Email: decodingpolitics@protonmail.com
Substack: decodingpolitics.substack.com
Medium: medium.com/@decodingpolitics
Twitter: twitter.com/DecodingPoliti2
*Not financial advice, merely pointing out political trends*
As of this writing, on April 12 / 13th, tensions across the Middle East are running very high. The fighting between Hamas and Israel has raged for over five months.
We have written for six months, firmly and repeatedly, that this was NOT an isolated spat between Hamas and Israel. This was a regional war, between two sides: Iran and its allies (Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Islamic Jihad) and Israel with varying degrees of US backing. And it would involve multiple theaters: Gaza, Lebanon Syria, Iraq, The Red Sea, Yemen and likely the Persian Gulf.
Here we are at the point where the fighting on these multiple fronts kicks off. The point of no return was crossed when Israel blew up the Iranian embassy in Syria, which had top Iranian military officers.
Now Iran has promised a comprehensive and full retaliation, almost certainly involving targeting Israel directly. We will note they have made bellicose statements before- but not followed through at all. We think this time though the conflict will be escalated by one of the parties, or perhaps even by an accident.
Timing The Conflict: We Think May
Many are worried that the initial attack will be this weekend of April 12-14th, citing leaks and US intel reports. We think that’s highly unlikely for a couple reasons. First, Iran is deeply allied with China and Russia on their military strategy, a point we discussed in October. They will have to check in and coordinate their moves on the chess board, which will take time. Secondly, a small and announced ahead of time attack is very much not how Iran does things. Nearly everything they have done in the past has been carefully planned, executed by proxies, and a total surprise: October 7th, the Gawdhar attacks, various moves on the US bases in Iraq and Syria. It would be uncharacteristic for this to be the main attack without this big shock value.
The real attack is likely to come next month, in massive size, after a few probing skirmishes.
Who Strikes First?
While everyone is telling you Iran is about to launch a massive attack on Israel, we actually believe the reverse is more likely. “How is that Decoding? Israel will hit Iran not the other way around??” Yes, here’s why:
1. Israel typically is the one to escalate. Even including the October 7th response , Israel has usually been the one to go big in major escalation operations. As a small country with a lot of unfriendly neighbors, they know they would have to strike quickly in order to knock out one foe, before they could reposition to another front. They acted preemptively in taking out the Iranian leaders in Syria, and in attacking various targets in Lebanon and Syria.
2. Iran itself has powerful assets, but they are in a few strategic locations. Iran has a strong army and special forces, and a strong navy. But those would not directly menace Israel. Iran’s nuclear assets are very concentrated in just five places (Wikipedia):
The other ballistic missile manufacturing and launching locations in Iran are only a few, and could be largely taken out with a massive successful airstrike.
3. Iran’s air and missile defense systems are not very advanced. Iran has no Iron Dome equivalent, and given that it’s a large country, it could be vulnerable to a fast and widespread strike. It has introduced various new systems that could, using drones, stop small low level attacks, but not sophisticated ballistic missiles or jet strikes.
For all these reasons, the likelihood is that Israel is more likely to strike first than Iran in a serious manner. The regional wars Israel could keep at bay for a time, but they could not stop a large scale Iranian missile strike.
Who’s Winning The Regional War So Far? Who Would Win?
We should remind readers that the Iranian plan has been built over the past 20+ years, architected by General Soleimani (yes, the one President Trump blew up in a missile strike). It was to combine state power with insurgent groups to surround Israel. West Point did a great paper on it in 2018 for those who want to understand more on the strategy:
The first fight was the Hamas versus Israel fight that began after the October 7th surprise attack by Hamas. Since then, Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza and generated 50,000 casualties. But it appears they are running out of momentum, and there is no clear plan on what to do next.
This now quagmire on the first front of the war will tie down Israeli troops and limit the forces they can project into Lebanon and into Syria. As you can see from this recent map generated by the Institute for the Study of War, the conflict is still rolling at a low level in all the major regions outside of Gaza.
We think that if Israel went offensive and decided to wage war against Iran and its proxies it would be a tough battle. The last go around against Hizballah, in the summer of 2006, Israel did massive damage to Hizballah and its major assets, and caused 1,100 casualties. They were able to occupy much of Southern Lebanon at the cost of only around 100 casualties. But this time, Hizballah is without a doubt far better armed and fortified. Their 30,000 to 50,000 soldiers will pose far more resistance. Iranian forces based in Syria have similar capabilities and both groups have ample supplies of Iranian ballistic missiles.
Any real multi-front war would cause massive casualties (50,000 or more?) to Israel and impose a long hard fight. While they could win, they have to choose carefully what kind of conflict they want and what order to strike targets. It’s possible that Israel could win the overall conflict but only a high cost. Probably it would on several fronts until it could triumph in one and force a settlement.
It is a grave mistake that many Americans make to under-estimate Iran. Many view it as a pariah state led by crazy clerics. But that ignores the Iranian society’s formidable achievements and skills in many areas. A country of 90m people, it has by far the best education system in the region. It has advanced science, military and space programs. It has very advanced industrial and military technology, especially in drones and in missiles
Its military has over 600,000 active duty personnel, including 5,000 members of its special forces, the Al Qods force. They have been fighting or advising fighters in innumerable conflicts for the past four decades. They have trained and armed over 100,000 more from insurgent groups like Hizballah to add to their numbers. This would be far different than fighting past US enemies like Saddam Hussein’s army, the Taliban, Al Qaeda in Iraq, or ISIS.
Source: Defense Intelligence Agency, 2019
Iran’s Missile Capabilities
Iran has several thousand missiles, many of which can strike into Israel from the center of Iran. But beyond that, Iran has spent the past decade arming many of its proxies with shorter range missiles, which can be launched from Lebanon, Syria, or Yemen.
The big news in the past 18 months has been the introduction of an Iranian hypersonic missile, using technology borrowed from the Russians and Chinese. This new missile, with a range of roughly 1,000 miles, goes at Mach 15. United States and Israeli missile systems have real trouble stopping anything over Mach 5. This missile can go from Iran to Tel Aviv in five minutes, it’s claimed, giving Israel little time to react and stop it.
It can also beat any ship-based defense, and a barrage of these, perhaps alongside Russian Khinzal or X-63 missiles, could knock out the US fleet in the Red Sea in mere minutes.
It would be imperative that Israel find and knock these out in any first strike against Iran. Otherwise, their major assets and any potential US support would be highly vulnerable.
One may ask- what about Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome? It has been very effective at stopping current missiles, over 90% of them. But it faces two risks: it has never been tested against hypersonic missiles, and there’s a lot of evidence it could not defeat them. Secondly, the system has shown vulnerability to being knocked out by a cyber attack. There have been several warnings that the Iranians possess an ability to do just that. Chinese hackers stole all the information on it in 2014. Iran has already used its abilities to trigger false alarms and to divert Iron Dome missiles:
Source: The Cradle
This increases the likelihood of a massive Israeli first strike- knowing that air defense system may not be strong enough to cope with a backlash.
The Nuclear Question
The inevitable question when missiles start flying is, will they be nuclear missiles? Israel has always officially denied a nuclear program, but best estimates say they have 200-300 nukes able to strike at various ranges.
The Iranian nuclear program is a bigger question. They have been pursuing uranium enrichment for years but claim no weapons. The Iranian program has taken several hits in the past few years, from mysterious explosions near its nuclear facilities to the assassination of one of the top scientists in 2020.
Our guess is that Iran has it stands now has nuclear warheads, maybe even a couple dozen. The Obama White House estimated Iran had enriched uranium sufficient for 8 to 12 bombs with the facilities running overtime. Thanks to Russia and China over the past few years, they almost certainly have the technology to build a bomb. They have the technology to put it on a missile and launch long range. The only question is how much uranium and plutonium they have to build them.
Iran has likely given some dirty bombs or dirty bomb technology to its partners too. The mysterious Beirut port blast in 2019, generating a giant mushroom cloud, could very well have been a shipment of such Iranian technology to Hizballah. Its force was estimated at 10-15% of the Hiroshima bomb.
Would either side use them? Given the stakes here, certainly it would be on the menu.
What Will the US Do?
As of now, the US has acted in a support to Israel. It has shared targets and information lt has sent advisors. It has sent troops and ships to Israel. But there has been little direct fighting- only against Iranian proxy groups in Iraq, Syria and to protect the Red Sea. They are working with the Israelis on how to hit Iran, undoubtedly sharing key intelligence.
The million dollar question is – will the US get involved with troops to fight in Lebanon or Syria? Or to attack Iran directly? Biden has promised full support. We think support of a direct attack or invasion of Iran is a total no go for the USA. It has too many vulnerable assets in the region, and many of its allies it relies on would refuse to help (Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey have all said no). The political will for a major conflict abroad after the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan is zero.
But it’s a 50/50 chance that the US would offer limited support in Syria and Lebanon, calling it a “counter-terrorist” or “humanitarian” operation to avoid a war with Iran.
Is This World War 3?
Yes. We have been saying for the past two years- World War 3 started on February 24, 2022 with the invasion of Ukraine. This was the first of many fronts of friction between the Eurasian new order (Russia+China, Iran foremost) and the NATO/US led order on the other side. Just like World War 2, which involved many points of conflict between two teams: the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan) and the Allies (UK, USSR, France, China and later on the USA). In this conflict, Ukraine was the first front, and now the region around Israel has opened as the second front. US and Israeli assets have been attacked.
The only question is not if this is World War 3 (it is!) but how it will escalate and when/where the US gets involved. World War 2 escalated in several phases. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, but then was quiet for the next nine months. Then in mid-1940, it invaded Western Europe and then began to bomb Britain. 1941 saw the war become full blown and global, with Germany invading the USSR and the USA entering the war, declaring war on both Japan and Germany. The full conflict would go from early 1942 until the summer of 1945.
We discussed above the likely Middle Eastern escalation. Will NATO get involved first in Ukraine? France and Lithuania have signed security deals with Ukraine, and the US continues to push for Ukrainian NATO membership. These are all red lines for Russia, now pushing for a total surrender by Ukraine. Or will the US send troops in the ground and have warships directly Iranian targets and Hizballah targets to support Israel? Or will a new theater open up- Poland, Moldova, Armenia, Taiwan, Central Asia? We frankly don’t know, but we know that the overall conflict will burn on for several years.
Addendum:
Iran has just launched 100 drones at Israel, which will likely all be shot down and are just being used symbolically. These are the size of a push lawnmower- not designed to deal serious damage.
1) This is one of the 'initial skirmishes' we wrote about earlier today. Up to this point, Lebanon, Hamas or the Houthis had been firing dozens of missiles or sending hundreds of drones at Israel. Now it's directly from Iran.
2)We think this confirms the Iran Israel war has begun. There will be more attacks like these in the coming weeks from both sides.
3) But we still think next month we will see the first real move and real attack of the war.
What is a real attack? Hundreds of cruise missiles and drones and dozens of ballistic missiles at every major strategic target. It will coincide with ground movements too- attacks on assets in Syria and the Lebanon/Israel border.
It should be obvious a major first strike is coming in the coming weeks - this is like February 2003 in Iraq or January 2022 in Ukraine but with no possible peace deal on the table. The only questions are when and who fires first.