Radio War Nerd Emergency EP #529 — Israel-Iran War

If I was Iran, I'd go all out and target the Israeli nuclear reactors, their water desalination plants. I'd blockade the straits of hormuz and start closing it off. If the US intervenes, I'd target all the oil refineries of the Arab states especially the ones that house US bases. I'd use dirty bombs. I'd hook up chemical weapons to the missiles and rockets. You have to go extremely dirty and nasty. Iran is too passive about all this. If you dont have the nukes to threaten Mutually Assured Destruciton, well then its time to get creative.

Strong Baron Harkonnen vibes from that pic of Netanyahu.

if the US/Isreal actually goes to war John should bring back the Gary Bretcher persona

we need an update! Iran’s retaliation isn’t to the level of destruction that Israel has caused, but it’s definitely a bit more destructive than you guys seem to think it would’ve been.

Imo Irans Life for the last few decades has been a race to get as bunkered down as possible before america/Israel came for them, and all this is just answering the question of how well they prepared for it. I don't know how high up you need to bribe or infiltrate the govt to do the kind of drone attacks theyve done, which seem to involve driving trucks full of drones to remote locations and then planting the drones in the ground. Bribing border guards, sure, beyond that, I don't know.

. ....... K🤩

What do you think about Pakistan coming into the conflict on Team Iran?

This is a really, really grotesque conflict. As Elijah Magnier said many episodes ago, in the Middle East different sides are always sending messages to each other via calculated acts of murder, and this is no exception. It's all just military pantomime. Dick-waving contests that result in heaps of dead bodies and piles of rubble. As Ames and Dolan laid out in previous episodes, anything like a "total" war with Iran would mean all international trade through the Middle East grinding to a halt (not to mention the death by dehydration of everyone in Saudi Arabia). It doesn't even matter whether Iran can damage Israel itself or not. Iran hasn't done that, and likewise Israel, no matter what damage they've inflicted, hasn't significantly impaired Iran's nuclear program. Maybe things will escalate to that point (I really hope not) but for now this is clearly just Netanyahu pulling every lever he can to stay in power and out of jail and the Iranian regime similarly trying to project enough strength to retain legitimacy. It's all so stupid and pointless.

doubt this will be the last emergency episode we'll get this year

I have 2 kind of out there theories about why Iran seems so unbelievably reticent to strike back against Israel hard. The first is that Iran has seen the same history that everybody else has of terror bombing; it only galvanizes a population toward greater resolve and support for a war while having very little strategic value. Since Israel is so small and most of its military centers are integrated into population centers, it would be really hard to hit anything of military value without also hitting civilian infrastructure. And, it looks like the way around the Iron Dome is just to overwhelm it, which exacerbates this problem because it’s hard to pick which targets get hit and which don’t. Meaning Iran’s calculation is just that no matter what Israel does, the correct response is doing as little as possible so as to not provoke them or the US into a wider war, which would cause a great deal more harm than anything Israel does now. The second is that the status quo of American sanctions, while very hard for the vast majority of Iranians, is pretty good for the Iranian ruling class so they are trying to keep things stable by rocking the boat as little as possible. Sanctions, despite their intended purpose, can solidify the position of the ruling regime by making it impossible to live without them. Because so little food and other necessities are coming from the regular dollar based global market, the food that gets in comes from parallel markets. That can mean the black market or a separate foreign market like the Russian or Chinese market. Negotiating a deal with a separate foreign market is something that really only a governing body can do, so any food that comes in is more subject to their control than it would be without sanctions. The same is true of black markets, except that it can also be done by criminal enterprises. I don’t know a lot about the internal structure and politics of Iran, so take this with a grain of salt, but it could be that the sanctions regime of the US is helping the Iranian Islamic revolutionary government tamp down its internal enemies. If so, the Iranian calculation could be that doing anything too drastic could change this current balance of powers for the worse. That said, neither of these theories is backed up by a lot of evidence, they just seem logical to me. I just want to put them out there in case someone who does know a lot about Iran is able to piece anything more coherent together from them.

With how things have been going in the past 3hrs, they may have to do another emergency podcast by tomorrow. Iran is hitting Israel hard, things have been getting really wild.

Get me Cyrus on the phone ASAP

I don’t even know how Iran can achieve “deterrence” at this point or if they are militarily capable to go beyond that. If they are they should shoot everything at Tel Aviv for their own security instead of being degraded by the fourth reich’s imperial cat paw in Israel. We all know why western capital have their sights on Iran. It’s very easy for me to say sitting in the comfort of my couch that they should declare absolute war and get nuclear capabilities but that seems like the only option at this point for the survival of the state and not to be the next Syria/Libya/Iraq. Americans need to imagine the factional wars that would emerge in America if we were under attack like Syria, Libya, Iraq and now Iran have been. We would absolutely be carved up into factions and the amount of dead people that would come from that here would be astronomical in the most gun toting, “fuck you im gonna get mine” psychotic state that has ever existed. Socialism is dead right now. nationalism can only take you so far even in the peripheries from the imperial core.

Why hasn't Iran concentrated strikes on Israeli bases inside Syria and/or Lebanon, where missile defense is probably weaker and a rollback of Israeli advances could be possible?

Just found out about this podcast called Bang Bang that covers war films from a leftist perspective. Seems like something folks in here would enjoy. https://castbox.fm/va/6298128

Hard for Iran to be anything other than cautious when one slight miscalculation means the entire weight of the US military comes crashing down on you

A lot of cope in these comments. I think we all are on the same page in terms of considering Iran to be at the very least a drastically lesser evil in this situation, but the reality is that Israel has proved to be far more competent that anyone expected. The decapitation strikes against Iran *were* effective. Regardless of whether or not Iran was able to replace those leaders quickly, it is shocking how utterly Iran's defenses failed. Zionist warplanes were evidently able to enter Iran effectively unchallenged, and then proceed to make it all the way to Tehran. It really doesn't matter that more Iranian missiles are hitting their targets than the Zionists admit. We already knew they could do that. What no one knew is that Iran is unable to defend it's airspace from deep infiltration, even with several days notice of an imminent attack.

can you go into how much of a surprise attack this was? like is this a operation barbarossa level surprise attack where soviet civilians where asking each other we are under attack, but by who? or was this known by iran for a bit?

How did the Strait of Hormuz (Strait of America?) not come up in this episode? I know lots of us think it won’t escalate this far, but I kinda have trouble seeing a path where it doesn’t Eternal pessimist I guess

We don’t know the extent of damage yet because of tight Israeli censorship. But supposedly a naval commander has been killed. Israelis are notorious liars when it comes to reporting military casualties. And what we see in urban areas that can’t be contained completely from people recording is extensive damage and repeated landed strikes with powerful missiles causing shockwaves and buildings to collapse. I didn’t expect this level of response, and I’m thinking the Israelis didn’t either. Iran clearly has free range despite Israeli anti-missile defenses to attack whatever it likes. I wouldn’t be surprised if tonight we get a much bigger salvo and sites like Ben Gurion are targeted. Israel is a very small dense territory and target rich. The question for me is who breaks first a fat rich comfortable population or a society that has been through decades of sanctions and an apocalyptic decade long war against Iraq who truly have unlike usual dual passport holding Israelis nowhere to go? My money is on the Iranians.

Looks like it's already time for another emergency episode about this.

I start the comment by stating that I generally abhor conspiracy theories. They generally cannot be tested by any means and therefore are distasteful to my scientific sensibility. But it is increasingly obvious that the October 7 2023 attack by Hamas was Benjamin Netanyahu's Golden Wonka, Powerball Lottery, and Clearinghouse Sweepstakes winning tickets all rolled into one. It stopped any criminal prosecution of him in its tracks, and gave him (okay, "Israel") carte blanch to do whatever he/they wanted to do throughout the Middle East. It seems very, very implausible that the same Israeli Intelligence forces that could pinpoint the location of Iranian officials hundreds of miles away and coordinate strikes that killed many of them could somehow miss the training and preparation for the 7 October attack. Much more likely is the case where warnings and repeated warnings were given to Netanyahu, but he deliberately chose to ignore them, understanding that a successful attack by Hamas would open up possibilities he had longed wished to have- the obliteration and erasure of Gaza, the decimation of the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran. The dream and increasing reality of Greater Israel was enabled by the Hamas attack. And Netanyahu has been the one and only beneficiary of it.

War of the Cities 2 something Boogaloo

im pretty sure iran wants to keep its citizens alive. sounds crazy i know.

Paper tiger to describe Iran. Probably not the right string of words after the last 10 hours or so, Mark.

It’s been raining missiles all day lol

On the bright side, it looks like things are going a little better for Iran. Two missile attacks while I was listening to this episode after all those other ones earlier today

Thanks for this. Listening now. Are we paying you enough? You're going to hit episode #600 by fall at this rate. This fucking world

So all these years repeatedly hearing about the war games the US did for an invasion of Iran, seriously u would hear about those over and over from so many talking heads. They couldn't beat Iran in those war games. US could never win. Then Israel seemingly with ease knocks out Iran and from this episode I get the sense that the Iranians are a bunch of stumbling goofs with Israel doing the Looney Tunes traps that Iran falls for every time. What a ride it's been and what a quick ending.

Apparently Israel managed to knock out the defense grid for the surprise strikes

Just saw a clip of a Fox News reporter on a street in Tel Aviv saying, “Things are really tense at this location because they just hit buildings housing Israel’s defense infrastructure, I’m gonna get my camera guy to pan up here to show this building…” and just as he does his handlers begin shouting at him to stop. Unreal.

I’m pretty sure Israel timed the attack specifically in order to force Tel Aviv to cancel their pride parade for the third year in a row. Won’t someone please think of the real victim here, Caitlyn Jenner? 🥺

Looks like Iran hit the Israeli equivalent of their pentagon

The recent barrages from Iran seem impressive?

It's hard for this comment to not come out as "anti Semitic" but at this point I disagree with John's point on how surprising it is that Israel "infiltrated" Iran. They infiltrated Hezbollah, Iran, and let's be honest, the entire west... Lol. It's not like the US was some pro Jewish state in the 40s. Is it controversial to say that they've thoroughly infiltrated the US in its own way? Like, if the US flipped on Israel tomorrow, I can imagine they'd have a ton of soft power levers ready to activate. Hell, they infiltrated the US nuclear program like it was a Midwestern bank They're good at it this stuff lol

Never felt this level of foreboding and distress. Thanks for making me feel less crazy.

Was waiting for this ! Thanks guys

Iran's initial wave of drones was designed to force interception so they can map Israeli capabilities in that realm and/or deplete ammunition before the real strike - they did something similar before the last retaliatory ballistic missile barrage

Quick, paint yourself white!

Been on edge waiting for this ep all day

If Iran manages to deliver real retaliation for this strike it feels like Israel will go nuclear while the US parades in the streets.