Iron Domes and Chutzpah

“Iran lobbed 200+ missiles at Israel yesterday and we’re really worried that Israel will use this as an excuse to start a war”

What that lacks in intelligence, it makes up for in consistency: no matter what they are forced to endure, it’s somehow always the fault of the Jews.

Fr. Joseph Krupp on Twitter, with the quoted text paraphrasing the meaning of two Arab officials worrying that Israel will respond.

We should note that the Iranian assault was itself a response to the Israeli targeting the consular section of the Iranian Embassy in Syria to kill a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.  Attacking an embassy is classically regarded as an act of war.

Of course, Iran and Israel have been in a shadow war for years. 

Israel should not have done that.  But the Iranian response was inept.  Since they engaged in it, there's been a lot of commentary to the effect that Israel should not respond.

Really? To an assault like that?  That's asking for a lot.

Basically, where this is at is here, by analogy.  If Japan, on December 7, 1941, had lost all of its aircraft carriers and none of the ships in Pearl Harbor had been sunk, or even seriously damaged, would Japan have been allowed to come back with, "well there, we certainly taught you a lesson, now let's not overreact".

I doubt it.

Lots of people are hoping Israel doesn't respond, and it might not.  Iran should certainly hope that, as its airborne offensive capabilities have been proven to be worthless against Israel and there's now an open question about what its defense capabilities are like.  If it can't stop a serious Israeli counterstrike, it's fresh meat for the dogs in the neighborhood.  "Oh look. . . Iran is bleeding. . . "

What this also shows is what Ukraine could do if it was provided with enough air defenses to take on Russian strikes. Russia's capabilities in this area really aren't much better than Iran's, and indeed, they're using Iranian drones.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part X, Declarations

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

The flags of Israel, apparently Hamas, and the crest of the Palestinian Authority.

We'll first bring this edition up to date with some entries from the last one:

October 7, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Hamas launched a large scale offensive against Israel yesterday, sending both ground forces and rockets across the border.  Israel has termed it a war and has called up reservists.

October 8, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Russia bizarrely called for a ceasefire between the warring parties.

Civilian casualties are about equal so far, each standing at about 250 persons.  Hamas took hostages back into Israel.

October 9, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

In something, we just don't see occur anymore, but which we really should, Israel has actually issued a Declaration of War, of course against Hamas.

Declarations are a formal legal document and really without one, at least legally, a state of war does not exist.  This is, therefore, not only a throwback (which it shouldn't be) to an earlier era, but an important legal step.

Israeli ground troops have not yet entered Gaza (we anticipate that it will) but Israel has placed Gaza under siege.  Nothing is coming in or out.

The US has moved ships closer to the region.

In acts of supreme stupidity, some members of Congress or others who are simply opponents of Joe Biden are blaming him for Hamas' actions.  Truly, that's really off the wall.  Look to see for some of those who rally to Israel's defense to be the same parties who are opposed to Ukraine's, and look for cries of US support to Israel from some of the same who would dump support for Ukraine, even though Ukraine is a democratic country, like Israel, also fighting for its existence.

Worth noting, one of the Hamas targets was a "rave" party, perhaps accidentally, in support of peace at which young Israeli's were gathered. Reports indicate that not only were attendees gunned down in cold blood, but at least two young women were raped next to the dead bodies of their friends and then viciously murdered.

This gives us two recent examples, which should not be forgotten, of armies using rape and murder as weapons against civilians, one being Putin's Russian army in Ukraine, and now Hamas, which claims Islam as part of its founding principles, in Israel.  Any army doing that loses all claims to legitimacy.

Hamas controls 74 seats out of the Palestinian's 132 in their parliament, giving them the majority.  How this war plays out is yet to be seen, but it has to call into grave question the land for peace strategy that Israel followed starting at the time of the Camp David Accords.

It is worth noting that Hamas' funding comes from donations, Gaza in particular being economically unviable.  Presently, a large percentage of that comes from Iran, which is somewhat ironic due to the traditional hostility between Sunni and Shia Islam. Hamas is primarily Sunni.  Other regional Sunni states are major economic donors as well.  Iran is also a backer of forces opposed to the US in Syria.

cont:

Israel has called up 300,000 reservists.

October 10, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Hamas operations in southern Israel expanded yesterday, and the IDF fought Hamas in thirteen locations on the West Bank. Hezbollah crossed Israel's northern border in a rocket supported raid.

This is all contrary to news reports, which have largely failed to mention that guerilla operations are expanding.

Hamas has called for a general mobilization for Friday.  This is unlikely to occur.

cont:

I think people will not believe the reports of what happened in Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Beeri. Even though Hamas posted photos and videos on their own Telegram channel. Because these are ISIS tactics. Beheaded babies and burned corpses. Yes, I saw the photos.

Lisa Goldman, Canadian journalist. 

This assertion is hotly disputed by Palestinians.

October 11, 2023

Russia v. Ukraine

Russia lost a bid, not surprisingly, to regain a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.  Its obtaining a seat would have rendered the Council a complete joke. 

It was suspended last year.

The Ukrainian offensive is back down to proceeding at a snail's pace.  There's really no way to put a happy spin on this.

October 11, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

US advanced weaponry has begun to arrive in Israel.

There are additional reports today that Hamas killed children and infants.

cont:

Liz Cheney has repeated the item about Hamas murdering 40 babies.  I note this, as Cheney has been a source that I trust, and whom certainly turned out to be correct about other foreign policy matters.

cont:

U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran, just like Israel (and the U.S.) was surprised by he Hamas assault on Israel.

That's likely because they would have tried to call it off, knowing that the falling chips would lead to a disastrous Hamas result in the end.

October 12, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Israel hit the Aleppo and Damascus airports in airstrikes, one just before an Iranian diplomat was set to land. His plane turned around back to Iran.  The plane apparently also contained members of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Russia v. Ukraine

Ukraine is apparently working on port arrangements with Romania in order to ship grain from that country.

cont:

Hamas has called for a global day of jihad to take place tomorrow.

cont:

The Royal Navy, like the U.S. Navy, has now deployed in assistance to Israel.

October 14, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Israel notified the United Nations early today that the 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza should relocate to the enclave's southern 12 miles within the next 24 hours.

This points out what I've stated elsewhere, but which very little of the media seems to be grasping. By the Palestinians giving their allegiance to Hamas, they're effectively doing the same thing that the Germans did by having given their allegiance to the Nazis.  They've invited destruction to rain down upon them.

There will be comments that the Israeli counteroffensive is disproportionate to what occured, but that misses the point.  It's not what should happen, it's what will happen.  Israel will go into Gaza and 1.1 million Palestinians will not be able to relocate. There will be numerous civilian deaths.  Palestinians, who excel at playing the wrongfully aggrieved party, will howl with remorse in the way common to Middle Easter people, but the end of Gaza as an effective entity is probable, and it's very likely that the end of Hamas will occur.

Things are going to get much worse, no matter how you look at it, before they get better.

North Korea v. South Korea

North Korea complained about a U.S. aircraft carrier being in South Korea.

Russia v. Ukraine

Russia has launched an offensive in the north, around Avidiivka.

Ukrainian offensive actions continue on elsewhere, but are slow.  As noted elsewhere, the Ukrainian offensive never really advanced at a significant rate and while it recently gained significant ground, it's bogged down again.  There are those trying to put a happy face on it, but what has been demonstrated is that the Ukrainian military, at present, is incapable, or unwilling to sustain the massive losses it would require, to advance at a rate that will bring it victory.

The Russians, for their part, are incapable of the same.

We're entering a World War One style stalemate.

Russian authorities are forcing dioceses of the Kremlin-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate. to join the Russian Orthodox Church.

cont:

The Jerusalem Post can now confirm based on verified photos of the bodies that the reports of babies being burnt and decapitated in Hamas's assault on Kfar Aza are correct.

May their memory be a blessing.

The Jerusalem Post. 

cont:

Right in the middle of this map is a brown strip called the Gaza Wadi.  Everyone north of that line, which is everyone in Gaza city proper, has been told to evacuate by tomorrow.

It likely cannot happen, but the fact that the instruction has been given is telling.

Also telling are some of the facts and figures on this map, including the 46% unemployment rate and the 60% poverty rate.  Obviously, the entire Gaza Strip is untenable. It can't, and never will be able to be, anything more than sort of a welfare state.  Israel has not wanted it. Egypt, whose border with it is closed (something other countries seem to have no problem doing) tells us all we need to know about Egypt's view about Gaza.

A situation in which the Palestinians are impoverished welfare clients of the world, and more particularly of the Arab world, armed in order to give Israel grief by the Muslim nations of the Middle East, can't go on forever.  They will not overcome Israel and this situation cannot go on.  None of the options are comfortable, but they should be discussed.

Of note, over 6,000,000 non-Saudi nationals are employed in that country.

600,000 non nationals work in Bahrain.

4.9 million non nationals work in Dubai.

The entire Palestinian population of Gaza could be taken in by Arab states that need workers.  Yes, they may not want to go there either.  But to remain, they'll have to live how to accommodate themselves to reality, or this will go on and on. They should not be removed, of course, by force, but that may be just about to happen.

October 15, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

Republican Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who is Jewish, was arrested Friday for carrying a firearm at a pro-Palestinian rally on Thursday.  There have been calls for her removal from office as a result.  

Frankly, her carrying a handgun at the event, which she was observing, was perfectly rational and fits exactly within the Second Amendment.

Egypt has completed a concrete barrier to block Palestinian entrants from Gaza.  Their border is very small, so they will be able to enforce it.

Qatar has refused to take Palestinian refugees.

Russia v. Ukraine

Russia has not conducted an airstrike against Ukraine since September 21, indicating that they are likely storing missiles for a winter offensive.

Afghani Civil War

A bomb outside a mosque killed fifteen people in the country yesterday.

Last Prior Edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part IX, Late Summer.

Related Threads:

Governor Gordon Orders Flags Be Flown at Half-Staff Statewide Until Sunset on Friday, October 13 in Honor of Lives Lost in Terror Attack on Israel

Hamas v. Israel. Some observations, and How did we get here?

And a further note.

Some additional observations on the Hamas v. Israel War

Causalities of Tension and Incompetence.

Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner over Tehran this week, after its retaliatory missile strikes on US facilities in Iraq.  The plane was carrying Iranians mostly bound for Canada, which has a large Iranian immigrant population.

To make this plane, Iran's military shot down a civilian aircraft over their own capitol city.

This is because the Iranian military isn't great.

Iran has universal male conscription at 18 years of age.  Interestingly, prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it also conscripted women, but stopped at that time.  This means it has a large conscript military.

And while it has obtained arms, as the greed and stupidity of nations exceeds their best interests all too often, their military is basically a 1970s vintage force.

We don't know what happened to lead to this tragedy, but my guess is that a tired and scared group of Iranian conscripts had been harangued by officers and seniors about expecting an American attack to the point they were worn out and scared.  So they fired on what they thought was an American military aircraft and 176 completely innocent people, most of whom were their fellow countrymen. We don't know what happened to the men who fired the missile, but we can be assured that it is or was bad.

Nothing will happen to the men ultimately responsible for the tragedy, which is the Iranian Islamist leadership that has governed the country for forty one years and kept in on a violent path of regional Shiite dominance. That government will ultimately go down in an Iranian revolution of some sort, and much of their theocratic views forever with it.

Where this leaves the Iranian American Conflict is not known, but what has turned out to be the case is that an extremely risky course of action the US embarked on due to an order of President Trump and under the apparent urging of Mike Pompeo has been surprisingly effective so far.  Nearly everyone agrees that Gen. Soleimani was a terrorist whose demise should not be lamented.  That he was a uniformed officer of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, and the method by which it occurred really ramped up the risks, but Iran's response was ineffective, perhaps intentionally so, or perhaps simply because it was.  And Iran managed to put the period on the entire event by following up an ineffective missile strike by shooting down a Ukrainian airliner.  The U.S., in the meantime, has essentially declared the matter over.

Either as an example of truly masterful strategy, or by accident, the U.S. has effectively moved the bar on state sponsored terrorism and, due to the past week, managed to make state employed uniformed terrorist a routine target in wars on terrorism and to have exposed Iran's conventional forces as less than impressive.  Iran may have in fact suffered a set back as a sponsor of terrorism and given its history, that's a large part of its diplomatic approach to the world. Without it, it's not much.

At least not much until it acquires a nuclear weapon, which it is now working on.  Indeed, exposed as conventionally incompetent and now with a reduced military portfolio because of the changed nature of the game, it may be stepping back because it knows this has become a must for it.

Or so it probably believes. The irony of it is that nuclear weapons for small nations are, frankly, completely worthless.

Hubris and Hostilities. The Death of Gen. Qasem Soleimani

Gen. Qasem Soleimani was a bolt and brave man.

The aptly named USAF MQ-9 Reaper.

Which doesn't make him somebody we should admire. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brave and bold man, but he served an evil cause and went on to found the Klu Klux Klan.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Joachim Pieper was a bold and brave man.  But he was a nasty Nazi as well.  His special SS commandos were responsible for the Malmady massacre, for example, the 75th anniversary of which was just passed.

Joachim Peiper

And indeed, both men are good comparisons in some ways.  They were radicals for causes they believed in deeply, and they were willing to die for them. They had personal bravery, an attribute we widely admire, and applied it in the service of causes we deeply oppose.

Soleimani has been an instrumental figure in Iranian proxy wars all over the Middle East.  A person cannot feel sorry for his death and he died the way that people who live the way he lived die.  He who lives by the sword, as St. Matthew noted, die by it.

Islam of course was spread by the sword and for a very, very, long time its two principal Middle Easter branches have contested it other in manners in which swords were occasionally drawn.  Iran, for its part, has had no problem whatsoever about violently spreading its Shiia theocracy's point of view violently from day one.

And hence the irony.  Soleimani had been allowed to do what he did, mostly because the West tolerated. There are certain rules to war, even dirty wars and proxy wars, and one of them is that you don't assassinate the uniformed general officers of your opponent.

Not that doing such is an illegitimate act of war.  Soleimani was a solders.  Killing soldiers is legitimate.  We've been at war in Iraq now for 20 years, attempting to prop up a government we installed while Iran attempts to completely co-opt it.  Iran has no right, or at least not any more right than we do, to have proxy armies in Iraq. At least we have a relationship with the legitimate government.  So Soleimani flying into the Baghdad airport was based on the assumption that his Western opponents would abide by the unwritten rule of not targeting the general officers of an opponent even if Iran itself has widely ignored the laws of war.

Apparently the current administration has determined that it won't abide by that rule.

Which brings us to this.

Nobody should weep for Soleimani.  Probably even Soleimani wouldn't want people to do that.  And he received a fate which, through is life, he had advocated for.

But now what?

Clearly, we're on to some sort of new stage in the long slow struggle with Iran.  Iran hasn't played by the written rules and now we're not playing by the unwritten ones.  Iran will be obligated to retaliate somehow, but in asymmetric war, they're uniquely exposed as a large established state.  Their ability to act as a sponsor of terrorism and proxy militias depended upon the grace of their opponents, which now seems to have been removed.  It will try to act, not doubt, but in doing so, it can no longer be certain of anything.

Still, the question remains.  What on earth was Soleimani thinking in pulling into an airport in a country where you are maintaining an illegitimate military effort?