Alastair Crooke: Iran (and Russia) Won

In interview with Napolitano this morning, Crooke brings some important light to Israel’s attack on Iran. There was no significant damage, he says. Israel was supposed to have launched three waves of attacks (as was widely reported by mainstream media as having actually occurred), but never got beyond the first wave. The first wave was meant to take out Iranian air defenses, including those positioned in Iraq and Syria. A second and thid wave were to have then hit the targets set for them. But they didn’t happen. Then the attack was called off.

During the first wave, the Israeli aircraft carrying long-range missiles intended for Iranian air defenses never got beyond 70 to 100 kilometers of the borders of Iran, too far away for their missiles to lock on to Iranian air defenses. Why? Apparently because Israelis discovered an unknown air defense system over Tehran. This may have been a Russian system that can attack stealth fighters such as F35s. Going up against such a system would be too dangerous, since the airspace would have been unsecured.

Worried about the consequences, the Israelis simply released their (mostly) GPS-guided long-range missiles, around 20 of them. Russians are adept at jamming GPS-guided missiles. Essentially, without some “safe” air defense system to lock into, these were being fired blindly. Some landed, including those that did some damage to Iranian early warning radar systems in or near Iraq.

There was some minor damage to an air base that has been abandoned by the IRGC for some time and is used mainly for films and television. There was also some damage to Parchin, a location which is celebrated in the history of Israeli-spun false narratives about an Iranian nuclear weapons production program, where Israel claimed to have collected traces of enriched uranium, but which an IAEA inspection couldn’t find. It is basically a military research station. Claims that it hosts suspicious hidden basements have been debunked.

Even the minor damage that has been reported might just possibly be the work, not of Israeli missiles but of small drone attacks from local agencies such as MEK.

Israel is claiming victory, but if Russia really has an anti-stealth system then this has major implications for the whole of Western defense. Iran has an effective air defense system, Israel does not. Russian tactical competence on the battlefield is superior to Western.

In Lebanon, Crooke says, that the Golani brigade has been effectively decimated and a Hebrew language newspaper in Israel is describing the situation in Lebanon as catastrophic. Hezbollah has advised civilians in northern Israeli settlements to leave, so as to be safe from Hezbollah attacks on Israeli garrisons there. Some Israeli sources are now wondering whether, in view of the fact that its air forces are much more limited than they originally assessed and that the pressure on Israel to resort to nuclear weapons to continue to assert its regional hegemony has increased.