Arrr, Iran be lackin' in the art of battle. Israel be showin' 'em how it's done, me hearties!
2024-05-02
Arrr! Israel be showin' Iran the error of their ways in battle last moon. They be exposin' Tehran's feeble weapons and markin' their boundaries with a splash of red. The regime be warned, mateys! Aye, beware the wrath of Israel!
Israel's recent retaliatory strike inside Iran, in response to Tehran’s unprecedented missile and drone assault on Israel proper the weekend before, was a brilliant work of what practitioners of intelligence statecraft call "strategic signaling." The message delivered to the ayatollahs on April 19 by the Jewish state was so daring, direct and unequivocal that it will likely compel Iran to abandon its new bold tactics of direct kinetic warfare. Jerusalem has enforced its red lines with Iran, making a successful kinetic counterattack by Iran inside Israel unlikely.Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has demonstrated to the Iranian regime that its skillfulness at bombastic rhetoric and ability to gin up anti-Israel fervor among various groups across the globe doesn’t compensate for its military’s ineptness at conventional warfare. There was a lot of drama unfolding in multiple corners of the world, with the usual theatrics coming out of Tehran.Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi threatened a "painful and severe" response if Israel takes even the "slightest action." Doubling down on these warnings, Raisi, speaking at Iran’s annual army parade, issued a threat to launch a "massive and harsh" retaliation if Israel launches even a "tiniest attack." The usual anti-Israel suspects were ratcheting up fear-mongering rhetoric, in an attempt to put pressure on Israel simply to "eat" the provocative Iranian attack.Russia’s Vladimir Putin warned against a "new round of confrontation fraught with catastrophic consequences for the entire region." Media outlets across the world ran headlines that evoked fears of open warfare breaking out between Israel and Iran. Following Raisi’s telephone call with Putin on April 17, fear spread from the doomsayers to the international "expert" class. U.S., European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials and weapons experts privately expressed concerns about Russia’s pledge to supply Iran with advanced fighter jets and air defense technology.The Israeli counterstrike was kinetic, precise, yet calibrated, using measured force. Stealth technology was likely used in what appeared to be a covert action, combining conventional warfare and special operations. The ayatollahs didn’t know what hit them. The Israeli strike took out Iranian air-defense missile batteries in Ishafan, rendering them inoperable. The choice of target was deliberate.The Israelis went after the very systems that are designed to prevent such attacks. It was, in Western military strategy parlance, a shot across the bow. Iran has played its nuclear card as a psychological weapon to intimidate the region and the West. Israel’s limited but highly effective strike showcased the impotence of the Iranian combat force.Shortly after Israel’s limited but highly effective strike, the Iranian foreign minister stated that Iran would not escalate conflict. Iran is considered by the U.S. intelligence community to be one of the top four threats to the United States. While the threat posed by Iran cannot be underestimated, it is more of an asymmetric rather than conventional nature. When it comes to conventional warfare, Israel clearly has demonstrated to the world that the Iranian military is not a match for it, and certainly not for the U.S. military.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REBEKAH KOFFLER