The Muslim Spectator

Economics, Politics, Defense. I examine Muslim's affairs with a commitment to a civilizational renaissance.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@tahlilrahbord I agree. The Iranian airfleet would be destroyed in air-to-air combat and/or due to ground strikes as the US and Israel would have longer range a2a missiles, better stealth, better ISR, and more planes. Why do you think so? Same or novel reasons?

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@OmiljeniDaidza It means it has proxy war material to give its proxies. Those older, obsolete tanks are not obsolete in proxy wars.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@IbnMaghrebi When the US build-up happened, GCC should have forced US assets to leave the country until either the build-up ceased to be, or after the end of a potential war (with an exception of the anti-air defense systems).

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@IbnMaghrebi It is a possibility that GCC didn't allow for strikes from their soil and closed their airspace, only to do a 180 after Iran struck the GCC.

Anyways, what remains a fact is that GCC are stupid: it was foreseeable that in an existential threat, Iran would target US assets in GCC.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@zhao_dashuai Whether conventional bombs can destroy the dam is irrelevant. If an adversary is willing to escalate to the point of attacking the dam, it is hard to see why they would not use a tactical nuclear weapon to ensure its destruction. Anyways, this topic is not relevant (thank God).

[Phil Kennedy @PhillipAKennedy]

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.

In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914.

I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.

I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

The record of racketeering is long.

I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.

I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.

In China in 1927 I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.

Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

-Major General Smedley D. Butler

War Is a Racket, 1935

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

@Covenant_watch What reason was most prevalent?

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

The same logic applies to Iran. If they can’t effectively destroy a carrier conventionally, but intend to do so, gain the ability to build and use a tactical nuke before the war ends, and see it as less escalatory than a land strike, they may proceed.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

We don’t know whether some objectives can only be achieved with tactical nukes, or whether they can’t. Outside observers don’t know more than the decision-makers fighting the war. That uncertainty alone keeps the option on the table.

[Policy Tensor @policytensor]

Why on earth anyone would risk resorting to nuclear weapons where there is hardly a target where that gives you an advantage is beyond me.

Look, there may be one or two targets in total — deeply buried, hardened bunkers like Fordow — where tactical nukes offer any advantage whatsoever over conventional weapons. And even there, bunker busters are nearly as effective.

The costs and risks of nuclear use are substantial. Unless resorted to under existential risk, it risks massive international and domestic political blowback; it almost guarantees nuclear proliferation in the region and the end of the US-Israeli monopoly on WMDs; it invites nuclear use by other powers, including the risk that the mere detection of nuclear use could unleash a chain of events that results in broader nuclear escalation.

This is not an option.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

The attrition and production rates of TELs, missiles, and drones are unknown. We are all spectators. Without accurate data on losses and inventories, it is just speculation.

[Analytica Camillus @AnalyticaCamil1]

The Iranians are in fact conserving missiles, because the IRGC (especially with Khamenei dead) made a conscious decision to fight a long-war.

We really have to stop navel-gazing at Iranian TELs (again for folk in the back, they’re pieces of shit that are easy to fabricate).

[OJ Smoke @OJ_Smoke_]

Muslims need to stop listening to any “geopolitical analyst” simply because they hate America and Israel too.

“Professor” Jiang was always a fraud

A lot of Muslims with an inferiority complex watch him, when we have many intelligent Muslim geopolitical analysts. Be your own man

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Some observations and comments on Trump and Israel's war on Iran:

1. Tehran is not looking for a ceasefire and has rejected outreach from Trump. The reason is that they believe they committed a mistake by agreeing to the ceasefire in June - it only enabled the US and Israel to restock and remobilize to launch war again. If they agree to a ceasefire now, they will only be attacked again in a few months.

2. For a ceasefire to be acceptable, it appears difficult for Tehran to agree to it until the cost to the US has become much higher than it currently is. Otherwise, the US will restart the war at a later point, the calculation reads.

3. Accordingly, Iran has shifted its strategy. It is striking Israel, but very differently from the June war. There is a constant level of attack throughout the day rather than a salvo of 50 missiles at once. Damage will be less, but that isn't a problem because Tehran has concluded that Israel's pain tolerance is very high - as long as the US stays in the war. So the focus shifts to the US.

4. From the outset, and perhaps surprisingly, Iran has been targeting US bases in the region, including against friendly states. Tehran calculates that the war can only end durably if the cost for the US rises dramatically, including American casualties. After the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran says it has no red lines left and will go all out in seeking the destruction of these bases and high American casualties.

5. Iran understands that many in the American security establishment had been convinced that Iran's past restraint reflected weakness and an inability or unwillingness to face the US in a direct war. Tehran is now doing everything it can to demonstrate the opposite - despite the massive cost it itself will pay. Ironically, the assassination of Khamenei facilitated this shift.

6. One aspect of this is that Iran has now also struck bases in Cyprus, which have been used for attacks against Iran. Iran is well aware that this is an attack on a EU state. But that seems to be the point. Tehran appears intent on not only expanding the war into Persian Gulf states but also into Europe. Note the attack on the French base in the UAE. For the war to be able to end, Europe too has to pay a cost, the reasoning appears to be.

7. There appears to be only limited concern about the internal situation. The announcement of Khamenei's death opened a window for people to pour onto the streets and seek to overthrow the regime. Though expressions of joy were widespread, no real mobilization was seen. That window is now closing, as the theocratic system closes ranks and establishes new formal leadership.

Again: The question "How will this end?" should have been asked before this war was triggered. It wasn't.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

What I mean by state collapse can be seen in cases like Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and, until recently, Syria: situations where central authority disintegrates and multiple power brokers either fight one another or effectively partition the country into competing zones of control.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

🧵 The publicly stated military objectives of the United States and Israel are: (1) preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, (2) eliminating its ballistic missile program, (3) destroying its naval capabilities, and (4) toppling the regime.

[The Muslim Spectator @TheMuslimSpec]

So the first three objectives are basically tools to make the real goal possible, while the fourth is there to distract from this sinister and more consequential goal.