INDEX	June 13, 2025
The War starts
On Friday the 13th we learn a barking dog sometimes uses its teeth. The belief that the Israelis were all mouth and no trousers seems to have led the Iranians to lower their guard. They had been threatened by the Zionists so often that they relied on the old proverb: a barking dog does not bite. This miscalculation has cost them dear, if the Israelis are to be believed; never a smart move, admittedly. The claim is that most if not all the senior Iranian senior commanders have been wiped out and a considerable portion of Iran's nuclear capacity (though by no means all) destroyed. Israel is a country that believes in the importance of the military leader. It is, after all, the country that produced Moshe Dayan, the general turned political leader who made the eye patch a fashion accessory. Israel believes in it so much that it spent millions infiltrating pagers containing explosives into the Hezbollah command and control system so it could destroy it. Yet it makes no sense to wipe out the generals in Iran if your avowed mission is to prevent the use of nuclear weapons. Such a decision is never a matter for the military; it's the politicians who make the decision. And they are only ever likely to use nukes if all else fails, something that would seem more likely if the experienced military leaders left the stage. So if it's not about nukes, what is it about? If the dominoes fall in the predictable way it seems likely that Iraq could fall out of the American sphere of influence (a disaster for international oil companies) and even worse, from an American perspective, Pakistan may come to Iran's aid. Of course, Pakistan could easily supply any nuclear material Israel manages to destroy. One big loser in all this is the nuclear inspectorate since some will find it hard to believe that information did not leak out from them to the Israelis, or more likely one of the malign actors such as MI6 or the CIA, who passed the information on to Mossad. And what is the point of all this? It is mostly about keeping Netanyahu in power, that's a given. His ambition, the legacy he wants to hand on, is clearly a greater Israel. But what is the point of a greater Israel if the economy has collapsed (which it has) and 40% of Israelis want to leave the country? 12 May 2025: The company Ci Marketing found that around 40 percent of Israelis still there are considering leaving.
INDEX Jonathan Brind	June 13, 2025