Ian Welsh

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

Tag: Iran Page 1 of 3

Iran Is Winning & It’s Not Close

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On March 12, 2026

37 Comments

Yes, the Americans and Israelis are inflicting a lot of damage. But that damage does not appear to be degrading the military enough to really matter. It’s mostly hitting civilians. There is zero possibility of stopping Shahed drone production, they are made with fiberglass bodies, there are hundreds if not thousands of facilities which can make them. The US can’t interdict ground supplies from China and Russia, either, meaning that everything Iran needs to build more missiles, it can get.

And if you think China, especially, won’t send Iran everything it needs you’re whistling past the graveyard. China is winning big time from this war: its ships are allowed into the Strait and every single America ally in the East is seeing that the US not only can’t protect its allies, it can’t even protect its own bases.

Every major US base in the Gulf has been hit and as far as I can tell they’re evacuated. US forces in Iraq are being hit hard and can’t evactuate. Hezbollah is slamming the North of Israel hard, and so far they’re doing very well against Israeli ground forces (as expected, Israel ground forces are crap because they’re occupation troops used to beating up people who, at most, have some homemade weapons.)

The Strait is closed. It cannot be opened till Iran allows it. Period. Iran is hitting oil infrastructure across the Gulf and despite propaganda otherwise, no Gulf interceptors cannot stop Iranian missiles enough to matter, and they WILL run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of missiles, if they haven’t already:

I see zero prospect of America and Israel winning this war, and if Iran has any sense they won’t allow a ceasefire till they have done enough damage that the US and Israel will be scared to start a new war.

Nukes? Tactical nukes won’t win the war. They’d have to hit Iran with the strategic nukes. All tac-nukes would do is turn the entire world against Israel and the US. Strategic nukes would be a war crime even Europe couldn’t ignore and turn both states into complete pariahs. They might win the war, but they’d lose the peace. And, again, Iran has everything it needs to make a few dirty nukes, and one hit on Israel renders the entire country uninhabitable.

Invasion? Impossible. Iran has a large military and perfect terrain. Any forces sent will be slaughtered. It won’t even be close, it will be a massacre, the worst US loss in generations.

The new leader of Iran is a hard liner and he had most of his family killed by America. The leadership in general knows their lives are on the line. If they don’t win in a way which makes it so Israel and the US aren’t scared to tangle with them again, the assassinations will start up again and there will be a third war. That’s unacceptable and their pain tolerance is FAR higher than America or Israel’s is. Trump is scared about midterm losses. Iran’s leaders’ lives are on the line and the lives of everyone they care about.

This war is a long way from over, but the math I pointed out at the start, that it was a race between Iran’s missile/drone levels and US/Israeli interceptor stocks is happening as I expected: Iran can go longer than the US can.

As Iran I would accept nothing less than all Gulf States and Saudi Arabia kicking out all US bases and the US withdrawing entirely from Iraq. That’s the very least I would tolerate.

In the larger strategic position, this is genuinely the end of the American global Empire. The US had a “one shot” military, to use Will Schryer’s term, and this is the shot. It has proved that the US can’t defend itself or its allies and it will take at least a decade to restock interceptors, if China allows that, which, if they’re smart (and they’re usually smart) they won’t. Remember, the US can’t make ANY advanced weapons without supplies from China.

I’ve lived a long time now and I’ve seen a lot of stupidity from America, but this war is the stupidest thing I’ve seen America do other than making the original decision to send its industrial base to China.

Empires die ugly, but America’s is dying. After this it will be a regional power.

 

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Iran Can’t Afford To Keep Fucking Up

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On January 9, 2026

38 Comments

This will offend some people because supposedly outsiders aren’t supposed to do anything but cheer Resistance actors or something.

  • Russia offered them a formal military alliance and they refused;
  • They have and had sufficient missiles and drones to overwhelm Israeli defenses;
  • During the Gaza war they did not attack Israel which allowed Israel to defeat Hamas (note that if they had, Hezbollah would have gone all in if they encouraged it, so it would have been absolutely massive, 80% of Hezbollah’s missile stockpile had not been destroyed at that point.)
  • They did not send troops to save Assad and keep Syria in their sphere,
  • During the brief Israeli/Iran war, they were winning and Israel was a week or so from running out of interceptors. Israel asked for a ceasefire and they agreed;, and,
  • They keep refusing to get nukes despite having the capability.

These are deeply foolish people and if they keep refusing to actually fight or make alliance, and keep letting Israel and the US take swings at Iran at times and places of their choosing they are eventually going to lose.

They should also get that formal alliance with Russia and make whatever agreements are necessary to get full economic support from China, which could end their inflation problems in half a year

The counter-argument is that winning the missile war might lead to nuking. I don’t think Israel would do that unless it was existential, nuking Iran would cost them extremely. But Israel having nukes is precisely why Iran either needs to get their own or to get under a nuclear powers umbrella. (Ideally you first make an alliance with Russia, then you get the nukes.)

I don’t know what the dysfunction is, exactly, but if they don’t fix it, it’s likely to be terminal. I suspect a lot comes from Khameini, certainly the nuclear ban does.

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Israel Hits Iran Hard

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On June 13, 2025

43 Comments

The senior commanders of the air and missile forces are dead, and so is the commander of the Revolutionary Guard. Multiple nuclear sites were hit, plus civilian targets.

Iran previously threatened that if Israel hit their nuclear program, they would hit Israel’s nuclear sites in retaliation.

Iran’s leadership are incompetent. That statement will enrage some readers and commenters, but they have allowed their allies to be taken out one by one, they have not yet launched significant retaliation, and their current actions, sending a hundred drones to attack Israel, are pathetic. It is no favor to them to pretend their strategy is working; it is clearly failing.

They should have had a plan for an immediate, overwhelming counter-attack. Iran’s missile force is massive and has proven able to penetrate Israeli defenses.

Once again Iran has underestimated Mossad’s penetration of their services; the air chiefs were taken out in a meeting at an underground bunker — exactly what was done to Hezbollah’s leadership. Iranian air defenses don’t appear to have intercepted anything of significance.

The entire conflict has seen the “Resistance,” with the exception of Ansar-Allah, allow Israel to set the terms of engagement, choose when attacks happen, telegraph their own rare attacks, and allow complete control of the initiative to Israel.

If Iran isn’t going to fight, it should submit. Give up its nuclear program, then slowly be destroyed by Israel and the US over a period of years, until they fall like Syria and Libya did. (Remember always that Libya was taken out after Gadaffi gave up his nuclear program, and that Iran was invaded not because it had WMD, but because it didn’t.)

If Iran is going to fight, it needs to take the gloves off and seize the initiative. Hit unexpected targets. Don’t telegraph moves. Make sure its allies have real dangerous weapons. Get the Houthis some serious anti-ship missiles, for example.

By letting their allies be badly damaged (Hezbollah) or destroyed (Syria), Iran finds themselves almost alone in the conflict. If they had been launching missiles throughout the first year of the war and had rescued Syria, they would be in a vastly better position now.

They also have either been lying about their nuclear program (and have some nukes) or have been complete and utter fools by refusing to get nukes. The idea that they could insist on their rights under the non-proliferation agreement is absurd, and has always been ridiculous. They were never going to be allowed to operate an enrichment program for civilian use. They could either join the nuclear club or submit, because only nukes guarantee the continued existence of their country and form of government.

Trump claims the US was not involved (I’m sure they at least helped with targeting and intel), but has made savage threats. The US and Israel will dismantle Iran if it does not make it clear that the cost of doing so is more than Israel and the US can stand.

Hit back. Hard. Or submit. Or die.

Those are the options. Stop talking about Resistance and actually fight.

Remember what happened to Gaddafi. Does Khameini want to die after being sodomized by a knife?

***

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Taking the Hit For Stopping Genocide

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On December 11, 2024

23 Comments

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

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On December 9, 2024

15 Comments

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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The Czechloslovakia Analogy Is Overused, But It Fits Israel

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On October 9, 2024

17 Comments

Yesterday I wrote an article about how lack of aggression has allowed Israel to control the initiative and choose the time and place it wants to fight. If you haven’t read that article, please do so now.

Back in 1938 the Allied powers agreed to let Hitler cut up Czechloslovakia. At the time the Czechs had a huge army, and if supported, they were willing to fight. They weren’t supported and, soon enough, France and Britain had to fight Germany minus a massive central European army at their side.

Woops.

October 7th took the Israelis by complete surprise. For two days Hamas roved free. After that, the Israelis systematically bombed the hell out of Gaza and then invaded. They were incompetent and Hamas fought well, but Hamas was vastly outnumbered and out-equipped. To this day they haven’t been able to stop Hamas entirely, but they’ve done a lot of damage and certainly killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

During all this Hezbollah just launched missiles. Oh, they did damage, for sure, and they caused hundreds of thousands of internal refugees and an Israeli economic crisis. Iran supplied Hezbollah and Yemen but unless hit, did nothing directly.

Hezbollah could have hit far, far harder. They could even have invaded, especially during the period when much of the army was tied up in Gaza.

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There’s a concept in military strategy and tactics called “initiative.” The side with the initiative is forcing the other side to react to it. Hamas started with the initiative, but soon lost it and the Resistance sat back and let Israel do what it wanted, when it wanted. Israel mapped out Southern Lebanon, took its time setting up assassinations and figuring out where the missile stocks were: then it struck.

Israel was gifted the initiative by the Resistance (well, not so much Yemen, they did what they could).

Hamas wasn’t ever very strong, to be sure. Not Czechloslovakia, but no joke. Their hope was always that if they provoked a war, the Resistance would join in and they could win.

But the Resistance, who were resentful that Hamas didn’t warn them of October 7th, half-assed it, and didn’t strike when Israel was most vulnerable. (It’s clear Hamas was right not to tell Iran and Hezbollah about October 7th given how compromised they both are by the Mossad.)

Now Hamas, though still fighting, is no longer a serious threat to Israel and Hezbollah was caught on its back foot though I hear at least one credible report that they’re recovering fast.

To go back to the Nazi analogy, Israel is a genocidal power with wants lebensraum.

If the shoe fits.

You don’t play around with Nazis, and so far the Resistance has been doing just that. And even more than Hezbollah, this means Iran.

Surrender, or fight. Stop the half measures.

Iran Hammers Tel Aviv & Israel

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On October 1, 2024

39 Comments

Just eyeballing it, but it seems that more missiles are getting thru than are intercepted.


Iran has said this is punishment for the Israeli assassinations. It has also said that it will defend Lebanon. And, as Nate pointed out, the missile attack is widespread:

 

All of Israel is covered by air alerts

Seems Israel isn’t going to have everything its own way.

Meanwhile the US has sent thousands of troops to Israel to “defend.” The US has been an active participant, for a while, as have been Germany, Britain and others, but this is a step beyond.

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Let’s make this really simple. If you’re trying to stop a genocide, you’re a hero. If you’re enabling a genocide, you’re a villain. Hezbollah and Iran have been trying to put pressure on Israel to stop their mass murder, and most of the West, with a few honorable exceptions like Ireland, have been helping them.

But what’s clear now is that if there’s a real war, it isn’t going to be one-sided. In the past the Israelis would bomb the shit out of their enemies, and be almost entirely safe. No longer. Israel’s not a large country, and Iran has plenty of missiles.

The main thing I’d want to see now (though I doubt it will happen) is for Russia to put Iran under their nuclear window: announce that use of nukes against Iran will be considered use of nukes against Russia.

This conflict, which threatens to become general war, is far from over.

Edit: initial reports of Mossad HQ being taken out appear to have been wrong. My apologies.

The Senders stumble into the Terror Dome

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On October 1, 2024

9 Comments

Soundtrack for this post.

William S. Burroughs postulated four political parties in his 1959 novel Naked Lunch: Liquefactionists, Senders, Divisionists, and Factualists.

Per Wiki:

The city is contested by four rival political parties: Liquefactionists, who want to merge everyone into one protoplasmic entity; Senders, who want to control everyone else through telepathy; Divisionists, who subdivide into replicas of themselves; and Factualists, who oppose the other three.

The Senders are a metaphor for mass media propaganda as practiced by Edward Bernays, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Goebbels, and American political consultants.

The Democrats and their allied Never Trumper Republicans are the heirs to this legacy.

The rise of the Internet, then the World Wide Web, and finally social media initially threw them for a loop and played a role in Trump taking over the G.O.P.

Their reaction was to impose a surveillance and censorship regime using the tech monopolies as bottlenecks:

Essentially the Biden administration’s communications policy has been to relentlessly and flagrantly spin, distort, lie

Unfortunately, combining surveillance and censorship with slick media campaigns using the power of celebrity to encourage supporters to form parasocial bonds with politicians is way too much power for anyone to handle.

Because there’s no way not to get high on your own supply.

As YouTuber History Legends said of the Ukrainian war effort:

The propaganda was too strong and too effective.

We have an entire army of NAFO trolls (on) Reddit and Twitter. People that believed 100% everything that was being said by Ukraine.

The Ukrainians will only show their successes to their population as if the Ukrainians are constantly winning.

At the same time we have a million Ukrainian men abroad. We have countless Ukrainian soldiers and enlisted personnel that are not at the front.

We have people in Kiev partying as if there’s no war happening.

The problem for Ukraine is that they haven’t managed to create (a) national feeling of it’s now or never. They always try to portray the war as ‘oh we’re winning. It’s fine.’

So everybody kind of kept their life going because everything is going well at the front but it’s not true and now it’s too late.

The disorientation goes to the top, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s new piece for Foreign Policy illustrates.

The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago. [Really??] But our work is unfinished. The United States must sustain its fortitude across administrations to shake the revisionists’ assumptions. It must be prepared for the revisionist states to deepen cooperation with one another to try to make up the difference. It must maintain its commitments to and the trust of its friends. And it must continue to earn the American people’s confidence in the power, purpose, and value of disciplined American leadership in the world.

Meanwhile, air alerts over Israel:

All of Israel is covered by air alerts

Eyeless in Gaza, indeed.

Ryan Grim tweets:

This is either a complete and total failure to contain the conflict by the Biden administration -- or this is what the White House wanted and it's the most egregious lie told to the public since WMD. Either incompetence or duplicity--no 3rd option. Malevolent in either case.

Incompetence or duplicity? What do we think?

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