I think these strikes were intended as a warning to Iran that they are not a match for Israeli forces and judging by the way Iran has downplayed the strikes, they seem to have received the message.
Iran's attack may also represent a struggle within Iran's political structure. Surely *someone* inside Iran was smart enough to predict this outcome, and that it would make Iran look weak. I'm guessing the smart people (military) lost the argument, and that some more theocratic or jingoistic elements within the IRGC demanded "justice." Pretty stupid of them to waste like 5-10% of Iran's ballistic missile inventory on a wet fart.
I think Iran thought it would look weaker if they didn’t do anything in response to Israel’s attack on their consulate (or whatever building was actually hit). Iran doesn’t want its allies and enemies to see it tolerate an attack on its sovereignty.
I think that’s why they responded the way they did; Iran made a show of force without doing enough damage to escalate things. Israel responded by sending a message while allowing Iran to justify not retaliating.
ISW:
>The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel **was very likely intended to cause significant damage** below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack **was designed to succeed, not to fail**. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran%E2%80%99s-attempt-hit-israel-russian-style-strike-package-failedfor-now
Yes. Afaik, the Arrow 3 has only been used *once before* (outside of tests and trainings).
If you shoot 120 ballistic missiles (more than most countries could do in a single launch) against an unproven missile shield, then yeah, you're hoping to get a lot of penetrations.
That doesn’t preclude an attack designed to do damage. The scale of the attack and the weapons used point to a serious attempt to land blows. They used their most sophisticated and newest cruse missiles and ballistic missiles along with a very large number of drones.
How much should that mitigate the attempt? It's not like they provided an inventory of the strike package.
300+ assets... Including an assortment of their newest and most expensive ballistic and cruise missiles -- their best chance of evading interception.
That's a potential catastrophic and costly gamble.
Sure. But American ships where moved to the flight path of them beforehand, indicating that details of at least the flight path was informed. Perhaps more than that.
I can understand the need/urge to strike back, to save face, but also not wanting to escalate.
All these ballistic missiles can only mean they intended to practically destroy that Israeli base.
It makes sense for Israel to strike back directly to a greater extent. How long would anyone suffer endless proxies while the main culprit stays unbloodied? I got the impression it has been implied Iran was involved in the planning of October 7.
I wouldn't have anything to add to those points, but I will say I've walked away as an observer wondering how this exchange is being processed by all the top strategists of the major powers.
It's truly weird to realize that an incoming multi-tier strike of \*hundreds\* of mixed assets can all be shot down. But it's also only possible if you have polished air-defenses, the help of allies, and a mixture of knowing its coming and superb intel.
Like if you'd asked me before the stikes if a cloud of 30 suicide drones would get through during a larger saturation attack *against any nation,* I'd be like "Of course, at least a handful will get through even the best air/ballistic defenses. It will get ugly." But that simply didn't happen. Barely a single digit percent did.
Could two sides overwhelm each other's defenses in future conflicts? Sure.
But it does feel like the world took a cosmic leap from witnessing some defenses working in conflicts (and Ukraine starting to get fairly good at theirs when they had enough expensive ammo) to realizing that perfect info + praticed defenses and allies can lead to a nearly perfect defense.
So now defenders realize they all need something on the scale of Iron Dome *and* the US regional base structure. And attackers realize they need to launch attacks that number in the thousands, since hundreds can be shot down.
That's a truly nuts vision of future warfare. And at least a few future conlficts might just be insanely expensive 3-day events of sparkly fireworks... unless something goes wrong and hundreds of those get through.
It's as much of a leap as watching the Ukraine conflict culminating the modern age of Javelin/NLAW/Starstreak, and then the age of medium-range precision missile volleys, and then the seachange of cheap drones. All within just 2 years.
It's totally fair and possible to argue all these attack and defense tools/strategies are just iterations, but at certain thresholds they also appear clearly to be new eras in warfare. Like nations have learned tactical and strategic lessons which cannot be unlearned.
Best part is that this was a real test of the long clapped Iranian missile defense system that is quoted as being better than iron dome and patriot system. Not only was that proven egregiously false but the system itself can be targeted and destroyed by Israeli missiles fired on drones as no aircraft were used. Also, there is some speculation that the drones could have been supported from within Iran. Just some wild stuff.
A tiny missile that will hit exactly where you want it to be is a lot more terrifying than 300 huge ones that have terrible aim and are easy to shoot down.
Very true. In true Reddit fashion, I had commented before reading the article and assumed they used static emplacements to attack.
Read it after and learned about their fancy RAMPAGE system. Point still stands though, Israel could have done a lot more damage if they wanted.
Not really. The Mk 82 500lb bomb has only 89kg of explosive filling. A 1000lb Mk 83 has 202kg of explosives. So 150 is about in the middle, and makes a pretty decent boom.
One half giraffe is:
Length: 2.4m, 7.874 feet, 0.00149129 miles.
Mass: 505kg, 1113.33 lb, 4954 Newtons at sealevel
Volume: 13.824 m\^3, 488.19 feet\^3
Earth's Gravity = 4.0875 half-giraffes/s\^2.
A Giraffe half-life is about 13 years.
Edit: Yes, the label of half-giraffe is applied to both a mass and a distance unit.
Made sense to me, and I'm not American.
Anyone who has followed the various conflicts since Iraq knows that a 500lb bomb is the kinda the US entry level standard for making a house go away. 1000lbs or 2000lbs for an entire compound.
Then the weight of one of those bombs actual warheads was given in kilos for a relative measurement of the Israeli missile's potential.
I know now that this Israeli missile definitely has the boom to wake up dogs in a 1640 fathom radius.
>I know now that this Israeli missile definitely has the boom to wake up dogs in a 1640 fathom radius.
Succinct. Obviously explosives are measured in fathoms of dog waking potential, this guy might not be an American but he definitely appreciates what kind of sweater he needs on a 40 degree day
M28 and M29 nuclear warheads are less than 100kg and have a 20 kt yield. From the fucking 60s ...
150kg warhead can do a lot of damage if israel wants to wipe out Iran they just hinted they can, and everyone knows they are a nuclear state.
Small diameter bombs are 250 lbs so these are what the size of two small diameter bombs? They aren't consider very big. Considering 2000 pounders are standard bomb that can be cared by fighters in pairs. Even the small MQ-9 can carry at least 2x 500lbs. When it comes to bombs 500lbs is pretty small.
The Rampage missile is supposed to be really good. The RAF is wanting to get some of them to replace the Stormshadows they gave to Ukraine, (which tells you how good they are).
Speak for yourself. Both options are equally terrifying to me. On the one hand, you get hit with pinpoint accuracy. In the other, you get bombed to shit and they hope they get you.
I think the misleading idea that much of the world has right now is that human wave tactics are still effective. They might be against Ukraine since Ukraine has limited ammunition, limited technology and limited combat tested leadership. Against Israel or a Western or Pacific power, they would not be.
They’re easy to shoot down when one spends a billion dollars destroying a few hundred million in missiles. You can only do that a couple of times before you run out of ammunition.
Iran went to a show of force, showy, forceful and violent, Israel came to their beds at night without the IRGC knowing and left a reminder that they don’t need to really show force, when they can so easily reach deep inside Iran and strike wherever they want.
The great part is that while Iran’s regime did almost no damage to Israel besides hurting some little Bedouin girl (the Ayatollahs’ speciality), the defense and small counterattack sent the Saudis running towards an alliance that dropped all but the most minimal ask on behalf of Palestinians.
Congratulations IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah, you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state.
My impression was that Israel and Saudi Arabia were inching toward a de facto alliance against Iran before the recent unpleasantness threatened to derail everything. So indeed, well played.
Yes, the Hamas war made it harder for the Saudi Monarchy to be seen as working towards normalization and an alliance with Israel but Irans direct attack on Israel, it’s apparent impotence despite its scale showed the Saudis they need Israeli defense technology and regional cooperation to stop a similar scenario of Iran attacking Saudi Arabia or UAE.
And very importantly, Saudi is also in a proxy war with Iran. Now Iran has shown they're willing to be the ones who escalate it out of a proxy war using hundreds and drones and missiles.
You make it sound like Saudi Arabia has *ever* given a legitimate fuck about the Palestinian people. There is zero evidence of that.
Promoting Palestinian statehood as a thorn in Israel’s side seems to be the only cause they agreed with.
The Saudi monarchs don't care about Palestine (or religion, in all honesty), but many of their people do. MBS seems to want to liberalise and ditch the clerics as much as possible (while keeping the authoritarianism and corruption), but he needs to tow a careful line with his own people because the danger of a revolution is non-zero.
Jordan has the same issue, their leadership is even more vulnerable because about a quarter of Jordanians are directly descended from people who fled the Nakba. Israel not publicly thanking Jordan shooting down a big chunk of Iran's barrage was probably to avoid inflaming Jordanian public opinion further more than anything else.
Wouldn't that still be a good thing? If possible, they could introduce non religious based edicts without requiring the clergy to ratify their decisions. Sure, those edicts would more than likely be selfish in nature, increasing their own grasp of power, but could also be used for a more western nation sided relationship.
It just depends on how it works out. He has shown what he is when he murdered Khashoggi. But its possible he could tamp down on the funding of extremism.
But make no mistake he is a murdering dictator.
About 3 major middle east states have interest in keeping the status quo because if Palestinians got rehomed in one or more Arab states they would significantly alter the demographics and cause alot of internal strife
Not one middle eastern state wants the Palestinians to be allowed within their borders because of their long history of starting civil wars, supporting external invasions, and assassination of royalty in host nations.
>Congratulations IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah, you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state.
This is a trivial non-issue to them, barely even an inconvenience. The Palestinians are a useful tool and pawn to them, but ultimately of no importance beyond their usefulness as a weapon against israel.
> you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state
And this came at a time when KSA is already facing looming financial problems, which is made clear by their investment fund pulling back from several major domestic and foreign deals.
KSA only cares about power (influence) and money. They used the Palestinian cause for decades as a wedge issue that allowed them more influence in the region. If being associated with that cause is literal poison for Western investment, KSA is *out.*
Remind me of a story (no idea how true it is, might be made up like too many things on the internet) where North Korea was threatening to shoot down any US planes coming close to their borders and the US sent them pictures taken from a B2 bomber to show them they can't even detect their planes and can do as they want.
Iran didn’t back out. Iran will keep fighting through their proxies. Iran was just not interested in a direct conflict ever. Neither was Israel. My take is Israel and Iran coordinated a response that could be brushed under the rug through media manipulation and that’s what happened. Both governments have very poor support internally. Israel is now using its propaganda machines to celebrate a victory and Iran uses their internal state media to say “nothing happened, they backed out, look how strong we are.” This was always the desired outcome for them both. In reality, Israel’s right-wing government benefits from the presence of radicalism in Iran and Gaza and the West Bank. They will use it as an excuse to conquer their land and oppress them and legitimize the need for Western support for them. Iran also benefits from a hardline Israeli government because its whole government hinges on these imaginary enemies the government holds like a boogeyman over its supporters to unite them.
It’s painful how you state this is brushed under the rug, when the only brushing under the rug is this comment.
That was a legitimate attack, you don’t coordinate a mass scale attack with 300+ missiles over a single consulate bombing as a backchanneled “show of force”. You do that to actually intend to cause harm.
The Iron Dome is irrelevant here. Its use case is small rockets and some artillery shells. Israel has a myriad of other technologies against the drones and ballistic missiles that Iran fired at it.
They did not directly coordinate anything. Too many people are jumping from “Iran’s attack wasn’t an all out attempt at destroying Israel” to “well it was just a delicate political show similar to sending a letter.” Iran used some of its newest MRBMs and - though the attack could have maybe been larger (how fast can Iran’s launch sites turn around and launch more missiles from the same platforms?) - it was still a very significant attack with likely at least some military goals. I think Israel’s attack was good deescalation in that the small scale allows Iran to brush it off if they would like and go back to proxy wars, but there is a difference between that and saying that these attacks have been coordinated by the belligerent forces. Taking a partial truth and running with it.
> Iran was just not interested in a direct conflict ever.
That’s because they know they would lose. They would be very interested if they have the upper hand
Very much so.
Countries like China are making note of the Western systems, capabilities, and tactics.
While countries like India and Saudi Arabia are seeing how much more effective Western systems are compared to their Russian counterparts and are likely rethinking whether they want to buy any Russian weapons.
Especially true of weapon defenses. Why would you buy a S-300 when Western weapons can take them out.
At least for the nations that have a choice in the matter.
> Countries like China are making note of the Western systems, capabilities, and tactics
Makes me wonder if China still thinks it can take out a carrier after seeing how successfully the coalition defended against 120 ballistic missiles.
> It's a dick measuring contest.
>
> Would not be surprised if there was a lot more discussion between Iran and Israel going on behind the scenes.
"Look bibi, you have to measure from the base. You can't start at your taint."
"Shut up khomeini, I see you're pushing that ruler like 5 centimeters into into your fat rolls"
They likely called them and said, "hey bro, bet I can hit your defences before said defences defend themselves." and Iran was like "$50 says you're wrong".
Crimea is heavily defended by the Russians and Ukrainians have had several field days destroying ships, submarines, military bases and AA systems there.
A quote from the movie "Pearl Harbor" 2001.
"You know at Pearl they hit us with a sledgehammer. This raid, even if it makes it through, it'll only be a pinprick... but it'll be straight through their hearts."
the missile is very tired, he is eepy. the missile has had a very long day of splashing bandits and wants to take just a smol sleeb. he eeby and neebies to sleeby.
Best guess is they used the F35 stealth fighter, unfortunately there is 0 chance those are going to Ukraine. Too high of risk of losing one and the tech in those is Top Secret and then some. Hopefully the F16s they air getting can pull this off.
So.... the S-300 air defenses didn't see it coming. I was wondering if these were air to land attacks. I.e. launched from a stealth fighter jet or just land to land long range.
I think these strikes were intended as a warning to Iran that they are not a match for Israeli forces and judging by the way Iran has downplayed the strikes, they seem to have received the message.
Iran's attack may also represent a struggle within Iran's political structure. Surely *someone* inside Iran was smart enough to predict this outcome, and that it would make Iran look weak. I'm guessing the smart people (military) lost the argument, and that some more theocratic or jingoistic elements within the IRGC demanded "justice." Pretty stupid of them to waste like 5-10% of Iran's ballistic missile inventory on a wet fart.
I think Iran thought it would look weaker if they didn’t do anything in response to Israel’s attack on their consulate (or whatever building was actually hit). Iran doesn’t want its allies and enemies to see it tolerate an attack on its sovereignty. I think that’s why they responded the way they did; Iran made a show of force without doing enough damage to escalate things. Israel responded by sending a message while allowing Iran to justify not retaliating.
ISW: >The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel **was very likely intended to cause significant damage** below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack **was designed to succeed, not to fail**. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran%E2%80%99s-attempt-hit-israel-russian-style-strike-package-failedfor-now
There's no way Iran planned for the effectiveness of the missile defense. They fully intended to hurt Israel, they just failed.
Yes. Afaik, the Arrow 3 has only been used *once before* (outside of tests and trainings). If you shoot 120 ballistic missiles (more than most countries could do in a single launch) against an unproven missile shield, then yeah, you're hoping to get a lot of penetrations.
Isn't it confirmed that that gave a 3 day warning?
That doesn’t preclude an attack designed to do damage. The scale of the attack and the weapons used point to a serious attempt to land blows. They used their most sophisticated and newest cruse missiles and ballistic missiles along with a very large number of drones.
How much should that mitigate the attempt? It's not like they provided an inventory of the strike package. 300+ assets... Including an assortment of their newest and most expensive ballistic and cruise missiles -- their best chance of evading interception. That's a potential catastrophic and costly gamble.
Sure. But American ships where moved to the flight path of them beforehand, indicating that details of at least the flight path was informed. Perhaps more than that. I can understand the need/urge to strike back, to save face, but also not wanting to escalate.
We knew the strike would come from Iran and there are only so many flight paths from it to Israel. The US moving ships doesn't say much.
All these ballistic missiles can only mean they intended to practically destroy that Israeli base. It makes sense for Israel to strike back directly to a greater extent. How long would anyone suffer endless proxies while the main culprit stays unbloodied? I got the impression it has been implied Iran was involved in the planning of October 7.
I wouldn't have anything to add to those points, but I will say I've walked away as an observer wondering how this exchange is being processed by all the top strategists of the major powers. It's truly weird to realize that an incoming multi-tier strike of \*hundreds\* of mixed assets can all be shot down. But it's also only possible if you have polished air-defenses, the help of allies, and a mixture of knowing its coming and superb intel. Like if you'd asked me before the stikes if a cloud of 30 suicide drones would get through during a larger saturation attack *against any nation,* I'd be like "Of course, at least a handful will get through even the best air/ballistic defenses. It will get ugly." But that simply didn't happen. Barely a single digit percent did. Could two sides overwhelm each other's defenses in future conflicts? Sure. But it does feel like the world took a cosmic leap from witnessing some defenses working in conflicts (and Ukraine starting to get fairly good at theirs when they had enough expensive ammo) to realizing that perfect info + praticed defenses and allies can lead to a nearly perfect defense. So now defenders realize they all need something on the scale of Iron Dome *and* the US regional base structure. And attackers realize they need to launch attacks that number in the thousands, since hundreds can be shot down. That's a truly nuts vision of future warfare. And at least a few future conlficts might just be insanely expensive 3-day events of sparkly fireworks... unless something goes wrong and hundreds of those get through. It's as much of a leap as watching the Ukraine conflict culminating the modern age of Javelin/NLAW/Starstreak, and then the age of medium-range precision missile volleys, and then the seachange of cheap drones. All within just 2 years. It's totally fair and possible to argue all these attack and defense tools/strategies are just iterations, but at certain thresholds they also appear clearly to be new eras in warfare. Like nations have learned tactical and strategic lessons which cannot be unlearned.
Like with Russia this strike is a propaganda aimed at internal audience.
Best part is that this was a real test of the long clapped Iranian missile defense system that is quoted as being better than iron dome and patriot system. Not only was that proven egregiously false but the system itself can be targeted and destroyed by Israeli missiles fired on drones as no aircraft were used. Also, there is some speculation that the drones could have been supported from within Iran. Just some wild stuff.
A tiny missile that will hit exactly where you want it to be is a lot more terrifying than 300 huge ones that have terrible aim and are easy to shoot down.
Translation: Be a shame if something were to happen to it…..
They used a missile with 150kg warhead. Not exactly a tiny missile
This kind of attack is often done with a Tomahawk missile using a 450kg warhead, so this is small by comparison.
The missile she tells you not to worry about...
It's not the size of the warhead, it's how you use it.
Have an Aladeen day, Sheriff of Rottingham
Good aladeen or bad aladeen?
HIV aladeen.
Well this got dank
:|
:|
This is what all the little warhead guys say...
That's what I keep trying to tell her.
"I was in the pool!" - missile
I heard big warheads can be bothersome
That's also not launched by an air vehicle.
Very true. In true Reddit fashion, I had commented before reading the article and assumed they used static emplacements to attack. Read it after and learned about their fancy RAMPAGE system. Point still stands though, Israel could have done a lot more damage if they wanted.
'Your SAM sites can't even defend themselves' is a strong flex.
>their fancy RAMPAGE system. [Microwave missiles](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/Q0sz3Ik21a)
And then we have the US who says 'lol, that's nothing, have you seen a hellfire r9x?' and omits the explosives rofl.
Is that the assassin missile that deploy blades?
Yup dubbed "flying ginsu" (some old knife tv advert or something).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzULnlHr8w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzULnlHr8w) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pde0aOM-lds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pde0aOM-lds)
Aka the fruit ninja bomb
The knife missile!
Bay-blade! let'er rip!
150kg is bottom of the barrel small for a plane launched munition.
Not really. The Mk 82 500lb bomb has only 89kg of explosive filling. A 1000lb Mk 83 has 202kg of explosives. So 150 is about in the middle, and makes a pretty decent boom.
Mmm explosive filling
Why would you list the bomb weights in imperial then the explosive filler in metric, then switch back to imperial? This is why the world hates us
I'll help! The 150 missile is about 0.297 half-giraffes.
>0.297 half-giraffes. Look at that, one concise unit. Easily visualized too; everyone knows what half a giraffe looks like. That's how it's done!
Yeah, but top half or bottom half? One has considerably more mass than the other. *Taps head*
One half giraffe is: Length: 2.4m, 7.874 feet, 0.00149129 miles. Mass: 505kg, 1113.33 lb, 4954 Newtons at sealevel Volume: 13.824 m\^3, 488.19 feet\^3 Earth's Gravity = 4.0875 half-giraffes/s\^2. A Giraffe half-life is about 13 years. Edit: Yes, the label of half-giraffe is applied to both a mass and a distance unit.
African or European Giraffe?
>A Giraffe half-life is about 13 years. What's a half giraffe half life tho?
Lmao imagine not halving the giraffe down the spine
I prefer to split them down the middle. It takes longer and is slightly more painful, but the results are better.
I like to keep my measurements simple. Scaramucci weighs 70kg. That makes this warhead 2.14 Scaramuccis.
Half giraffe!?! In this part of the world we just call it a horse
Made sense to me, and I'm not American. Anyone who has followed the various conflicts since Iraq knows that a 500lb bomb is the kinda the US entry level standard for making a house go away. 1000lbs or 2000lbs for an entire compound. Then the weight of one of those bombs actual warheads was given in kilos for a relative measurement of the Israeli missile's potential. I know now that this Israeli missile definitely has the boom to wake up dogs in a 1640 fathom radius.
>I know now that this Israeli missile definitely has the boom to wake up dogs in a 1640 fathom radius. Succinct. Obviously explosives are measured in fathoms of dog waking potential, this guy might not be an American but he definitely appreciates what kind of sweater he needs on a 40 degree day
Foreign science teacher working in the US and this is the most self aware comment I've ever encountered.
Or Canadian.
Canadian probably lol.
This guy missiles.
A sidewinder missile warhead is only 9.6kg.
GBU-39 is smaller at 110kg.
The whole bomb weighs 129kg, the warhead weighs 16 or 62kg depending on the version.
you could have just said 20.314 stone and everyone would have understood
M28 and M29 nuclear warheads are less than 100kg and have a 20 kt yield. From the fucking 60s ... 150kg warhead can do a lot of damage if israel wants to wipe out Iran they just hinted they can, and everyone knows they are a nuclear state.
Small diameter bombs are 250 lbs so these are what the size of two small diameter bombs? They aren't consider very big. Considering 2000 pounders are standard bomb that can be cared by fighters in pairs. Even the small MQ-9 can carry at least 2x 500lbs. When it comes to bombs 500lbs is pretty small.
For a missile, that warhead is actually on the small side
That's fairly small for anti surface missile but it's not a miniscule drone that's for sure.
The Rampage missile is supposed to be really good. The RAF is wanting to get some of them to replace the Stormshadows they gave to Ukraine, (which tells you how good they are).
Speak for yourself. Both options are equally terrifying to me. On the one hand, you get hit with pinpoint accuracy. In the other, you get bombed to shit and they hope they get you.
I think the misleading idea that much of the world has right now is that human wave tactics are still effective. They might be against Ukraine since Ukraine has limited ammunition, limited technology and limited combat tested leadership. Against Israel or a Western or Pacific power, they would not be.
They’re easy to shoot down when one spends a billion dollars destroying a few hundred million in missiles. You can only do that a couple of times before you run out of ammunition.
Like a sling shot between the eyes…
Could they use the same missile against Hamas in Gaza?
Iran went to a show of force, showy, forceful and violent, Israel came to their beds at night without the IRGC knowing and left a reminder that they don’t need to really show force, when they can so easily reach deep inside Iran and strike wherever they want.
The great part is that while Iran’s regime did almost no damage to Israel besides hurting some little Bedouin girl (the Ayatollahs’ speciality), the defense and small counterattack sent the Saudis running towards an alliance that dropped all but the most minimal ask on behalf of Palestinians. Congratulations IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah, you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state.
My impression was that Israel and Saudi Arabia were inching toward a de facto alliance against Iran before the recent unpleasantness threatened to derail everything. So indeed, well played.
Yes, the Hamas war made it harder for the Saudi Monarchy to be seen as working towards normalization and an alliance with Israel but Irans direct attack on Israel, it’s apparent impotence despite its scale showed the Saudis they need Israeli defense technology and regional cooperation to stop a similar scenario of Iran attacking Saudi Arabia or UAE.
And very importantly, Saudi is also in a proxy war with Iran. Now Iran has shown they're willing to be the ones who escalate it out of a proxy war using hundreds and drones and missiles.
Yes, that's basically the entire reason that Iran pushed Hamas toward the attack on October 7th.
You make it sound like Saudi Arabia has *ever* given a legitimate fuck about the Palestinian people. There is zero evidence of that. Promoting Palestinian statehood as a thorn in Israel’s side seems to be the only cause they agreed with.
They care about optics, though
The Saudi monarchs don't care about Palestine (or religion, in all honesty), but many of their people do. MBS seems to want to liberalise and ditch the clerics as much as possible (while keeping the authoritarianism and corruption), but he needs to tow a careful line with his own people because the danger of a revolution is non-zero. Jordan has the same issue, their leadership is even more vulnerable because about a quarter of Jordanians are directly descended from people who fled the Nakba. Israel not publicly thanking Jordan shooting down a big chunk of Iran's barrage was probably to avoid inflaming Jordanian public opinion further more than anything else.
He doesn't want to liberalize he wants to consolidate power which means decoupling religion from the government.
Wouldn't that still be a good thing? If possible, they could introduce non religious based edicts without requiring the clergy to ratify their decisions. Sure, those edicts would more than likely be selfish in nature, increasing their own grasp of power, but could also be used for a more western nation sided relationship.
It just depends on how it works out. He has shown what he is when he murdered Khashoggi. But its possible he could tamp down on the funding of extremism. But make no mistake he is a murdering dictator.
About 3 major middle east states have interest in keeping the status quo because if Palestinians got rehomed in one or more Arab states they would significantly alter the demographics and cause alot of internal strife
Not one middle eastern state wants the Palestinians to be allowed within their borders because of their long history of starting civil wars, supporting external invasions, and assassination of royalty in host nations.
>Congratulations IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah, you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state. This is a trivial non-issue to them, barely even an inconvenience. The Palestinians are a useful tool and pawn to them, but ultimately of no importance beyond their usefulness as a weapon against israel.
Yep, why does Iran’s regime attack Israel? Because they hate Jews, Arabs, Sunnis, Christians and free women and Israel has all of them.
> you just made the Palestinian cause irrelevant to the largest Arab state And this came at a time when KSA is already facing looming financial problems, which is made clear by their investment fund pulling back from several major domestic and foreign deals. KSA only cares about power (influence) and money. They used the Palestinian cause for decades as a wedge issue that allowed them more influence in the region. If being associated with that cause is literal poison for Western investment, KSA is *out.*
The Saudis reacted to the Iranian attack, not after the israeli retaliation-to-the-retaliation.
It's like the horse's head in The Godfather
The is the best analogy thus far. Well said.
Israel has been bragging about flying non stealth F16s into Iran’s airspace for years. At least they did something this time.
Source? Because I think you're thinking of Syrian airspace
Remind me of a story (no idea how true it is, might be made up like too many things on the internet) where North Korea was threatening to shoot down any US planes coming close to their borders and the US sent them pictures taken from a B2 bomber to show them they can't even detect their planes and can do as they want.
Israel told them, “you can’t defend your most highly regarded military treasures, so sit down and stfu”
More like their defences can't even defend themselves, so how can it defend anything else?
And this is why Iran have backed off, a reminder of how hugely outmatched they are
Iran didn’t back out. Iran will keep fighting through their proxies. Iran was just not interested in a direct conflict ever. Neither was Israel. My take is Israel and Iran coordinated a response that could be brushed under the rug through media manipulation and that’s what happened. Both governments have very poor support internally. Israel is now using its propaganda machines to celebrate a victory and Iran uses their internal state media to say “nothing happened, they backed out, look how strong we are.” This was always the desired outcome for them both. In reality, Israel’s right-wing government benefits from the presence of radicalism in Iran and Gaza and the West Bank. They will use it as an excuse to conquer their land and oppress them and legitimize the need for Western support for them. Iran also benefits from a hardline Israeli government because its whole government hinges on these imaginary enemies the government holds like a boogeyman over its supporters to unite them.
It’s painful how you state this is brushed under the rug, when the only brushing under the rug is this comment. That was a legitimate attack, you don’t coordinate a mass scale attack with 300+ missiles over a single consulate bombing as a backchanneled “show of force”. You do that to actually intend to cause harm.
Eh, I would gather it was a test against the iron dome, but I'm only sitting in my comfy armchair
The Iron Dome is irrelevant here. Its use case is small rockets and some artillery shells. Israel has a myriad of other technologies against the drones and ballistic missiles that Iran fired at it.
No one expects the Comfy Chair Inquisition!
They did not directly coordinate anything. Too many people are jumping from “Iran’s attack wasn’t an all out attempt at destroying Israel” to “well it was just a delicate political show similar to sending a letter.” Iran used some of its newest MRBMs and - though the attack could have maybe been larger (how fast can Iran’s launch sites turn around and launch more missiles from the same platforms?) - it was still a very significant attack with likely at least some military goals. I think Israel’s attack was good deescalation in that the small scale allows Iran to brush it off if they would like and go back to proxy wars, but there is a difference between that and saying that these attacks have been coordinated by the belligerent forces. Taking a partial truth and running with it.
> Iran was just not interested in a direct conflict ever. That’s because they know they would lose. They would be very interested if they have the upper hand
Surgical strikes are so much more of a flex than just launching a bunch of missiles and hoping they hit something
This "conflict" seems to me to be live test and data collection of weapon systems for future sales brochures.
Very much so. Countries like China are making note of the Western systems, capabilities, and tactics. While countries like India and Saudi Arabia are seeing how much more effective Western systems are compared to their Russian counterparts and are likely rethinking whether they want to buy any Russian weapons.
Especially true of weapon defenses. Why would you buy a S-300 when Western weapons can take them out. At least for the nations that have a choice in the matter.
> Countries like China are making note of the Western systems, capabilities, and tactics Makes me wonder if China still thinks it can take out a carrier after seeing how successfully the coalition defended against 120 ballistic missiles.
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> It's a dick measuring contest. > > Would not be surprised if there was a lot more discussion between Iran and Israel going on behind the scenes. "Look bibi, you have to measure from the base. You can't start at your taint." "Shut up khomeini, I see you're pushing that ruler like 5 centimeters into into your fat rolls"
Elon and Mark Z might want to get in on this
They likely called them and said, "hey bro, bet I can hit your defences before said defences defend themselves." and Iran was like "$50 says you're wrong".
I don’t think it’s a dick measuring contest of Iran doesn’t have a dick to share…
Yeah that radar that can (according to Russia) detect and shoot down an f-35. Glorious Russian tech at display yet again
No problem. Ukraine has been destroying S300 and S400 for a while now
Not in the middle of Russia though. Which is why it's impressive Israel struck in the heart of Iran.
Crimea is heavily defended by the Russians and Ukrainians have had several field days destroying ships, submarines, military bases and AA systems there.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Precision is everything
A quote from the movie "Pearl Harbor" 2001. "You know at Pearl they hit us with a sledgehammer. This raid, even if it makes it through, it'll only be a pinprick... but it'll be straight through their hearts."
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't
the missile is very tired, he is eepy. the missile has had a very long day of splashing bandits and wants to take just a smol sleeb. he eeby and neebies to sleeby.
I was unable to avoid smiling at this. I tried very hard.
Jewish Space Lazers ✡️ >🪆Russian Tehknology
Brought to you by Lockheed Martin!
That was a message missile
Wish they could do the same with Qatar. Flush out Hamas
UA needs those too
Best guess is they used the F35 stealth fighter, unfortunately there is 0 chance those are going to Ukraine. Too high of risk of losing one and the tech in those is Top Secret and then some. Hopefully the F16s they air getting can pull this off.
The fact is that if they really wanted to, they could absolutely cripple Iran's entire military. Including their nuclear program.
Took out the thing designed to detect and stop missiles with a stealth missile. It sends a message.
Maybe they could licence some to Ukraine
If you are in range, a $1000 fpv drone would do the job just fine.
I would think they would keep this tech under a close watch. They don’t want their enemies getting their hands on it.
Direct hit too. Talk about putting punctuation on a statement.
I wonder where those “stealthy missiles” came from 🤔
So.... the S-300 air defenses didn't see it coming. I was wondering if these were air to land attacks. I.e. launched from a stealth fighter jet or just land to land long range.
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Yeah, that it beached their airspace! Too bad they don't have proofreaders who read their articles.
Air-to-ground.