Iran is confirmed to have launched dozens of UAVs and cruise missiles to attack Israel, in retaliation for the assassination of an IRGC commander in Syria. The drones are slow and will take six to nine hours to get there; the missiles are faster and estimated to make contact in two hours.
Israeli media reports that 99% of the Iranian missiles and UAVs were successfully intercepted by the IDF and allies including the US; Jordan considers Iran's sending UAVs via its airspace to be a violation of its sovereignty and permitted IDF planes to cross to intercept. A few did penetrate, injuring one child and causing what media reports as light damage in a military base. Ynet's pundit discussing Israel's response is urging caution, viewing the successful interception as a show of strength.
Iran's Shahed drones are also used by Russia in Ukraine. The US needs to make sure the technology for intercepting that gets to Ukraine immediately; despite the consensus support of Israelis for Ukraine, the Israeli government has not sent any weapons or defense systems to Ukraine, even interception systems that Ukraine explicitly asked for.
I haven't seen this reported here, but the (seriously) injured child is Bedouin, since Israeli anti-rocket interception focuses on protecting the cities and the Jewish towns and ignores Bedouin areas. For the same reason, on 7.10 several (I believe seven) Bedouins were killed in Hamas rocket attacks.
@bdsint 7.10 rocket death patterns exhibited something similar - a few Bedouin rocket deaths, which Iron Dome should have intercepted. Of course the vast majority of the dead were Jews, but that's because the ground massacres targeted Jews, and in at least one case spared an Arab (not sure if Bedouin or not) who they would have killed or abducted were he Jewish.
@Alon This is an enormous strategic defeat for Iran and its leadership. I wonder what the political repercussions will be inside Iran. Also for the relations between Iran and its proxies, whose attacks on Israel have been much more successful. They are likely to now feel that Iran needs them as much as they need Iran.
@BenRossTransit Not if Bibi freaks out and bombs. I want this to be the moment John Bolton got cucked again and didn't get the war he so desperately wants, but Bibi has long acted against Israel's best interests for petty reasons.
@Alon I suspect even John Bolton would tell Bibi not to attack. His anti-Trump stance shows that he believes in neocon hawkish defense of democracy & isn't just an opportunist. He said Israel crossed a red line with the Damascus attack. He might well think that when you cross a red line and your enemy can't do anything about it, that's a victory to stand on.
@Alon@Colinvparker Hmm. I guess either way we should be getting them both intercepting missiles and aircraft, although the aircraft requires training pilots, which takes time.
@Colinvparker Ukraine has been asking for modern fighter planes for two years, and the US is still in "organize allies with older planes to cascade them to Ukraine when they eventually get F-35s" mode.
@Alon@Colinvparker They’re training pilots now, they are supposed to be trained soon. The time to worry is if they end up with more trained pilots than planes, because it doesn’t take long to get more planes over there if needed. It’s not like ammo where they need to build more production capacity (which the US has), because the planes have all been built and are ready.
@Alon@Colinvparker I was always baffled by this logic, wasn't the best way to make Russia back off to show strong commitment from the start? It took an entire autumn and winter campaign of Russian bombing before anyone started even preparing Ukrainians to get Western jets.
@DiegoBeghin@Alon@Colinvparker If you assume they wouldn’t back off no matter what over the first year or two, the logic makes some kind of sense. Demonstrating increasing commitment to Ukraine over time is better than making a big show at the start and then risking having that support fade.
That being said it would have been better to start clandestinely training the pilots earlier, but perhaps the opsec just isn’t there for that.
@Colinvparker@DiegoBeghin The support did fade; in the second quarter of 2022, people in Germany didn't take rising fuel prices as a sign that they should vote for AfD and threaten violence against the Green Party. As with corona and 7.10, the beginning of the crisis is when there is the most political capital for drastic measures.
@Alon@Colinvparker@DiegoBeghin I mean it faded, but yet there’s gonna be F-16s over there in a few months, is the reporting I’ve seen. And the US increased munitions output. Obviously there’s the issue of Mike Johnson and Donald Trump, but there was no solution two years ago that could have future-proofed the support effort against outright stooges.
@Alon@Colinvparker@DiegoBeghin Of course, completely agree on COVID and Oct 7. The US totally squandered its early opportunities while many Asian countries and Australia capitalized and achieved far better outcomes. Probably Israel missed their opportunity for an effective early response as well.
@Colinvparker@DiegoBeghin Israel had an effective early response, and would have been covid zero if Hasids hadn't blatantly violated social distancing and if similar violations by Netanyahu and Rivlin hadn't reduced the appetite for continuing the restrictions to zero.
@DiegoBeghin@Alon@Colinvparker I mean you always fight the last war as they say, but the US (and arguably NATO too in Afghanistan) has a history of supporting allies that couldn’t resist effectively enough so that it eventually became untenable. So “wait until they demonstrate competence on their own, then help” seems like a reasonable doctrinal adjustment. Whether or not it’s an overcorrection IDK.
@Colinvparker@DiegoBeghin Yeah, that was the theory, but within days it became clear Ukraine was resisting rather than collapsing; the begging for modern heavy weapons period was then the spring and summer of 2022, and somehow, Germany sent the kitties long before the US even permitted other countries to send F-16s.
@Alon I was wondering if Iran expending so many drones on this foolishness will have any significant impact on their deliveries to Russia. Probably not.
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