I just re-read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War over Shabbat and it is astounding how the IDF is doing almost everything right and Iran everything wrong.
The Iran Axis is losing badly and now it is time for Israel to deal the death blow by invading Lebanon and striking strategic targets in Iran (nuclear, regime, oil infrastructure and ports).
1 Hamas
Hamas is destroyed as a military force: 24 battalions destroyed, 18k terrorists killed; 2/3rd of leadership and over half of senior officers dead, most of the rest wounded. Cut off from funding sources and re-supply. Unable to fire a single rocket in response to Deif and Haniyeh hits.
Source: https://gazasmostwanted.com/eliminated/
2 Hizbollah
Hizbollah is badly attrited with command and control (C&C) decapitated. 500 dead terrorists, mostly older, senior guys. Badly infiltrated and falling apart. They are not the professional well armed military force they were on Oct 6. They have enraged the Druze (a bad idea as Sun Tzu notes) and face annihilation by Christians and Druze once Israel badly weakens them. A genocide of Shiites in Lebanon is a real possibility.
3 Houthis
Houthis suffered a single punch knockout blow that took out their fuel, arms and funding sources (customs & oil sales) and gave US & UK political cover to hit further infrastructure targets leaving them utterly f-ked. No attacks on ships for over 2 weeks, although was one just now.
4 Iran itself
Iran has suffered serious senior IRCG losses affecting its C&C. Its missiles don’t work. It sinks its own ships, kills its own President and shoots down its own airliners (couple of years ago) through incompetence. It has been utterly embarrassed, is completely infiltrated and is eating itself alive trying to find traitors. Traitors are everywhere because 80% of the country hates the regime. They are in utter chaos and panic. Their weakness exposed for all to see.
Cost to Israel
Total cost to Israel for all of the above (from Oct 8 onwards): 330 IDF soldiers, a couple of dozen civilians, 2 tanks & 2 APCs.
The IDF is vastly stronger than before Oct 7 because of the massive experience benefits of hundreds of thousands of soldiers getting months of intense combat with very low losses.
As anyone who has played a military conflict game knows, experienced units are worth far more than inexperienced ones. Indeed powerful, highly experienced units, especially armour, can be virtually unstoppable both in games and real life.
Also the IDF has learnt a lot institutionally and perfected new systems and strategies.
Sun Tzu's The Art of War
Sun Tzu says the best way of war is to attack your enemies’s plans and strategy.
Iran’s entire strategy and military setup was based on low level asymmetrical warfare until it could get nukes.
Oct 7 destroyed the entire strategy by sending Israel into high intensity warfare to which Iran and proxies have no answer.
They simply do not have properly structured and equipped militaries. No modern tanks, APC AFVs, fighter aircraft, air defence, artillery, particularly mobile artillery.
Normal military powers like US, Russia, China, India and Israel have all these things because you can’t win high intensity wars without them.
The Iranian way of war - terror, tunnels and missiles - is an utter disaster. It fixes them in place and prevents manoeuvre, civilian attacks enrage Israelis making them more unified and soldiers fight better (as Sun Tzu notes), and has been completely neutralised by IDF.
IDF’s kill ratio is climbing over 50:1 (now around 55:1). This is at least 10x better than any military has ever achieved in urban combat.
Israel's interests vs US & allies interests
The only obstacle Israel faces now is that the US and allies don’t want full scale regional war because it would spike the oil price and endanger Kamala’s chances. These are both good things for Israel because it is an net energy exporter and Trump is much better for Israel than Kamala.
But they accept that if Iran launches a large attack and causes any real damage at all, Israel will be entitled to invade Lebanon and hit Iran very hard.
But for Israel, full scale war is the best option because it is now clear it can completely destroy Iran’s proxies and either set back Iran for decades of flip it to an Israeli ally by enabling the people to overthrow the Mullahs.
Once Israel starts, the US and allies may well join in, as we provide the political cover for any bad outcomes, as we did in Yemen.
The US has moved very substantial forces to the region, including F-22s and B-2s with GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)s to take out Iran’s deep nuclear facilities.
While the US has projected weakness and been very tentative under Biden, once Israel attacks with maximum force and the bad outcomes cannot be avoided, it will likely take the opportunity to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, lest Israel use its own nukes to do the job, as former deputy PM Avigdor Lieberman has suggested.
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