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.)
مشاهد للحظة إطلاق أكثر من 100 صاروخ باتريوت للدفاع الجوي الأميركي في الأردن. https://t.co/YiibkIOeSQ pic.twitter.com/hVqDZ59yhe
— Ali A.bk (@ABKt198990) September 8, 2026
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:
⭕️ BIG.
Yemen’s Ansarallah possibly struck the East-West pipeline at several points, this morning, and later this evening.
NASA FIRMS detected fire less than an hour ago, and satelite image showed a significant plume of black smoke over the south of Medina. https://t.co/bgWEfUXHXE pic.twitter.com/tNzmzL14uY
— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) September 10, 2026
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Mark Level
The most consequential war in the last 50 years. Agreed!!
The momentum goes one way, and it is not with “the West.” A paper tiger, now it seems. Nima echoes your report on the expansion of Ansar Al-Allah’s forces westward in Yemen, the Saudi’s can’t fight. People with a genuine stake v. paid mercenaries.
Things nice here in Yucatan now. Massive storm yesterday, but now that we near mid-September, the weather is moderating. I’m apartment-hunting now, the process is complicated, there is a bureaucracy. My Posada is cheap, between $19–21 a night depending on exchange rate, breakfast included.
Once I have an apartment I can open a local bank account, then get a real visa. Crossed the border with no hassle weeks ago, nobody on the Mexican side bothers with ‘Muricans, widely assumed to be tourists. Front of my car pretty battered by the trip, got it reinforced, bumper last week. Only cost me about $25, but tipped the guy well.
TrumpCo collapsing, won’t acknowledge it. Glad I’m out of U$A
Feral Finster
“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.”
Every one of those Patriots fired is no longer available for Nazi Ukraine.
Feral Finster
“The Houthis are just better fighters than the mercenary forces Saudi Arabia is using, and the Saudi Army is a joke in any case.”
Being better fighters than the Saudis is not hard.
The entire point of the Mecca Agreement is to be able to drag Pakistan and Turkey into Saudi Arabia’s wars.
spud
Hegseth is desperately going through military leaders like hitler did, who will just follow orders, then we will win.
never mind that the orders cannot over come, nor change the facts on the ground. the most important thing is to believe and follow orders, then we will win.
different clue
American strategists should recognize this Iranian approach very well under their own legacy name of “Massive Retaliation” , aka ” the payback is a motherfucker”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/January-12/dulles-announces-policy-of-massive-retaliation
Whether the mere strategerists and tactickerists in office, from Trump on downward, are smart enough to know the history is debatable.
Prices will go up enough to where that $5,000 check Trump has promised “every American” would sure help the MAGAchuds put gas in their superduper giant size SUVs and pickup trucks. Those prices could be a real motivator to get out the MAGA vote.
“Trump, hoping to salvage midterms, makes a dubious pledge to give every US adult $5,000 if GOP wins”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-dividend-5k-5000-check-republicans-cc80644e3168acd31c892129fb849436
The question arises, is Them’s greed stronger than Us’s vengeance? I hope this Trump check promise will bring out every possible registerable counter-MAGA voter to register and vote against every MAGA candidate for Congress and Senate. I don’t want any filthy MAGA to get a Trump check. By voting against a Trump check for myself, I am voting against a Trump check for the MAGAs. Pray that Vengeance is stronger than Greed.
Feral Finster
Well, now isn’t that just special?
Behind the Scenes, Vance Gathered Unvarnished Views of the Iran War
Vice President JD Vance received sobering assessments about the war that did not line up with what he, along with President Trump and other top administration officials, were saying publicly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/us/politics/vance-iran-war-trump-munitions.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20260910&instance_id=181736&nl=breaking-news®i_id=11426405&segment_id=226315&user_id=10b3f4b2d670e8885ecdf285b018ce09
Failed Scholar
Truly incredible just how bad the Saudi military performs. 8th highest spender on defense worldwide too @ $83.2 billion USD, showing once again how useless metrics like this are for judging military power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures
mago
The most important war in 50 years and the dumbest as Ian frequently points out. Yet, the media ignores as do many alt commentators that everything was chugging along more or less normally (whatever that means) until the dumb and dumber unleashed this travesty.
Suck it in and suck it up all ye lost and forlorn and ignorant ones. It’s going to get worse day by day. (By the way, believe it or not I know people who don’t even know this war is happening . Yeah, I know, it stretches credulity.)
Off topic, but sending good wishes to Mark Level for finding stable housing and legal status.
Cheers to all. Stay in the light during these Kaliuga times.
Feral Finster
Nobody in Saudi wants a powerful military if it might be a threat to the regime. Everyone knows what happened in Egypt, Libya, etc..
The military is intended to recycle petrodollars, give the ruling family shiny toys to brag about and display (a major big deal ins such circles) and act as a jobs program for loyal princelings with the right tribal backgrounds.
Purple Library Guy
I think I should go down to the car port and give my electric car a pat of appreciation.
Bukko Boomeranger
“Since Israel keeps saying that Israeli occupation of Lebanon is a red line”
Ian — not to be rude here, but should that be “Iran” instead of the first “Israel” in that sentence? Lysdexia (sic) strikes again with those words beginning with “I”? You’re a mensch with the volume of wisdom you pump out, so mistakes get made. It must be hard on your fingers!
All kidding aside, I appreciate the heck out of your Twaater feed, which I have to read by the last work-around that skuM hasn’t squelched, since I never signed up for his service. (not gonna name it, because I worry if it gets too popular, it will be zapped. Thanks to the commenters at NakCap who steered me to the pirate site after xcancel and Nitter got zapped.)
Dermot o connor
I wouldnt be too sure about the security of diego garcia either, given iranian improvements.
Carborundum
I’m afraid I don’t agree that this is a step change from the Iranian perspective, at least WRT their ballistic missile campaign. Those attacks occurred on the night of Sept 8-9. We’ve now gone through two darkness cycles without a repeat. Reporting is that Azraq had 20 inbounds and the damage at the base was one A-10 de-winged and 8 F-15s with minor damage leaving them operational. The most salient datapoint that I get out of this skirmish is that that was a lot of Patriot launches for that number of inbounds – I think we’re not only in a situation where the number of available re-loads is limited, but also that the higher quality vehicles with good Pk have either been expended or are being preserved.
I don’t see the scale, sustainment or accuracy of the Iranian attacks as sufficient to indicate a material change to strategy or clearly demonstrate improved capability (to be clear they may actually *have* higher capability and they may have always had it; my point is that this attack isn’t dispositive – jumping from four or five simultaneous launches to 20 isn’t enough of a change).
The Houthi, now, that I agree is a significant change. Reporting this morning that they have seized control of the Red Sea coast, seizing Mocha and some offshore islands.
spud
Dermot o connor:
there is not much land in diego garcia . the runway barley fits. it would not take much to enlarge the lagoon wiping out part of the runway. then maybe the natives can have it all back.
Mark Level
Thanks to mago for the insights and the good wishes; moving slowly here but getting closer to getting housing. My phone is unable to call inside of Mexico, and I had to call Verizon, they finally admitted it was “defective.” They couldn’t send it direct, had to go thru my sister in Florida. Luckily where I am now is smaller, things were impossible in Merida. Anyway, once I get housing I can open a local bank account, and not get hit with bank charges for withdrawals. There’s an actual Real Estate agency where I am now, in Merida I had to sign up with online places that were just ripoffs. Canceled that quickly.
Very glad to be out of the US, needless to say. Best wishes to the regulars here, & I hope the midterms send a message that the duopoly parties have failed, in 4 or more years maybe there will be change? Obama very good at blocking it when he had the chance, like the rest of the Evil Political Class.
Phillip Allen
Musical interlude: https://youtu.be/R3ANMTxGVIw?si=PvxsADy-IP5mECM-
[Candide, “The Best Of All Possible Worlds” – Dame June Anderson, Jerry Hadley, Kurt Ollmann, Della Jones, Adolph Green; Conductor: Leonard Bernstein; Barbican London 1989.] I wasn’t on duty with Bernstein for the 1989 Barbican concert. I did have the great fortune to be his assistant for the 1988 Scottish Opera production trip. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQEQNuY6waw)
mago
Damn. Thanks for the link Phillip Allen.