Selwyn Manning and I will be discuss the how’s and whys of the illegal Israeli/US war of aggression against Iran but with a different angle than most because we eventually focus on potential upsides to the conflict. Yes, you read that right. Rather than dwell on war porn and weapons fetishism, we outline some positive systemic repercussions and consequences looking forward.
That is our bias for hope.
You can find the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJOeVMshc8
Given the amount of dis/misinformation being pushed about the nature of the conflict between the Israel-US alliance and Iran, it might be good to understand some basic concepts. I will leave aside for the moment that blatant illegality of the US/Israel preventative war of aggressive choice on Iran and instead concentrate on the nature of their respective approaches to the conflict when seen in broad context.
Counter-force strikes are lethal kinetic operations against “hard” targets like military installations, command and control bunkers, air, land and naval platforms, missile depots, launchers and launching sites, and anything that is involved in an enemy’s ability to mass and project force. This includes intelligence-gathering and military communications grids and even satellite surveillance and sensor stations. The key to the definition is that the targets are identifiably military or military-related in nature. The purpose of counter-force strikes is to degrade or eliminate the enemy’s military capabilities and ability to fight whether or not it has the will to continue to do so. Along with strikes on airfields and naval depots, Ukraine’s attacks on missile and drone production sites in Russia are examples of counter-force targeting,
Counter-value strikes are lethal kinetic operations undertaken against “soft” targets. The include all non-combatants and non-military infrastructure like civilian power grids, water treatment plants, hospitals, schools, churches, athletic and community facilities and anything that is not directly involved in a military effort. Counter-value strikes are generally prohibited under international law, including the Laws of War, but have continue to be used as a psychological weapon whose purpose is to undermine the collective morale of and willingness to continue support for the fight by the targeted population. This can be done to provoke a popular uprising, prompt socially disruptive internal refugee flows and to foment political unrest, or can simply be designed to psychologically break people and destroy the material and social cohesion of society.
The firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo in WW2, as well as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were counter-value strikes. The Japanese military campaigns in East Asia, particularly in China and Korea, were mostly counter-value in nature. The Russian drone campaign against civilian targets in Ukraine is a recent example. So are most terrorist attacks regardless of who commits them. Assaults by military forces on civilian targets with the objective of eliminating popular support for insurgencies, be they in Gaza, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chechnya or Afghanistan, are another instance of counter-value targeting. All hark to a previous era where unlimited wars of annihilation were waged by societies, not just military forces representing them. As exercises in collective punishment, they are all contraventions of international law.
Long term readers will remember when I posted here at KP about the error of thinking that the nuclear doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD) still applied to contemporary nuclear targeting strategies. Killing cities is a counter-value proposition, and in the days of dumb bombs and inaccurate guidance and surveillance technologies, was deemed the necessary means of bringing wars to their earliest conclusion (although the repercussive effects would remain for decades). Heavier throw-weights (warheads, as measured in mega or kilotons of nuclear explosive yields) compensated for inaccuracy (as measured by Circular Error Probables (CEPs), which is the circumference around a target point within which a warhead can be expected to fall). But as military technological advancements took hold by the 1970s, MAD was replaced with “flexible response,” where nuclear strikes were first directed at counter-force targets like ICBM missile silos, air and naval bases with nuclear weapons presence. CEPs were reduced to meters as distances and numbers of warheads increased per missile launched, which along with real-time manoeuvrable guidance systems allowed the use of lower throw-weights on more accurately designated counter-force targets.
Having killed the enemy’s response capabilities, surrender can be compelled or negotiated with the defenceless decision-makers on the other side. If that fails, their societies remain as easy counter-value targets. That logic now spans the spectrum of warfare capabilities from the battlefield to the strategic level.
In conventional wars, militarily superior actors–those with dominant military capabilities and resource bases–prefer counter-force targeting because it suits their strengths and degrades the opponent’s military capabilities without excessive “collateral” damage amongst civilians. As the old saying goes, after the strikes have achieved their strategic objectives there needs to be someone to negotiate with and a society that is capable of restoring some sense of functionality to its institutions and administrative and logistical capabilities. Removing a threatening military presence without removing or destroying its host society is seen as the most cost-effective means of achieving post-war peace and stability on the dominant actor’s terms.
Military inferior actors–say, guerrilla groups or less powerful states (as measured in military capabilities, resource bases and social support for political decision-making processes and institutions)–prefer to engage in counter-value strikes. They cannot afford to fight toe-to-toe against a more powerful foe or engage in a counter-force wars of attrition. That only plays to the stronger opponent’s strengths and hastens inevitable defeat. Think of Saddam Hussein’s strategy in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm), where he tried to use old Soviet era tactics to confront the US military and its allies in Kuwait and Iraq as if they were peer competitors. Instead, “Shock and Awe” did not go well for Saddam’s forces. The war lasted six and a half months and although Saddam was allowed to remain in power because no better options were deemed to be available, it was believed that he had learned a lesson and returned to his “box.” As it turned out, it just set the stage for the second Gulf War and his overthrow a decade later.
Most militarily inferior leaders are not as foolish as Saddam was and do not “stand up” to fight countries like the US and Israel on symmetrical terms. Instead, their best bet is to resort to unconventional, irregular warfare tactics that place a premium on counter-value targeting and flexibility of maneuver as part of widening and prolonging the conflict into non-military spheres. They seek to involve the enemy populations and neutral actors in the fight, making it an ongoing engagement with economic and social repercussions that extend far beyond the conflict zone. That raises the direct and indirect political and material costs of the militarily-superior opponent.
That is what Iran is doing in response to the US/Israeli attacks. While it does some counter-force operations against Israeli and forward-positioned US forces, its strategy is also based on counter-value targeting of civilian infrastructure in neighboring Arab countries as well as Israel. That includes key shipping lanes and transportation/logistical hubs. The counter-value targeting is illegal, to be sure. But from the Iranian perspective it is a necessary part of its defensive strategy against the military superiority deployed against it. It cannot win the war on military terms, although it might be able to force a stalemate if the will of the US (and perhaps Israeli) public turns against continuing the war, something particularly significant given that the US holds midterm elections in November.
Raising the economic, social and political costs of the war, including but not limited to oil prices, is one way that the Iranians can compensate for their militarily inferior position. Threatening civilian targets in the Arab oligarchies, along with the threats to shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, has an adverse ripple effect on tourism, air and sea passenger travel, merchant cargo and air freight prices and supply chain schedules, insurance premiums, and much more. It also sows fear in the populations of states that Iranians target because of their alignment with the US and Israel, even if they do so in a passive way (say, by allowing military overflights and/or forward US basing). That in turn can pose domestic problems for Gulf oligarchies because even if they aren’t democracies and are as closed when it comes to governance as is the revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, most have significant Shiite minorities living and working in them. Killing the Shiites’ spiritual leader as well as the head of the Islamic State of Iran, Ayatolla Khamenei, does not sit well with his millions of co-religionists, so Iranian attempts to stoke tensions along sectarian lines via kinetic operations on civilian targets inside Sunni Arab territories can be expected as part of its counter-value campaign. In other words, it brings the war home to the Arab oligarchs.
For their part, the US and Israel have engaged in a hybrid or mixed conflict model: they use both counter-force and counter-value strikes as part of their military campaigns. They both emphasise to the public the successes of the former, including the Israeli strike on the compound that killed Khamenei (along with his wife, daughter-in-law and grandson and his son-turned-successor badly wounded). The MAGA administration boasts of destroying dozens of Iranian warships (including a lightly armed frigate that was over 2000 nautical miles from Iranian waters when it was torpedoed off of the coast of Sri Lanka after participating in an Indian-led naval exercise) and aircraft as well as hundreds of land-based military targets (e.g., missile launchers and weapons storage facilities).They are less keen to acknowledge their counter-value strikes, such as the bombing of a girls school that resulted in over 170 deaths (the US says it had dated targeting coordinates for the double Tomahawk missile strikes on the site), a desalination plant and an oil refinery in Tehran, to say nothing of numerous civilian buildings throughout the country. (Incidentally it is against international law to target water supplies and bomb facilities that result in great environmental damage, such as the refinery Tehran).
From the various US statements about why it chose to make war on Iran–first to destroy its nuclear program (supposedly destroyed last year), then eliminate it as the “greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world” (although the 9/11 attackers, al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim and unrelated to Iran and recent mass attacks in the West have been carried out mostly by rightwing extremists), and then to pursue regime change, to now a bit of “all of the above”– it is clear that the hybrid warfare strategy is basically a catch-all assault blanket designed to destroy Iranian society as much as its military and political regime. In other words, it is an attack on the Iranian nation-State, not just those at the top of the bureaucratic ladder (and now subjected to “decapitation” strikes).
Perhaps the US believes that a popular uprising will emerge from the rubble and that someone like the son of the ousted dictator Shah Reza Pahlavi will restore the Peacock Throne. If so and inspire of what Iranian exiles in the West claim about the strength of organised opposition to the Islamic Republic inside and outside of Iran, they are deluded and will be disappointed because the revolutionary regime is resilient, determined, well-prepared for a protracted struggle and very much infiltrated into every aspect of Iranian life. Plus, Persian ethno-nationalism is a very strong ideological bind in Iranian society, so even if the US and Israel attempt to “Balkanise” Iran via the arming and funding of irredentist ethnic groups like the Kurds, it is unlikely that Iranian society will atomise along ethnic lines over the long-term. But if it does, that will only lead to more instability and conflict as primordial divisions spill into modern conflict modalities.
Israel has a different strategic agenda. Convincing the US to join it in its attack on Iran citing “existential” grounds is just part of the larger plan to redraw the map of the Middle East in an image more favorable to Israel. With an accommodation having been reached with its Sunni Arab neighbors on regional security issues (including intelligence-sharing and non-support for an independent Palestinian state), October 7 was the catalyst-precipitant for the move, which has been decades in the making amongst Zionist strategists and intellectuals. Once Hamas gave Netanyahu the excuse–and saved him from his ongoing legal troubles in the process–with its indiscriminate as well as ill-fated assault on Israeli civilians as well as military personnel, the gears were set in motion for a multi-fronted/multi-pronged hybrid war involving conventional and unconventional means (and perhaps nuclear weapons if the desired geopolitical outcomes of the war look increasingly unachievable by conventional means).
US and Israeli war-mongering is also a double “wag the dog” scenario. Netanyahu needed to divert attention from his court case and the costs of occupying Gaza and the West Bank, whereas Trump needed to divert attention from the Epstein files and his unpopular domestic policy agenda. For Israel, destruction of Iran as a nation-state is seen as a way to remove a longer-term existential threat to not only Israel but Jews is general (because Iranian proxies have targeted Jews around the world). This is why the possibility of an Israeli first strike use of nuclear weapons on Iran cannot be discounted. Should the US quit the fight and/or the war bog down and become a Ukrainian-style quagmire, then the resort to nuclear strikes may be put on the table. Given Israel’s record when it comes to international conventions and the Laws of War, that is a worrisome prospect. Given the global community’s record when it comes to stopping aggression and thwarting nuclear weapons first use (even the US refuses to renounce first use strikes and Israel certainly does not), who is going to stop them?
When militarily-superior actors become frustrated by their lack of success in forcing opponent’s capitulation via counter-force targeting, they are tempted to resort to counter-value targeting in order to intimidate and force the opponent’s population into submission. That denies the opponent its support base and cannon fodder in a protracted war scenario. But it also is a type of state terrorism in wartime and as such a war crime. And it often has the opposite effect, as besieged populations abandon short-term internecine enmities in favour of uniting against the common aggressor. Think of it this way: whether the parent’s of the murdered schoolgirls opposed the ayatollahs or not, they all know very well who killed their daughters. It was not Khamenei and they will not forget.
Given that the US has been the most consistently at-war country in the world over the past 60 years and Israel has consistently used counter-value targeting as a social control instrument in occupied Gaza and the West Bank over the same period, both have dark records of moving from counter-force to counter-value operations depending on tactical circumstances, This is more the case for the US, where failures in strategic framing and overly-optimistic reliance on weapons technologies and belief in “effects-based” results have left gaps in short-and medium-term goal-setting and contingency planning. Be it in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran, the US has consequently veered into counter-value operations well beyond the counter-force objectives of its initial rules of engagement. In a sense, the move to counter-value targeting is a sign of the desperation on the part of political and military leaders when their counter-force superiority does not produce the results that they anticipated in the (short) time frames that they hoped for (remember that the US likes its wars short and snappy, much like the video games many of its soldiers played before they joined the kinetic real world).
For Israel, the resort to counter-value targeting pursues both tactical and strategic objectives. At the broadest level, this is what distinguishes Israeli from US military objectives in Iran. It can be argued that there is some legitimacy of the Israeli position in that some of the extreme anti-Semitic statements of Iranian leaders over the last 4 decades have involved threats to eliminate the “Zionist Entity” in its entirety. Clearly that is a poor choice of words when it comes to menacing a nuclear-armed regional rival backed by a declining superpower, but in any event it has given Israel a (largely contrived) justification for its actions along “kill or be killed” lines.
The summary outlook for this war is for it to slow down, widen and become more of a counter-value than a counter-force affair that costs millions in treasure and litres of blood, and eventuate with a status quo that is different at the margins but essentially the same at its core–but all at a far higher price in terms of international stability and global order.
The situation distilled: This war has plenty of background but the immediate reason is that two powerful and malevolent guys and their respective support retinues needed and therefore staged a diversion from their respective personal and political foibles by picking a fight with some other distasteful foreign fellows just because they could.
Others are and will suffer the consequences long after they are gone.
First the US kidnaps the president of a sovereign state after killing more than a score of civilians on the open seas without warrant or evidence of wrongdoing. Now it kills the head of state and supreme religious leader of another sovereign country, teaming up with a regime credibly accused of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank in order to do so. Whatever one may think of the individuals and regimes targeted (I happen to not be a fan of either) or the narrative spin given by Western governments and media, the selective unilateral application of force without international approval in the absence of imminent threat from either country demonstrates two things: 1) the US and Israel have gone rogue; and 2) in doing so they have set a dangerous precedent for others to follow suit (think China with regard to Taiwan). That this act of belligerence is taken in part as a “wag the dog” diversion from Trump’s Epstein and domestic policy problems as well as Netanyahu’s legal troubles only makes the matter worse.
It also reinforces a core notion of nuclear deterrence theory: having nuclear weapons deters attacks. North Korea, China and Russia are all despotic but nuclear armed. They are not attacked by other nuclear states (and for those who might raise the issue, Ukrainian strikes on Russia are retaliatory and limited). Pakistan and India are nuclear armed but limit their military encounters vis a vis each other to conventional weapons. Same with Pakistan and Afghanistan–their conflict is limited to guerilla and conventional exchanges. Israel has nukes so is not subject to full scale attacks, again, just limited and often unconventional sporadic strikes by missiles and guerrillas/terrorists.
But Venezuela and Iran are not nuclear armed (even if the latter is trying to develop that capability for the reasons described here), so they are attacked with impunity. This confirms the deterrent value of even a small number of deliverable nuclear weapons, including so-called “dirty” bombs. Even just having one any day will keep full scale aggressors away.
Whatever the outcome of the US/Israeli attacks on Iran both short- and long-term, and in spite of the Western media fascination with war and weapons porn, things seem poised to get worse as a result. Iran has limited experience with democracy (and the CIA helped orchestrate a coup against its last democratically-elected president in the early 1950s), so even if Mossad and the CIA are organizing post-conflict political forces to replace the theocratic regime, there is no guarantee that what follows will be democratic (and if people think that the Shah Reza Pahlavi’s son living in LA is the answer, they are sorely mistaken). Plus, Iran’s scattershot military response against Gulf States is designed to inflame the Sunni/Shiite divisions within them as well as anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment. That could spell trouble for the Western-backed sultanistic dictatorships that control them (none of the Arab Gulf States are democratic, which makes the hypocrisy of US rhetoric justifying its aggression against Iran and Venezuela more obvious. Especially when Trump honors and does business with Saudi prince Mohammed bin-Salman, who ordered the murder of US citizen and Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi in 2018 ). Moreover, Iran and its proxies have cells in many foreign countries, including the US, which will now be likely activated because of the egregious nature of the preventative and/or regime change-focused war of opportunity (as opposed to a war of necessity) unleashed upon it.
As for the response inside Iran, it is difficult to ascertain. Even with Mossad/CIA agitators in place, Persian nationalism and anti-interventionist sentiment against “the Great Satan” and “Zionist Entity” may prove a significant obstacle to installing a pro-Western regime. The Revolutionary Guards can clearly see that they have nothing left to lose by doubling down on their hardline response to the US and Israeli calls for an uprising and coup, and relying on airpower alone will not allow the US and Israel to impose their political will on Iranian society (which besides the usual rural-urban divides also includes religious hardline and moderate divisions, modern secular elements versus cultural traditionalists, educated versus uneducated sectors, gender divisions, etc.). In other words, while prudent from a US/Israeli perspective, the “no boots on the ground” approach may be insufficient to enforce regime change on Iranian society even if the new regime is autocratic as well. That leaves the field for other actors to get involved, even if in surreptitious ways.
In the previous KP post, I spoke of the death knell of liberal internationalism exemplified by the Epstein client list. Now, with the US and Israel having gone rogue, we witness the demise of Westphalian principles like respect for sovereignty amongst nation-states, to say nothing of concepts like jus ad bellum (reasons for war). On top of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Israel’s scorched earth approach to its fight against Palestinians and unlawful aggression at home and abroad by a number of other regimes around the world, the package of precedents being opened up is ominous for world peace and international order.
Time to button up and batten down.
One gets the sense that Netanyahu has used his post-October 7 military successes (including ethnic cleansing and IDF war crimes in Gaza) to prepare for this moment of friction vis a vis Iran while manoeuvring Trump into a corner on joining the war in pursuit of regime change as much or more than nuclear non-proliferation (as I have pointed out in previous posts, Trump is an empty intellectual vessel devoid of firm policy positions other than those that he thinks serve himself. He is therefore highly susceptible to suggestions that appeal to his vanity and self-interest, such as being “the saviour of Iran” if he joins Israel in the military campaign against the theocratic regime).
Already, the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, has broadcast statements claiming that he and his supporters will return to Iran soon after the collapse of the current theocratic regime. Pahlavi is close to Netanyahu and Trump’s inner circle and US-based heirs of the Shah’s exiled supporters (many concentrated in and around LA) are willing to assume control of a post-theocratic government under Reza Pahlavi’s leadership. The stage appears to being set for a regime take-over following military defeat of the ayatollahs.
The trouble is that while many Iranians abhor the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard, they also remember very well what the Shah’s rule was all about (SAVAK, anyone?). They remember well that Israel was the Shah’s best ally, and that Mossad helped train and shared intelligence with SAVAK. So it is not clear that his heirs will be universally welcomed, something that sets the stage for prolonged internal conflict within the Persian power. In addition, with the old leadership gone a new generation of militant leaders may emerge in their place, hardened by their experiences with Israel and its Western backers. They may not prove easily removable or amenable to a negotiated compromise on governing alongside Western-backed groups.
Even if the West gets its way and the ayatollahs are deposed, there is the issue whether a new generation of Iranian expats, many coming from monied backgrounds in places like Southern California, have the skillsets with which to govern a country, and culture, that mixes pre-modern beliefs with post-modern technologies and a ponderous bureaucracy that straddles a stark urban/rural demographic divide. Will the US pour in aid to help them with the task of reconstruction at a time when DOGE is cutting back on all types of US foreign aid? Will Iranians welcome such assistance and the US/Western personnel that deliver it? Or will they resist what could be seen as an affront to their nationalistic and cultural pride?
This is a noteworthy point. Persian nationalism is rooted in millennia, not the last half century. Persians come in many faiths and ethnicities, and what unites them isa rejection of foreign interference in their affairs, especially by Sunni Arabs and Western colonisers (and their descendants). In the US and other interested parties there appears to be a failure to understand how deep Persian nationalism runs as an ideological glue in Iranian society. This could prove costly for the adherents of forcible regime change in that country.
The US and Israel appear to believe that after they bomb Iranian nuclear development and storage sites, military infrastructure and command and control facilities and kill leaders of the revolutionary regime, the people will rise up, the regime will fall, a new government will be installed and everyone will go home happy. The truth is otherwise. Iran will have to undergo a long term military occupation if a new order is to be imposed. Who is going to do that? Iran is a huge country and as mentioned, not all of its inhabitants welcome foreign interference in their affairs. The US and Israel do not have the capability to impose an occupation regime, not does any other State in part because of their realistic unwillingness to do so. So the operative assumption in Washington and Tel Aviv about regime change in Iran seems to be based on a pipe dream conjured up in the war-fevered minds of Trump and Netanyahu’s strategic advisors. And a reality check is also worth noting: the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan this century by Western-led coalitions have not ended well for them or with the stated objectives of their missions being achieved.
Then there is the reaction of the global Shiite diaspora to seeing their most venerated leaders killed, incapacitated or imprisoned by Western powers or those backed by the West. Iran may not be able to defend itself against Israel and the US by conventional and nuclear military means, but it has many unconventional assets at its disposal, and they have global reach. The current tit-for-tat exchanges may be a prelude to a widening regional and perhaps global conflict fought by unconventional means. The end to the current (fairly short) conventional military war may be just the beginning of a protracted unconventional, asymmetrical conflict that could spill into other States in the region and beyond.
And here is another background thought: The modern Western-led international community has always reacted poorly to revolutionary regimes, e.g.: USSR, PRC, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Angola, Algeria, Granada, DPRK, etc.. The specific evolutionary ideology matters less than the usurpation of power by force because it upsets the international status quo because it upsets an international status based on acceptance of shared rules and norms (if not values). That is, states agree to get along within established rules of conduct and revolutionaries do not respect that basic rule of the game and seek parametric change in their societies as well as in their relations with the external world..
In response, revolutionary regimes tend to support each other against former colonial and imperialist Western powers, creating a vicious circle of hostile action/reaction. It may be 46 years after the Iranian revolution, but perhaps this is somehow at play here?
Whatever the case, I have a bad feeling that this is not going to end well, except perhaps for Netanyahu (who will receive a boost in domestic support after the Iranian regime is ousted as well as perhaps further delay his court trial on corruption charges and the collapse of his coalition government). Trump is being slow-walked by Netanyahu into joining a war of convenience rather than necessity that may spiral into a deeper regional confrontation that will consume US blood and treasure for some time to come (in exact contravention of Trump’s promises to end US foreign “entanglements”). With the US mid-term elections scheduled for next year, prolonged involvement in Iran may prove damaging to Trump’s allies in Congress and hinder pursuit of the GOP/MAGA policy agenda if they lose one or both majorities in the Deliberative Chambers. Meanwhile, Iran’s allies Russia and China sit quietly on the sidelines, either out of impotence or because they are hedging their bets. One gets the feeling that, especially with regard to the PRC, they are not impotent.
The slanted (often triumphant) Western media coverage of the conflict disguises the fact this may not be entirely over soon, and that whatever its battlefield successes Israel may pay a heavy reputational and diplomatic price for its actions, as the rise of global anti-semitism suggests is in fact now the case.
Dark and sad times ahead, I’m afraid.
I do not mean to be pedantic about this sort of thing, but since it lies within my area of supposed “expertise,” here goes:
Unlike what is being reported in the corporate media and by some defense officials, the Israeli strike on Iran was not “pre-emptive.” “Pre-emptive” means “a sudden strike thwarting an imminent attack.” That is not the case here. Iran was not about to imminently attack Israel. What Israel has done is a preventive attack designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear R&D/storage facilities, missile launcher sites and command and control capabilities. The IDF attack is focused on preventing and delaying development of Iran’s nuclear strike capability before it reaches operational status and was telegraphed in advance (remember the US pulling out embassy staff and military families from facilities in the Middle East this week). Both suspected weapons-grade nuclear stores as well as launching platforms were on the target list, as were those responsible for them.
The preventive nature of the move may help moderate the Iranian response. On the other hand, killing the Revolutionary Guard Commander and Deputy Commander is a serious affront that will require a response in order for the Iranian regime to save face among its domestic audiences. So the escalation scenario is real, albeit not as bad as it could be. What is clear is that unlike preemptive attacks, the Israeli preventive attack has no justification in the Laws of War (jus ad bellum) and is therefore illegal under International law. One might understand why the Israelis conducted the strikes and there is plenty of precedent for them, but that does not make them legal.
Just like his response to October 7 with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, Netanyahu has seized his moment of opportunity because, quite frankly, he can. No one will stop him (certainly not the Iranians) and the US backs him, with most of the West tacitly supporting Israel with their silence or tepid responses to the conflict. This, I suspect, is due to Israel’s value as an intelligence partner of the West as much as any other reason.
Let’s see how this plays out….
I have been thinking about Syria and coverage of the fall of the Assad regime, and to be honest I believe that there is something missing from the picture being painted, at least in NZ. Although I am no expert on Syria or the Middle East, I do have some experience working with irregular and unconventional fighting groups as well as writing about authoritarian regime demise and the modalities by which that occurs. I will therefore take a moment to reflect on what I think is missing.
Media reporting has it that the attack on Aleppo and rapid, two-week drive through Hama and Homs to Damascus was a surprise. That may be true for the media, many non-Syrian laypeople and perhaps the Russians and pro-Assad Syrians themselves, but otherwise I beg to differ. The reason is because the training and massing of rebel fighters in Northern and Central Syria would have taken time (some believe the uprising has been 5-10 years in the making), and would have therefore been detected by Western and regional intelligence services some time ago. If we think about satellite and aerial imagery, signals intercepts, ground based thermal and other technical acquisition capabilities as well as human intelligence on the ground, then consider that Syria and its armed factions are in the middle of a larger geopolitical conflict in the Levant and wider Middle East, and then think about who has a direct vested interest in Syria’s fate (as well as their partners and patrons), it is probably safe to assume that intelligence agencies grouped in the 5 Eyes, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, France and/or Germany were monitoring at one level or another developments in rebel-held areas long before the assault on Aleppo was launched.
And then there is the pro-Assad intelligence community.
Perhaps distracted by events elsewhere, the Russians appear to have been genuinely caught off-guard, although it has been reported that they started pulling out personnel from Syria weeks before the attacks began (which would suggest they knew something was about to happen). Likewise, perhaps distracted by their own concerns regarding Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranians eventually airlifted key personnel out of Damascus shortly after Aleppo fell, so even if they were blind to the preparations for the uprising, they clearly believed, correctly, that momentum was with the rebels once the assault was launched. More tellingly, weeks ago there were credible claims that the Syrian State had been “hollowed out” by senior officials (i.e. state coffers were raided, corruption and drug-dealing was endemic and public service provision halted), who then fled the country. Make of that what you will.
All of this would have given some clear indications that the Syrian status quo was about to change and Assad and the rest of his henchmen were soon to exit one way or another. What is telling is that the intelligence agencies that would have known about the rebel’s preparations (including NZ via its connections to 5 Eyes and other Western intelligence agencies including Mossad), maintained excellent operational security and did not let it be known, either by leaks or mistakes, that a major coordinated assault by the rebels was in the making. This was done not so much to spite the mainstream corporate media, which clearly had zero boots on the ground in rebel-held areas prior to the assault, but to prevent the Syrians, Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas and Russians from learning about the uprising before it was underway. By the time the “axis of resistance” realised what was happening, it was too late to do anything but wait, watch and if need be, flee.
Whether the Russian, Syrian and Iranian intelligence failures were caused by them being stretched too thin on the ground, distracted with external events and/or incompetence, there are lessons to be learned learned from their lack of forewarning.
Israel’s successful (at least for now), multi-front campaign against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis, with some sidebar strikes on Syria thrown in for good measure, degraded the axis of resistance’s capabilities to detect and prevent the uprising. Now it appears that Israel is opening another front in Syria with an eye to significantly changing the geopolitical landscape in the region. Hamas and Hezbollah have been decimated as military forces. Iran has been intimidated into passivity. The Houthis have gone largely silent. This, thanks to Israel’s scorched earth, targeted assassination and long-range missile strike operations against all of them. Now Israel has launched a two-pronged offensive in Syria, conducting a bombing campaign against weapons storage facilities (some containing chemical weapons stockpiles) while simultaneous targeting command and control facilities as well as the entirety of the Syrian Navy (which shares major port facilities with the Russian Mediterranean fleet at the city of Tartus, which in turn raises the question of what will become of the Russian presence there and at a nearby airfield once the rebels seize control of them).
The IDF has also sent ground forces into and beyond the UN-monitored buffer zone separating Syrian control from Israel within and beyond the Golan Heights. Much like in Southern Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, Israel has seized the opportunity provided by neighborly discord in order to expand its presence in its neighbours’ territory, perhaps with an eye to redrawing their common borders. Since there is no foreign power capable of stopping Israel or willing to do so, it looks like the Israeli gambit will pay off. But that may depend on what the rebel-led government in Syria does next.
If foreign powers were aware in advance of the rebel’s plans, it is also very likely that they conducted more than passive observation and information-sharing amongst themselves. The US has 900 troops in Syria, most of them US Army Special Forces (Green Berets), Green Berets’ main mission is to train, advise and assist local forces in any given conflict, so it is possible that they had working ties to the rebel groups in advance of the assault on Aleppo. The US also has combat troops stationed in Jordan, Israel and Iraq and a variety of military assets in Turkey, effectively surrounding Syria’s land borders. Likewise, in part because of the lingering presence of ISIS in central and eastern Syria, a number of other countries–NATO members most likely–have special operators and/or military intelligence assets “in theatre.” Turkey acknowledges its military working relationship with one of the rebel groups, the Syrian National Army (SNA) in Northern Syria. The US has close ties to Kurdish insurgents in Northwest Syria and Northwest Iraq. The Jordanians are said to have operatives in Southern Syria and one can assume that, if not an surreptitious military presence, Israel has its covert hand in the pie as well.
What this means is that it is quite possible that foreign forces provided training, advising and intelligence and logistical support in the years, months, weeks and days leading up to and through the assault on Aleppo. If so, it should not be surprising that he rebels maintained an unusual amount of discipline previously unseen in their ranks, and that the various armed factions worked well together, sometimes in coordinated fashion. Even some of their combat fatigues and weapons look new and Western in origin!
So who are these rebels? Basically they are Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), who are the remnants of a group formerly known as Jabbat al-Nusra (Nusra Front), an al-Qaeda and ISIS-connected Islamicist group; the Free Syrian Army (an anti-Assad “secular” group backed by the West); and the afore-mentioned, Turkish-backed SNA. There are also Kurdish PKK/YPG/SDF militias in the mix who control approximately one quarter of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates River (and major oil fields), although these divide their time between mopping up Syrian Army troops in Northeastern Syria and fighting ISIS militants, the SNA, the Turkish military and pro-Turkish militias.
The rebel coalition has formed a tactical alliance against its common enemy. None of the constituent parts are particularly democratic in orientation, and in spite of HST’s claims that it has served all ties with ISIS and does not espouse (Sunni) Islamicist beliefs such as Salafism or Wahhabism, such statements must be taken with a grain of salt. There are numerous reports of lethal attacks on Christians and Alawites (which is a Shiite sect) by rebel forces in Aleppo and Hama, so the proof of the rebel’s good intentions remains to be seen, especially if military discipline has broken down amid the quest for collective revenge.
The sectarian nature of the rebel coalition is worth noting because the Assad regime was Alawite, which is a mostly coastal minority community in an otherwise Sunni-dominated country. Assad reserved many of his governments’ top positions to co-religionists in the Syrian Baath Party (originally related to the Iraqi Baathists led by Saddam Hussein), so retribution and revenge against those who formed the support base and bureaucratic staff of the Assad regime can be expected, HST assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. What is promising is that HST has agreed to form an interim (not yet transitional) government with various sects represented and some carry-overs from the Assad regime appointed in order to restore and/or maintain continuity in public services.
The HST-led government is now focused on rooting out Assad loyalists, imposing social order, securing military and police facilities (including notorious prisons), and bringing public services back to life where possible. But reconstruction of battle-damaged areas will be lengthy and difficult process given that Syria’s treasury has been emptied, many public offices looted and/or damaged, and corruption is rampant within and between various sectarian groups. The international community will be asked to foot the bill and provide the human, material and financial capital required to return the country to some semblance of normalcy. This is complicated but the fact that the HST and PKK/YPGSDF have been designated as terrorist entities by the UN and a number of countries (although for different reasons, with HST designated because of its ties to ISIS and the PKK/YPG/SDF designated at Turkey’s insistence because of their irredentist activities in pursuit of an independent Kurdistan in territory now controlled by Syria, Iraq and Turkey). Before international relief can be offered, the terrorist designations will have to be lifted, something that will not please many interested parties for a variety of reasons.
More broadly, the fall of the Assad regime is one variant of what is known as “bottom-up transitions,” where before the regime is prepared to exit it is forced to do so by public pressure and mass collective action. Bottom-up transitions can stem from revolts, rebellions, general strikes, mass protests and the ultimate sub-type, revolutions (which, unlike the others, involve parametric change in the economy, social order and political society). These are not to be confused with top-down transitions, in which the outgoing regime frames the conditions by which it relinquishes power. This can be done peacefully or by a coup d’état, which is essentially an armed quarrel amongst elites in which the military acts as the arbiter of who wins and loses in the power struggle by siding with those that favour an exit strategy and transition to a different regime type. Examples of peaceful top-down transitions were seen in Brazil in the 1980s and Chile in the 1990s, where power was devolved from military control and handed over to elected civilian rule rather than be overthrown by force.
In Syria as has happened elsewhere, there will be major tensions between so-called “moderates” and “militants” (soft-liners and hard-liners) in the HST-led coalition. Hardliners and militants tend to come from fighting backgrounds. They tend not to seek compromise and conciliation because they have succeeded in imposing their will by force of arms. They are reluctant to forgive their defeated adversaries and many are sworn to avenge the affronts committed against their families, friends and communities (and in Syria, the affronts included atrocities and other forms of barbarism committed by Assad’s forces against the civilian population). Moderates, on the other hand, tend to come from the non-fighting political opposition, religious, business and community leaders and foreign interlocutors. These seek to draw a line behind them when it comes to dealing with the past in order to facilitate the reconstruction of society and promote national reconciliation.
The key to keeping the post-Assad transition relatively peaceful is for the moderates and softliners to gain the upper hand in negotiations to form the new government. For that to happen, inducements and constraints (think carrots and sticks) must be offered to and placed on the militant hardliners. Inducements can include open trials for those accused of heinous crimes committed on Assad’s behalf, placement of senior rebel commanders in leadership roles the Syrian security apparatus, establishment of Truth and Reconciliation Tribunals that address past sins committed on all sides, and even material rewards for those who refrain from continuing to use violence as a means to an end. Constraints could include weapons impoundments, criminal prosecutions, and other legal and material disincentives that discourage continuation of hardline or militant behaviour.
None of this will be easy but it is necessary is stability is to return to Syria. It is possible that the armed factions and their political and social supporters can use the common ground forged fighting the common enemy to expand the basis for commonality into other aspects of Syrian life. It could start with something as simple as national sports or cultural traditions and then move to the more thorny issues of governance, economic accumulation and distribution, religious and secular civil rights, and so forth.
What is clear is that, for the short term at least, the big losers in Syria are Alawites, Iranian and Russians. Assad is gone and his minions routed. Iran has lost its major overland transit route connecting it to Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Palestine (Hamas) as well as the intelligence, forward basing and logistical support of the Assad regime. Russia has lost it foremost ally in the Middle East as well as the intelligence and military assets that it had stationed in Syria prior to Assad’s fall (assuming that the new regime will confiscate the Russian facilities at Tartus and Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia city). Reputationally, both Iran and Russia have taken a major hit with their weaknesses as a security partner now exposed.
Israel appears to be the primary short-term beneficiary of Assad’s overthrow. To a lesser but significant extent, so are Western and Middle Eastern powers with a stake in the Levant. But a longer-term prognosis is more difficult to ascertain because the direction of the HST-led government has yet to be determined, and the post-Assad settling of scores has yet to be decided. Whether or not this involves a return of Islamicists with or without the ISIS brand is foremost among the concerns of many security agencies.
In any event the best we can do is embrace the uncertainties inherent in the moment, attempt where possible to bolster the moderate/softliner positions within the new government and offer concrete steps based on the experience of others as part of the path towards national recovery. History will be the ultimate judge of the process but for the moment all we can say is that we live in interesting times.
In this episode of the “A view from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and I discuss Israel’s expansion of its war in Lebanon as part of a “six front” strategy that it thinks it can win, focusing on the decision-making process and strategic logic at play that led to the most recent turn of events. Plus some game theory references just to place things in proper context.
This week’s “A View from Afar” podcast addresses the issue of multidimensional hybrid warfare using the Israeli pager attacks in Lebanon as a starting point before moving on to discuss the failures of multilateral institutions, the UN in particular, when it comes to handling war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is a sad state of affairs.
The Murky World of Israel’s Booby-Trapped Pagers and Walkie-Talkies
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible.
Here we start of with a catch up on events since the last podcast of 2023. Selwyn liked the KP moment of friction post from April 1, and so we used it as the stepping stone into a discussion that incorporates material from several recent KP posts and other news. I hope that you find the podcast of interest. You can find it here.
The decision to send six NZDF personnel to join the US-led anti-Houthi maritime picket line has a number of interesting facets to it. I made a few posts about the decision on a social media platform but will elaborate a bit more here.
It was obvious that a conservative pro-American government coalition would not only sign a US-drafted declaration defending freedom of navigation and denouncing Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, but would offer some symbolic material support (even if token) to the maritime picket line that the US and its main allies (all 5 Eyes partners) were putting together under the already extant joint task force CTF-153 headquartered at the US 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain. The task force is led by a US admiral and operates under US Rules of Engagement (ROE). Prime Minister Luxon is an admitted “Americaphile” due to his time spent in the US as a corporate executive. Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Winston Peters was involved in negotiating the Wellington and Washington Agreements establishing US-NZ bilateral security ties and has long voiced his support for US leadership in global affairs. The third coalition party leader, David Seymour, takes his policy prescriptions (and money) from US rightwing think-tanks and conservative lobbies.
Defense Minister Judith Collins (among many other portfolios, including intelligence and security) was the odd person out at the press conference announcing the deployment (Seymour did not attend) because she has previously attempted to use her status as an MP and minister to advance her husband’s business interests in China, and remains as one of the more Sinophilic (yes, said on purpose) members of the new government. Moreover, as Minister of Intelligence and Security and Attorney General, she is now the Keeper of the Secrets of Defense, Intelligence and the Courts, which is only of concern if you worry about a corrupt politician who also is now back scheming with the bankrupt (in every sense of the word) rightwing attack blogger whose miserable antics were outlined in that chronicle of political depravity, Dirty Politics. In any event, with the Collins anomaly excepted, it should be no surprise that the government made a move in support of its security patrons.
The government argues that its contribution is done to protect freedom of navigation, making specious arguments about the impact of the Houthi attacks leading to a rise in commodity prices on NZ consumers (NZ being a trade-dependent country etc.). It rejects the notion that its actions are in any way connected to the Hamas-Israel War even though the Houthis are invoking Article 2 of the 1949 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide to justify their attempts to stop war materials from reaching Israel. It chides those who differ with their justification by saying that it is wrong to “conflate” the Hamas-Israel War with the Houthi attacks even though the Houthis have explicitly done so.
As many scholars have noted, NZ joining the coalition of the pro-Israeli military bloc runs counter to NZ support for UN demands for a ceasefire and its supposed neutrality on the larger context behind the current conflict. Whatever the pretense, the hard truth is that with the NZDF deployment NZ has openly joined the Western coalition backing Israel in its war on Palestinians, eschewing bold support for enduring humanitarian principle in favor of short-term diplomatic realpolitik. Moreover, NZ has now been suckered into, via the US request for a contribution to the anti-Houthi effort, an expanding regional conflict that involves Iran and its proxies, on one side, and Israel and its (mostly Western) supporters on the other. With Russia and PRC (among others) supporting Iran and its proxies, the conflict has the potential to become drawn out as well as involve a larger number of actors.
Mission creep for the NZDF is therefore a distinct possibility, and the claim of NZ foreign policy independence rings hypocritically hollow since it is now clear that when the US asks NZ to take a pro-US/Israel stand on a controversial international issue, NZ bows and obeys.
So what does NZ’s flag-planting entail?
Not much at first glance. Its two frigates are in maintenance or on sea trials. It would do no good to send non-combat ships even if they were available (they would just become targets), and its in-and offshore patrol vessels are not suited to the task even if they could find crews to man them and get them to the theatre of operations. The Air Force could have sent one of its new P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, which would be suited to some picket line duties such as electronic surveillance, but chose to not do so. What was left was finding a way to send ground-based assets to the theatre, and that is what the government and NZDF brass opted to do.
They have ordered the deployment of a six person “highly specialised” team to serve as “targeters” for allied forces using “precision weapons” against Houthi targets. From that description the soldiers could be a military communications/signals intelligence team or could come from the NZSAS, who specialise in long range patrol and reconnaissance and who routinely serve close to or behind enemy lines as forward target spotters (including Mosul during the fight against ISIS, if reports are correct). The NZSAS is believed to already have assets in the Middle East, perhaps stationed in Djibouti or Bahrain, likely in partnership with or as a secondment to the intelligence fusion “cells” or joint SPECOPS units that are located at US bases in those countries. Defense Minister Collins said that they would operate from “HQ and other places,” which suggests that be they military communications/signals intelligence specialists or NZSAS, they may be stationed on allied ships as well as land facilities. Because of their focus on mobility and stealth, if the team is indeed an NZSAS team, then it is doubtful that they will be spending much time behind desks or shining their medals at HQ.
Even so, a six person “targeting” team is a very thin deployment even for military intelligence or the NZSAS, which tend to deploy in platoon sized units. Unless the announced six-person team has larger backup in theatre behind it, there are no redundancies in the deployment, say, if a trooper breaks an ankle while playing paddleboard at the HQ. As things stand, the NZDF as a whole has severe retention problems that include the NZSAS, especially among non-commissioned officers, aka corporals ad sergeants (NCOs) that are the backbone of the regiment. Similar problems afflict other specialist units. In other words, the thinness of the deployment may be symptomatic of much larger problems within the NZDF.
The government says that there will been NZDF boots on the ground in Yemen. Not only do I take the government and NZDF word on this with a big grain of salt, but I will note that Yemen is contested space, the Houthis do not control all of it, and Saudi Arabia shares a border with it. Since the Saudis have conducted a murderous military campaign against the Houthis in the ongoing civil war between the Saudi-backed Republic of Yemen government and Houthi movement “rebels,” it is not far-fetched to think that it or the Republic of Yemen might welcome some anti-Houthi Western specialist forces on their soil.
(As an aside, PM Luxon has a certain form when it comes to the Red Sea conflict. He was the CEO of Air New Zealand during the Key government when an Air New Zealand subsidiary engineering firm sold maritime turbines to the Saudi Navy. Around that same time MFAT approved sale of military support equipment like range finders and fire control systems to the UAE knowing that they could be used against the Houthis (since the UAE is part of the Saudi led coalition against the Houthis), in contravention of voluntary international sanctions imposed because the Saudi coalition was committing war crimes against the Houthi population in the (still ongoing) civil war in Yemen. MFAT signed off on both deals, reflecting the Key government’s approach to such things. When confronted after the turbine sale was completed, Luxon said that he was not involved and had no responsibility for the decision, saying that it was made below his pay grade. That is a bit rich for a guy who pontificates about how he used to run an airline, but more importantly is symptomatic of how National selectively approaches relations with powerful authoritarian human rights-abusing regimes).
The government also insist that the team will not be involved in combat roles. This is an obfuscation as well as a distinction without a difference. The reason is that “targeters” are part of what is known as the “kill chain.” The “kill chain” starts with intelligence-gathering, moves through target identification and selection, then weapons and delivery platform designation, and ends with a trigger pull or launch command. The NZDF just joined the anti-Houthi kill chain. How is that so?
The NZDF “targeting” team will analyse intelligence feeds from technical (TECHNT), signals (SIGINT) and human (HUMINT) sources, including satellite and drone imagery in real time. They will evaluate the legitimacy of the intelligence by confirming the targets using a variety of means, of which getting proximate eyes on potential targets using their core skills is one possibility. In some cases targeting teams get close enough to electronically “paint” designated targets prior to air strikes (think along the lines of extremely sophisticated laser pointers). Once the target identity is confirmed and deemed actionable under the ROE, the team will pass its confirmation of the target to commanders who operate weapons platforms and who designate what sort of weapons should be used given the nature of the target (say, a sea-launched cruise missile from a destroyer or submarine or an air-launched Hellfire missile from land or carrier-based aircraft).
So what are its targeting constraints? That is unknown and the government and NZDF have not said anything about them. What is known is that the NZDF team will be operating under US command within the structure of CTC-153 operating under the name Operation Prosperity Guardian, which means they will not have autonomous say in what ultimately its designated as an “actionable” target. But the problems with the deployment go beyond the flexibility of US ROEs. It has to do with the kill chain itself.
That is why speaking of “precision” munitions is an easy way to whitewash their effects. They are precise only if the intelligence and targeting guiding them is accurate in real-time and the ROE is strictly defined. A precision guided weapon aimed at the wrong target or without regard for collateral damage is just another dumb bomb with guidance sensors and a camera. Plus, warhead throw weights matter. It is hard to be surgical with a 500lb. or1000 lb. warhead if the intelligence and target designations are not precise (they can be but not always are given the command pressures to deliver results in terms of enemies and equipment destroyed), which is why the intelligence/targeting part of the kill chain must be systems redundant before a trigger is pulled.
Again, none of this has been made public. No parliamentary consultation was undertaken before the decision to deploy the team was made. The irony is that the deployment, especially if my assumption is correct in that it involves the NZSAS, could have been done discretely and without fanfare. NZSAS deployments are done in secret all of the time and the public and politicians are none the wiser. Yet here the government chose to go public and grandstand with its announcement, which even if designed to offer public affirmation that NZ is part of the “club” John Key once talked about with regard to the NZDF presence in Iraq, also exposes the targeting team to increased physical risk and NZ to increased reputational harm given that most of the international community do not share the view that Houthi’s actions are unrelated to the Hamas-Israel war or that Israel is the good actor in it. But Israel is a close intelligence partner of the 5 Eyes network, so perhaps NZ’s choice of expediency over principle has something to do with that (rather than freedom of navigation per se).
Whatever the rationale behind the government’s decision, it seems that it is sticking a toe into a fire that may grow hotter rather than cooler. Then the question becomes one of whether the government has contingency plans ready to prevent NZ from being drawn further in and burned in the service of, to quote another Nicky Hager book title, Other People’s Wars.
