to: 1. Leave Al Bu Kamal, Deir-ezzour, Palmira and stop at al-Qaryateyn to protect Homs. 2. Leave Daraa and retract to the limits of Damascus rural area. That will limit the defence of a larger area to a smaller area, secure Latakia, Tartous, Damascus and Homs.

Meanwhile Israel is considering annexing southern Syria.

Apparently some Iraqi militias Hezbollah forces are at Homs to fight, but HTS is still strong and is very well equipped, including with plenty of drones.

Edrogan has announced that HTS forces intend to occupy Damascus and Homs, which is a clear statement that they are his proxy forces.

Most of the Syrian army has proven unwilling to fight. The troops are ill paid, the winning army was mostly disbanded, and the army troops subsisted by setting up checkpoints and extorting people who had to pass through them. The critical oil fields are under US control, so Syria’s government is poor. Hezbollah can’t send the amount of troops they sent in the past, for obvious reasons, and Russia is occupied in Ukraine and doesn’t have nearly as many “mercenary” troops to send as it used to.

(This map makes things look better than they are. The majority of the population is no longer under Syrian government control, nor is the oil.)

If Syria falls, Hezbollah is cut off from its Iranian supply chain, and Russia wants to keep its naval and air bases. As for Iraq, they have to figure that they’re next: once HTS has secured a bigger base in Syria, or taken most of it, they will turn on Iraq, as similar forces did in the past.

The situation is developing quickly, and a lot will depend on whether and/or where Syria and its allies can halt the HTS advance.

Assad has proved himself unable to do what needs to be done. His #1 need was to have a functional Syrian army and he failed at that. There may be good reasons for that, like lack of money and sectarian and tribal issues, but the bottom line is that the Syrian army’s willingness and ability to fight has so far been terrible.

If his allies do manage to save him, they should turn him into a figurehead and just the run the place themselves, it’s clear that he isn’t up to the job.

At the current time it seems the most likely outcome is Syria being partitioned between Israel and Turkey, perhaps with a rump Syrian state. But until we see if and where Syria and its allies manage to hold the line, it’s hard to say. All that being true, it’s also true that Syria in 2015 had been reduced far further than it is so far, so the situation is not, at least in principle, beyond rescue yet.

But Syria’s allies need to face the fact that the Syrian army is garbage and take over the war. If they don’t, the odds of success seem… bad.

About the Syrian War & Those Rebels

On December 2, 2024

Let’s state the obvious bits and get them out of the way:

The rebels are basically Al-Qaeda;
They are supported by Turkey, Israel and the US;
The Syrian army barely fought during the initial attacks and it was very embarrassing;
Aleppo fell in a couple days. It may take a couple years to take it back;
The timing is intended to take advantage of Hezbollah’s being weakened and tied down by Israel.

Syria was losing the previous war until Hezbollah and Russia intervened. It may well lose this war if Hezbollah and/or Russia don’t send troops, but both of them have other enemies they need to worry about.

If Syria falls, Russia loses its Mediterranean naval and air bases and thus a great deal of its military reach. Hezbollah loses its main supply line to Iran.

The big mistakes that lead to this were playing footsie with Turkey/Erdogan and tolerating a frozen conflict. Syria, with Russia and Hezbollah’s support could have conquered Idlib, but Russia decided not to, leaving enemies with a foothold in Syria. Those enemies waited till the best time, then re0-openned the war.

If you’re winning a war and can win the war, then frozen conflicts are a bad idea. They remain a knife near your throat. Russia made this mistake in 2014 as well, when it could easily have fully defeated Ukraine and imposed a peace.

Hopefully they’ve learned the lesson. They do have enough reserves left to send sufficient troops to Syria. This time, win the war.

If The Gaza Ceasefire Holds, Israel Has Won

On November 27, 2024

So, terror bombing appears to have won the Gaza war. Israel’s ground invasion was pathetic, Hezbollah’s troops proved their reputation is deserved, but Hezbollah has agreed to a ceasefire.

That’s what Israel needed: that’s a strategic victory. Without Hezbollah missiles and drones hitting Israel, a ton of the pressure is off, especially economic pressure. Now Israel can concentrate on Gaza and Hamas. Without Hezbollah, they’re doomed and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of, at least, Northern Gaza will be successful.

This is why I always felt that Hezbollah, Iran and the Iraq militias needed to put much more pressure on, especially back when the Israeli army was concentrating on Gaza and Hamas still had most of its troops.

There’s a good chance this ceasefire won’t hold, of course, but if it does it’s an Israeli victory. Anyone spinning it any other way is full of shit.

If there’s going to be another round, then Iran needs to get serious anti-air to Hezbollah, because with terror bombing having worked, the Israelis will do it again.