Known: The number of interceptors the US coalition forces have left.
Unknown: The number of ICBM launchers the Khameini regime is conserving underground.
I don’t mean to be a downer but if we don’t count the initial salvos at the start of the war, then the average daily rate of incoming missiles hasn’t really gone down. It’s held relatively steady. Don’t be fooled by the “90% reduction” stat.
In the next 5-6 weeks the US forces are expected to run out of interceptors. Resupply will be insufficient and take months at absolute best.
At the same time, the war is very unpopular in the USA. POTUS has every incentive to unilaterally declare victory and end US involvement in the war.
If the US withdraws, and if the Khameini regime has been conserving missile launchers in the enormous underground facilities it has maintained, will the Israeli air force be capable of continuing to eliminate those launchers on its own?
If more missiles are on the horizon, and there aren’t any interceptors to intercept them, then we’ll still have the early warning system when missiles are launched, right?
Again, I don’t want to be a downer, but that early warning system depends on detection hardware and installations in US-friendly Gulf states that have sustained increasing damage over the past two weeks, materially degrading our warning system, translating into much shorter times between warning, siren, and interception, and sometimes no warning/siren at all.
Take away the interception at the tail end of that system, and the early warning/siren at the front end of it, and all you’re left with is… missiles.
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I don’t know if this war was inevitable or not. The Khameinist regime was definitely making moves to escalate its attacks targeting Israeli and Palestinian civilians, and just the week before Bibi launched the strike on Tehran, the IRGC had effectively taken direct operational control over its main proxy, Hezbollah.
That said, Bibi’s strike was a calculated political move in the context of both his longstanding relationship with right wing American Evangelicals and recent domestic developments in Iran. Bibi himself is an incompetent wartime leader, as his numerous failures with Hamas and the Gaza War show, and probably a criminal to boot, as indicated by the many Israeli investigations of him and his administration.
I don’t trust Bibi. I don’t support him in this war. And I’m wondering if he’s planned for the day when the US goes home.
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Hopefully these are just the paranoid ramblings of someone stressed out by war.
The future is never clear, never certain, never determined.
Every day we wake up to a fresh world, perfectly balanced between merit and guilt, and waiting for our thoughts, words, and actions to tip the scales.
As a collective, our failures, errors, mistakes, and negligence are abundant – we need all the merit we can get.
May the Creator shield all innocents from all bombs and brighten the light at the end of this tunnel.