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My Only Friend, The End…
It's probably time to start gaming out post-Khamenei scenarios for Iran.
Joe Biden's (possibly errant) allusion to prospective Israeli airstrikes on the country's oil infrastructure indicated that, at the very least, Benjamin Netanyahu has broached the subject with the White House, and very likely the possibility of hitting Iranian nuclear sites too.
Asked earlier this week if he'd support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program, Biden said "the answer's no," but on Thursday, when pressed
Excellent summary, I can’t see Netanyahu losing this advantage.
I think it’s more than he needs to press it (his advantage) now if he’s going to press it. Hezbollah’s beat at the command level, but not at the rank-and-file level and not at the localized political level either. The longer those Beirut strikes go on, the more furious the locals will be, and the longer the IDF sticks around in those border towns, the more Israeli soldiers will die. If he (Bibi) wants to do it, he needs to do it now. There’s no guarantee that Trump will win in November and the death toll for the IDF in Lebanon will be much higher by then. I’m (obviously) not promoting violence nor regime change, here. All I’m saying is that from where I’m sitting — which, thank God, is an ocean away — Israel’s best chance to topple the regime in Tehran is right now. This week.
And as you and some others here have posted, it’s not at all guaranteed that the next Iranian regime will be a peaceful pro-US, Saudi-friendly and Israel-tolerant line-up. As we saw under the shah.
That’s not as impossible as it may seem given Iran’s relatively well-educated and, amazingly, US-friendly populace, at least in the cities.
It’ll be interesting to see if their desire for liberalism will be able to overcome the national shame when Israel seeks to trigger regime change via humilating military strikes.
And as the hapless Houthis have shown us, it would not be easy to foil Iranian efforts to stymie oil traffic in the Persian Gulf. The US and Israel do not have an abundant supply of the $2.5 million missiles we use to repel drone attacks. I can remember the last episode there where sea mines disrupted things pretty well. (Iran claimed they had been placed by a “mysterious hand” as I recall.)
The more soldiers the IDF loses in Lebanon, the more pressure on the Ultra-Orthodox military service exemption too. (That situation is baffling to me: a group that won’t serve is pushing for more military action? I would love to understand that aspect of Israeli public/political views.)
Israel has to respond with a significant strike (or “lose” this facedown). There is some threshold that will cause Iran to launch another wave of missiles. Hard to imagine a “significant strike” doesn’t breach that threshold. After the next 200-missile attack, Israel’s response has to be much bigger. Curve goes up exponentially, you get to full-on war in just a couple moves. That is, assuming Israel is actually reacting vs carrying out an existing plan. A friend of mine told me “what you’re missing is that Israel started the war three weeks ago, they just didn’t tell anyone”. I am still unclear how Israel expects to change Iran’s regime by air-strikes alone. The US couldn’t do that in Germany, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. It has only been accomplished once in history – in Japan (!). Hence my wondering if Khamenei has a body double a la Putin, and how comfortable that poor fellow is right now.
On military service exemption, i recently read in Wikipedia: “In June 2024, Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Haredi Jews were eligible for compulsory service, ending nearly eight decades of exemption. The army began drafting Haredi men the following month.”
read the fine print about the draft exemptions.
Israel just tried to kill Safieddine. Not sure if he’s alive.
Or riding the snake to the lake.
There’s a big factor missing from this discussion, and that’s Russia.
Iran is an important supplier of drones, short range missiles, and other military equipment to Russia essential for their ongoing war in Ukraine. Moreover, Russia is highly motivated to avoid sharing another long border with a Western-friendly country. They lived through that with the Shah, and would not like to go back.
Russia has a very long history in the region, and they have very strong opinions about that history (that their view is highly revisionist is neither here nor there). “The Great Game” is a fascinating book about the geostrategic maneuvering and conflict during the 18th and 19th century in Central Asia between the Russian and British empires. Seriously, much of it reads like if Indiana Jones were non-fiction, it’s a great history book. Russia will not quietly sit by while Iran falls into a failed state, nor abandon it to its fate in the event of a war with a combined Israel-US attack, nor fail to do anything they can to help Iran so long as it doesn’t conflict with their own best interests.
Obviously, Russia isn’t going to be putting boots on the ground in Iran. But they’ll do what they can to support their friends in Tehran. They stood by Assad all these years largely just to make a point about how they stand by their friends. It strikes a stark contrast, especially in that particular region of the world, with the United States which has an unfortunate and embarrassing history of abandoning our supposed allies and friends.
At the risk of over simplifying, U.S. foreign policy since 1947 could be summed up as: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and everybody else.
Now do the same over simplification, but for Russian foreign policy.
Tougher. But, how about: Maintain our status as a Great Power (UN Security Council), push Europe/NATO back in the West.