Smoke rises from Tehran Iran. AP.
Israel has launched a major attack on Iran, leading to fears of a wider regional war breaking out. AP. Israel said the strikes were targeted at Iran's leadership and nuclear weapons program. The strikes are a major break with the United States. President Trump was still negotiating with Iran when Israel launched the strikes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States was not involved with the strikes and that their priority was protecting US forces in the region. Trump had warned Israel to wait on any strikes on the outcome of talks with Iran which were scheduled to continue this weekend.
The following news outlets have live updates for this conflict:
My Comment:
After yesterday's evacuation orders for US posts in the Middle East, I am not surprised that the situation devolved into a conflict. It seemed pretty likely at that point, but what I wasn't expecting was the conflict beginning so soon.
The good news, if there is any, is that we appear to be staying out of it. We were not involved in these strikes and it was clear that President Trump didn't want them to happen. Indeed, this is a major break between Israel and the United States. Trump was actively trying diplomacy as late as today and had meetings with Iran scheduled for this weekend, that probably aren't going to happen now. I hope we continue to stay out of it, this was not our fight and the last thing we need is to be dragged in.
But it might not be up to us. Right now it's unclear what Iran is going to do in response to these strikes. The real fear is that they will hit targets in Iraq or possibly other US interests in the region. Doing so would not be in the interest of Iran, but I am not sure they are rational actors even before these strikes. Hopefully they limit their retaliation to Israel and Israel alone.
These strikes seem to be pretty effective. Early reports are never reliable but if even some of them are accurate Iran got humiliated here. Supposedly much of the leadership of Iran's military is dead along with some of their nuclear scientists. There are even rumors that the President and Ayatollah are dead, though that hasn't been confirmed at all.
That means that Iran will likely have to respond in extreme fashion to save any amount of face. I am guessing they will use whatever they have left for a massive strike against Israel, to the point that it's possible or probable that Israel will not have enough to defend themselves. I am guessing they will probably take some casualties when Iran decides to respond.
My real fear is that Iran will resort to terrorism to hit targets outside of Israel. Iran has sleeper agents across the world, some of them in Hezbollah, some of them as normal Iranians. Iran could use these folks to strike at Israeli targets globally, including in the United States. And at this point why wouldn't they? The only consideration is not drawing other countries into the war and they might not care about that if they think they have already lost.
Still, with all that being said, I think the most likely outcome is that Iran and Israel launch their tit-for-tat strikes and the conflict ends fairly quickly. A major war is unlikely for no other reason that neither side shares a border and would be hard pressed to attack each other directly. Eventually both sides will run out of munitions and I am guessing after that the conflict will end.
I do have to say that I can't really understand what Israel was thinking here. This is not a move I support and like I said yesterday, Israel has enough on their plate already. They were already fighting Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. Starting a major war with Iran is not in their best interests even if they were close to getting a nuke.
And personally? I doubt Iran was. Iran has been a "few weeks" away from owning nuclear weapons for as long as I can remember and so far they haven't actually gotten one. If they did then perhaps this is justified but they would have to actually produce the weapon before I would believe it.
I am also not expecting World War III. I think it's unlikely that any other countries get involved unless Iran somehow uses weapons of mass destruction or terrorism to target Israeli interests overseas. And there is no reason for the big three, Russia, China and the United States, to go to war over a Middle East war, that I am guessing none of them wanted. Like I said, the most likely scenario is the tit-for-tat strikes like the last time this happened, though at a much larger scale.
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