The mullahs in Iran are actually hoping for the eschaton: It is THE basic tenet of their version of mohammedism.
So, dying is a good thing in their world view. Dying because of an attack against Israel is bonus points.
Thats why Iran and those who believe as they do are not rational actors that MAD can deal with. They're willing to let the world burn to get their due.
From the OED: The earliest known use of the noun Mohammedanism is in the mid 1700s. OED's earliest evidence for Mohammedanism is from 1732, in J. de La Roque's Voy. Arabia Fœlix. The term Mohammedism is considered offensive or pejorative to most Muslims since it makes human beings central in their religion, a position which only Allah may occupy. Quite similar to the Book of Revelations that preceded Islam and may have been pilfered into Islamic teaching for some strains of Muslim theology. However, you may be right with respect to current Shia theological belief in Iran among some of the mullahs in principal, but the destruction of Iran would essentially leave Islam in the hands of the Sunni majority-an unwelcome outcome for Shia Iran.
The "politicization of the intel community" is not...tinfoil hat nonsense. If you can't trust the "consensus" view as being a sound, logical assessment (with all the usual caveats), as a decision maker, what are you supposed to do? If as an intel geek if you see your National Intelligence Assessment publicly released as saying the opposite of what it was drafted as and chop chained / coordinated as, good outcomes are...unlikely. See COVID origins as exhibit A...
Not in an Intel genre, but I was had a VP I reported to "slightly alter" the four bullet points I gave him for his weekly status mtg with the president. His alterations? He deleted three "nots" (as in will [Not] be ready) and removed the "in" from an "inadequate."
Some things are similar, but VERY different. Threat = Capability times intent. The "Mercedes Mullahs" would be happy to get a nuke and not use it. They would be using the "strange new respect" model epitomized by N. Korea once they got a nuke. This is similar. What is different is the "apocalyptic" version of Shiah. Former Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a member. While no longer in government, the belief that bringing about "the end times" and possessing a nuke are far different than the N. Korean approach. The quite valid concern (IMO) is IF they have a nuke, the odds of them actually using it are FAR HIGHER they will use it. Many western "experts" will not see this coming because they have no knowledge of it, or see it as "theological nonsense", or are invested academically, politically, and financially in refusing to acknowledge it. So, using the "N. Korean model" of international behavior and "deterrence" (Kim wants to survive, full stop) is a poor fit at best. Possible ray of sunshine: take away the nukes, Persia is not Iraq, and might be able to sort this out. Might.
Exactly. MAD works with rational (more or less) actors: People who understand that their own destruction and destruction of their nations is a bad thing.
You get lunatics that hope daily for the eschaton, and the model breaks. Personally, I'm not at all convinced about the Norks, or the Chinese, but it is what it is.
Great write up, Sal. In my opinion, however, I believe that the bigger geo-strategic impact will be on China's and Russia's, decision making and assessment of their own leverage and vulnerabilities.
What's the shelf life on intel reports? If the ink is dry, it has already expired. Most "intel" like this is guesswork, or worse, especially when you're trying to guess what an insane death-cult like Islamist Iran is doing. And NOTHING that comes from the highly politicized left-wing "intel community" can be trusted even THAT far. After 12 years of Obama/Biden corruption in the military, it's going to take another generation before any military "analysis" will be worth anything.
Any supposition that Iran had given up, or even paused, their nuclear weapons program is ludicrous. That has ALWAYS been their plan, and clearly it still is.
I was quite close to somebody with parents in Arlington and Langley at the time, and there was legitimate shock at the fall of the Soviet Union. I'm sure "someone" saw it coming, but the word was, "no one" did.
In 1979 I was a Captain in the USAF, flying F4's from Germany. When the hostage situation went down, we were quite upset about it.
My backseater (navigator) got a huge planning chart - it must have been 6x15', and covered from Greenland to east of Pakistan/Tibet... We put it up on the wall of our vault (secure storage/crypto vault) and the navigators laid out a course, we calculated and laid out refueling tracks, routes for SEAD, entry and exit routes, IPs, AWACS and SAR holding areas, just like we were planning a war.
Days went by, and more and more detail was added. It was pretty impressive. We included other squadrons from the base (I was in the 81st), then other bases (the F15s from Bitburg, more F4s from Hahn, F111s from RAF Alconbury?, rescue from Turkey, etc.
Then the Wing Commander visited us. Took one look at it and said "I want that in MY vault" - the Wing Command Post crypto vault.
You planned because you were professionals and didn’t want to get caught short by events, time, or your superiors. After doing so, if an actual plan had come down from on high, you would still have had the bigger picture in your mind so as to be able to execute your job better. Good on you.
Flight-ER-Doc: Back in '92, I was hired by and worked for a former USAF Phantom driver who had also been stationed in Germany and talked about Bitburg ("Bitte ein bit"). Last name Conklin (became an MD). He was always telling Phantom stories and when we traveled together by commercial plane, he would stick his head into the airliner flight deck and ask if there were any Phantom drivers at the controls. He talked about preparing to intervene during the Yom Kippur War, if I recollect correctly.
"Given all the points above, I’m not sure whether the Israeli Air Force can do what needs to be done on its own. American might have to help finish the job should the Iranian leadership remain in power. "
This might alternatively be used as a valuable international lesson in not starting what you can't finish. (I doubt it though)
I for one am a bit tired of "allies" acting unilaterally with the expectation that the US will inevitably bail them out of their situation and have half a mind to let Israel figure out how to disassemble Iran's nuclear weapons program the harder way.
Israel is perfectly capable of killing everybody in the Iranian government. But President Trump doesn't want (he says) to kill Khamenei just yet. Israel DOES need to be careful, to leave at least one person ALIVE who has the authority to order the Iranian military to surrender. If the entire Iranian government assumes room temperature, then the military might fight on, like a headless chicken.
Of course, if the entire IRGC is eliminated, perhaps somebody like Reza Pahlavi would have the influence to calm down the less-terroristic soldiers.
Perhaps worth noting that at the level quoted, the Intel is a group produced product, and has been distilled many times to make sure it doesn't stomp on anyone's (Especially the NCA's) toes or threaten their rice bowl. Any dissenting views are sent to the footnotes surrounded by enough caveats to render them powerless.
The downside with all intel reports is the lag time between initial observed conditions, and reporting to the end user. Tactically, days is too long. Strategically, it can take months to get the data through the millstone and to the pointy end, and by that time it's ..... deprecated.
As for giving the bunker busters a try; not without a true, constitutionally-required, Congressional declaration of war. Assuming complete destruction (about that century of air results, never mind theory . . .) it will not be game over. Oh no my friends, it will be game on.
Israel may not HAVE a bunker-buster bomb .... but I wouldn't bet that they couldn't BUILD one in 3-4 weeks. The US bomb can supposedly penetrate 200 feet. If an Israeli bomb can penetrate 50 feet, then four of them could probably get down there - especially since Iran no longer has an air defense system.
Israel has a nuke or two, ne? How do you tell a "bunker buster" from a small underground nuke detonation, particularly if the target contains radioactive material?
That particular game has been on for about 1500 years now, declared or not. To quote the late Lev Bronstein; "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you".
Are they "actively" trying to assemble a bomb right now (well, then)? No.
Do they have the capabilities to to "actively" assembling a bomb? Yes.
Both can be true, but it's somewhat disingenuous in how it's stated. The better assessment would be "The Islamic Republic of Iran is believed to be able to assemble a nuclear weapon within a week of making a decision to do so." But of course that's an alarmist statement.
To the title, it depends…. Is it a report that operations depend on? The most important kind when your life is on the line. Very short shelf life. Sometimes even just hours. Is it a capabilities based report, longer time. Is it a report on the location of fixed assets (an increasingly smaller group)? Years. Sorry, but it depends.
" It is embarrassing and a bit arrogant in the same way as during the Obama years when they constantly tried to make ISIL happen instead of ISIS." I recall John Kerry trying to impress us with knowledge of the Middle East. ugh
Hmmmm. some intel has already been percolating for.....millennia.
Lesseee....we have Iran, Russia, China all playing pattycakes together already, somewhat. Those in the know, know that somehow, probably sooner than later, we have to figure out how Turkey gets pulled into the mix.
and THEN we'll really have something to worry over.
'til then.....yeah, let the MOP's fly and we'll deal with the aftermath as we must.
I was just thinking that a good friend in "Intelligence" was working in Istanbul quite a bit 60 years ago, and it occurred to me that it was "60 Years Ago."
This made me recall that my Sicilian great-grandfather fought Rommel in the Alps in WW1, when Italy was on the side of the allies, and the difference only 25 years later (when he was safely ensconced in the US and his son was in the US Navy in the Pacific).
As Yogi Berra said: "predictions are hard especially about the future" and especially when they editorialize about the evil mullahs.
A guess is either right or wrong the day it is accepted, you don't find out until it bites you.
Intel like the above is not a guess
A more apt analysis to Iran today is brer fox grabbing a tar baby.
See that Hormuz is still open.
Don’t you get the message?
Any reference to Song of the South has been outlawed
Well zippee dee do my dah!
What a beautiful day.
was that SotS or Aesop's Fables? Or was the former from the latter?
Uncle Remus and his tales of Brer Rabbit are from SoTS. All DVDs of the movie are now hidden in an underground bunker in Iran.
props for Yogi reference!
...and after today's Irani attack on an Israeli hospital, save a GBU specifically for the Iyatollah's likely location.
The ayatollah should be sent to paradise as soon as possible.
Preferably to hell...
Where the 72 virgins are men older than him
How accurate are those Iranian missiles? Do we know for sure that they were deliberately targeting the hospital?
quite proper consideration.
and yet.......sadly, irrelevant. as is the implied deliberate targeting of a hospital.
just the fact that missiles are inbound, is reason enough for Israel to hit Iran leadership.
Sal,
You are assuming the intelligence reports are worth anything to begin with.
Iraq has WMD, but Iran has nothing despite building tunnels hundreds of feet below ground to house what? Their nuclear medicine program?
Iran has scientists working on biowar agents. Word is that Uranium enrichment has reached the level of weapons grade.
conveniently biowar and nuke war nerds are separate skill sets, united only at the delivery stage
It doesn't take much for a dirty bomb
And, you don't have to be a nuke nerd to build and use it.
Iran uses dirty bomb on Israel.
Israel uses actual nuke on Iran.
Doesn’t sound like a win for Iran.
The mullahs in Iran are actually hoping for the eschaton: It is THE basic tenet of their version of mohammedism.
So, dying is a good thing in their world view. Dying because of an attack against Israel is bonus points.
Thats why Iran and those who believe as they do are not rational actors that MAD can deal with. They're willing to let the world burn to get their due.
From the OED: The earliest known use of the noun Mohammedanism is in the mid 1700s. OED's earliest evidence for Mohammedanism is from 1732, in J. de La Roque's Voy. Arabia Fœlix. The term Mohammedism is considered offensive or pejorative to most Muslims since it makes human beings central in their religion, a position which only Allah may occupy. Quite similar to the Book of Revelations that preceded Islam and may have been pilfered into Islamic teaching for some strains of Muslim theology. However, you may be right with respect to current Shia theological belief in Iran among some of the mullahs in principal, but the destruction of Iran would essentially leave Islam in the hands of the Sunni majority-an unwelcome outcome for Shia Iran.
Offensive?
Compared to what they would call me? IDGAF.
Interesting. Is our use of "Mohammedan" to describe a sect of Muslims similar to our use of "Jesuit" to describe a sect of followers of Jesus?
Oh, but they are rational actors. They just work from a different set of basic principles.
If the rest of the world says you're crazy, the problem might just be you're crazy.
At any rate, thats how the rest of the world should treat you.
more than for fusion:)
The "politicization of the intel community" is not...tinfoil hat nonsense. If you can't trust the "consensus" view as being a sound, logical assessment (with all the usual caveats), as a decision maker, what are you supposed to do? If as an intel geek if you see your National Intelligence Assessment publicly released as saying the opposite of what it was drafted as and chop chained / coordinated as, good outcomes are...unlikely. See COVID origins as exhibit A...
Great question.
If you don’t trust the intel all you can do is go with your gut feelings.
CIA - Christians in Action.
But these days, not much Christianity involved
I first heard that particular usage in Coronado.
Not in an Intel genre, but I was had a VP I reported to "slightly alter" the four bullet points I gave him for his weekly status mtg with the president. His alterations? He deleted three "nots" (as in will [Not] be ready) and removed the "in" from an "inadequate."
Good times. I was right, but no points for that.
Some things are similar, but VERY different. Threat = Capability times intent. The "Mercedes Mullahs" would be happy to get a nuke and not use it. They would be using the "strange new respect" model epitomized by N. Korea once they got a nuke. This is similar. What is different is the "apocalyptic" version of Shiah. Former Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a member. While no longer in government, the belief that bringing about "the end times" and possessing a nuke are far different than the N. Korean approach. The quite valid concern (IMO) is IF they have a nuke, the odds of them actually using it are FAR HIGHER they will use it. Many western "experts" will not see this coming because they have no knowledge of it, or see it as "theological nonsense", or are invested academically, politically, and financially in refusing to acknowledge it. So, using the "N. Korean model" of international behavior and "deterrence" (Kim wants to survive, full stop) is a poor fit at best. Possible ray of sunshine: take away the nukes, Persia is not Iraq, and might be able to sort this out. Might.
Exactly. MAD works with rational (more or less) actors: People who understand that their own destruction and destruction of their nations is a bad thing.
You get lunatics that hope daily for the eschaton, and the model breaks. Personally, I'm not at all convinced about the Norks, or the Chinese, but it is what it is.
Great write up, Sal. In my opinion, however, I believe that the bigger geo-strategic impact will be on China's and Russia's, decision making and assessment of their own leverage and vulnerabilities.
What's the shelf life on intel reports? If the ink is dry, it has already expired. Most "intel" like this is guesswork, or worse, especially when you're trying to guess what an insane death-cult like Islamist Iran is doing. And NOTHING that comes from the highly politicized left-wing "intel community" can be trusted even THAT far. After 12 years of Obama/Biden corruption in the military, it's going to take another generation before any military "analysis" will be worth anything.
Any supposition that Iran had given up, or even paused, their nuclear weapons program is ludicrous. That has ALWAYS been their plan, and clearly it still is.
The tunnels and fortifications they build indicate that their nuclear program was not about medicine.
I was quite close to somebody with parents in Arlington and Langley at the time, and there was legitimate shock at the fall of the Soviet Union. I'm sure "someone" saw it coming, but the word was, "no one" did.
My intel indicates conclusively that the time to deal with Iran was 1979.
and the next best time is now
Just like quitting smoking!
In 1979 I was a Captain in the USAF, flying F4's from Germany. When the hostage situation went down, we were quite upset about it.
My backseater (navigator) got a huge planning chart - it must have been 6x15', and covered from Greenland to east of Pakistan/Tibet... We put it up on the wall of our vault (secure storage/crypto vault) and the navigators laid out a course, we calculated and laid out refueling tracks, routes for SEAD, entry and exit routes, IPs, AWACS and SAR holding areas, just like we were planning a war.
Days went by, and more and more detail was added. It was pretty impressive. We included other squadrons from the base (I was in the 81st), then other bases (the F15s from Bitburg, more F4s from Hahn, F111s from RAF Alconbury?, rescue from Turkey, etc.
Then the Wing Commander visited us. Took one look at it and said "I want that in MY vault" - the Wing Command Post crypto vault.
Not only was 1979 the time, we had a plan!
You planned because you were professionals and didn’t want to get caught short by events, time, or your superiors. After doing so, if an actual plan had come down from on high, you would still have had the bigger picture in your mind so as to be able to execute your job better. Good on you.
Had we had smart phones, I wonder if we'd be able to see a pic!
Oh, hell no. Remember that sailor that went to Leavenworth for taking some (non-classified) pics inside his submarine?
Yep:)
Flight-ER-Doc: Back in '92, I was hired by and worked for a former USAF Phantom driver who had also been stationed in Germany and talked about Bitburg ("Bitte ein bit"). Last name Conklin (became an MD). He was always telling Phantom stories and when we traveled together by commercial plane, he would stick his head into the airliner flight deck and ask if there were any Phantom drivers at the controls. He talked about preparing to intervene during the Yom Kippur War, if I recollect correctly.
Ah, yes…the local brew. We’d buy it by the case (literally), $4 or so, including the deposit on the bottles :)
My backseater lived adjacent to a pipeline that ran from the brewery, to the bottling plant. Some discussions occurred about tapping into it .
But if he was flying F4’s at Bitburg he was a couple of years or more before me. When I arrived in 78, Bitburg was flying the F15A/B.
Intel reports are just slightly better than the Wx brief was.
Our weather guessers were located 3 floors underground, and never looked at the sky.
I have no confidence in either
"Given all the points above, I’m not sure whether the Israeli Air Force can do what needs to be done on its own. American might have to help finish the job should the Iranian leadership remain in power. "
This might alternatively be used as a valuable international lesson in not starting what you can't finish. (I doubt it though)
I for one am a bit tired of "allies" acting unilaterally with the expectation that the US will inevitably bail them out of their situation and have half a mind to let Israel figure out how to disassemble Iran's nuclear weapons program the harder way.
Israel is perfectly capable of killing everybody in the Iranian government. But President Trump doesn't want (he says) to kill Khamenei just yet. Israel DOES need to be careful, to leave at least one person ALIVE who has the authority to order the Iranian military to surrender. If the entire Iranian government assumes room temperature, then the military might fight on, like a headless chicken.
Of course, if the entire IRGC is eliminated, perhaps somebody like Reza Pahlavi would have the influence to calm down the less-terroristic soldiers.
Perhaps worth noting that at the level quoted, the Intel is a group produced product, and has been distilled many times to make sure it doesn't stomp on anyone's (Especially the NCA's) toes or threaten their rice bowl. Any dissenting views are sent to the footnotes surrounded by enough caveats to render them powerless.
And the dissenting views are more reliable than the groupthink
In any case, it's usually worth reading the footnotes and accessing the references.
The downside with all intel reports is the lag time between initial observed conditions, and reporting to the end user. Tactically, days is too long. Strategically, it can take months to get the data through the millstone and to the pointy end, and by that time it's ..... deprecated.
not always, but certainly not never.
classified footnotes at that, I'd imagine.
Yes, usually. They most often reflect dissenting views of the analysis.
Enlightening as always.
As for giving the bunker busters a try; not without a true, constitutionally-required, Congressional declaration of war. Assuming complete destruction (about that century of air results, never mind theory . . .) it will not be game over. Oh no my friends, it will be game on.
Bail (lease) a B2 to the Israelis, have the CIA sheep dip the crew for a weekend.
I had the same thought. Or some guys that retired last year. Good money if you can get it!
And what a story to tell at the club!
Israel may not HAVE a bunker-buster bomb .... but I wouldn't bet that they couldn't BUILD one in 3-4 weeks. The US bomb can supposedly penetrate 200 feet. If an Israeli bomb can penetrate 50 feet, then four of them could probably get down there - especially since Iran no longer has an air defense system.
Or just destroy all the entrances and ventilators. Works for short term.
Longer term you can bomb any excavation attempts on sight or maybe a later, saner, government would allow supervised opening and dismantling.
Ask yourself how far the Israelis may go if the Iranians are assembling a nuke. Fordow isn't deep enough if the crisis is truly existential.
Israel has a nuke or two, ne? How do you tell a "bunker buster" from a small underground nuke detonation, particularly if the target contains radioactive material?
That particular game has been on for about 1500 years now, declared or not. To quote the late Lev Bronstein; "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you".
Iran doesn't have an active program, but can produce a warhead within a week. All within the same report?
I think that's based on the meaning of "Active."
Are they "actively" trying to assemble a bomb right now (well, then)? No.
Do they have the capabilities to to "actively" assembling a bomb? Yes.
Both can be true, but it's somewhat disingenuous in how it's stated. The better assessment would be "The Islamic Republic of Iran is believed to be able to assemble a nuclear weapon within a week of making a decision to do so." But of course that's an alarmist statement.
And far less ambiguous. No one wants to stick their d*ck out. Can't have that.
To the title, it depends…. Is it a report that operations depend on? The most important kind when your life is on the line. Very short shelf life. Sometimes even just hours. Is it a capabilities based report, longer time. Is it a report on the location of fixed assets (an increasingly smaller group)? Years. Sorry, but it depends.
" It is embarrassing and a bit arrogant in the same way as during the Obama years when they constantly tried to make ISIL happen instead of ISIS." I recall John Kerry trying to impress us with knowledge of the Middle East. ugh
"Ugh" is a valid description of all instances of John Kerry trying to impress in all genre.
Hmmmm. some intel has already been percolating for.....millennia.
Lesseee....we have Iran, Russia, China all playing pattycakes together already, somewhat. Those in the know, know that somehow, probably sooner than later, we have to figure out how Turkey gets pulled into the mix.
and THEN we'll really have something to worry over.
'til then.....yeah, let the MOP's fly and we'll deal with the aftermath as we must.
I was just thinking that a good friend in "Intelligence" was working in Istanbul quite a bit 60 years ago, and it occurred to me that it was "60 Years Ago."
This made me recall that my Sicilian great-grandfather fought Rommel in the Alps in WW1, when Italy was on the side of the allies, and the difference only 25 years later (when he was safely ensconced in the US and his son was in the US Navy in the Pacific).
Times change, and 60 years is a long time.
My father: Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. Stated by a military intelligence officer.
Patton: If everyone is thinking the same thing, someone isn't thinking.
One thing that appears to stand out is that the air defense systems purchased from the communists did not work as billed.