"For Israel, and indirectly for the US, the war has to end in total victory. Anything less is pointless. If it ends with the Iranian regime surviving but terribly damaged and with great loss of life, that cannot be enough for Israel. Iran's crucial task then will be to concentrate its technical capabilities on developing and testing a crude nuclear device to prevent being attacked again in the future."
"From the start, this is a war that has not gone according to plan. The idea was to assassinate the supreme leader and as many of the religious and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership as possible, in order to damage the power of the state so the theocracy would collapse. That failed miserably, as one US intelligence assessment had predicted."
"To make that impossible, Israel and the US would have to have such complete control of Iran that they would be able to access every part of the state. This would include the deeply buried bunkers and the stocks of semi-enriched uranium that survived last June's attacks. Even further airstrikes, including B-2 stealth bombers flying from UK territories, would not be enough."
Benjamin Netanyahu, not Trump, is the key player directing US military involvement in the conflict with Iran. Israel faces a strategic trap of its own creation: the war must end in total Iranian victory or Iran will pursue nuclear weapons development as deterrence. Partial Iranian defeat leaves the regime intact but motivated to develop nuclear capability, requiring impossible levels of US-Israeli control over Iranian territory and nuclear facilities. Initial assassination attempts on Iranian leadership failed, forcing a shift to plan B involving state weakening through minority group revolts. Despite claims of imminent victory, the US continues deploying additional military assets, indicating the conflict remains unresolved and escalating beyond original strategic objectives.
#netanyahu-leadership #iran-nuclear-proliferation #us-military-escalation #middle-east-conflict-strategy #unwinnable-war-dynamics
Read at www.theguardian.com
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