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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   27077 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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I'm trying my hand at public writing. Evaluating the potential actions of a unique geopolitical actor like Iran is an interesting challenge, and there are a lot of strange ideas about it out there. Read the whole thing for an attempt to apply rational actor theory to Iranian leaders.

https://ftsoa.substack.com/p/assessing-the-troubled-future-of

Selected excerpts:

This is I think an unprecedented occurrence in history—enforcing a neutralization of an adversary’s key military programs from the air after an unnegotiated ceasefire. Iran invested an immense amount into its “mostly peaceful” nuclear program, its missile industry and forces, and its proxies as part of its strategy for regional domination and ideological opposition to the U.S. and Israel. For Iran to accept this neutering would effectively be an unnegotiated surrender of several of the Islamic regime’s key objectives, and acceptance of domination by its bitterest adversary. It would be untenable to admit that publicly. It seems hardly tenable to concede it implicitly.

There are perhaps three broad courses of action for the Islamic regime:

  1. Open Defiance: As soon as possible, directly confront the U.S. and Israel by restarting military/nuclear programs and aggression.

  2. Tacit Acceptance: Maintain defiant rhetoric, but do nothing to actually aggravate Israel or the U.S. indefinitely and focus on maintaining domestic control.

  3. Covert Defiance: Maintain defiant rhetoric and domestic control, and “secretly” hit back at the U.S. and Israel via “undetectable” means like cyber warfare and terrorism, and attempt to “covertly” rebuild military/nuclear capabilities in a way that will actually work next time, like managing to rapidly build a nuclear warhead or figuring out how to actually shoot down an F-35.

Anyone remotely sane would recognize (1) is suicide by IAF. The problem with (2) is that eventually it’s going to be obvious to at least the hardline military and security class—the regime’s key believers and protectors—that Iran has in fact implicitly surrendered. And (3) means hoping that Iran can, unlike every other time, “get away with it” and actually put up a real fight down the road. Additionally, Iran’s economy and the regime’s popularity were already on thin ice before all this. Not great! Historically, (3) is the obvious choice for Iran as it’s something of a compromise between the hardline and the pragmatist camps. But in what manner and on what timeline and with what level of risk acceptance? The ongoing work to uncover Fordo is evidence for (3) being the chosen course of action. How long will the IAF permit that activity?

Given the above considerations, here’s where my gut is on the blurry probability of broad outcomes:

Possible, but unlikely:

Neutered Islamic regime at least tacitly accepts defeat and survives indefinitely as a shadow of its former self.

Quite possible, even likely:

Defiant Iran and Israel go back to war in coming weeks/months; economic and/or regime collapse.

Very likely:

Israel mows the grass; a mostly neutered Islamic regime survives indefinitely.

Very likely:

Israel mows the grass; economic and/or regime collapse within a few years.

I think it’s almost certain that Israel will have cause to mow the Iranian grass because I have a hard time imagining the Iranian regime, or at least some rogue hardline element, will not try to cross Israel’s red lines (and be caught doing so). I also struggle to imagine that pragmatist and reformist camps will transition the regime into something more tolerable without hardliners reasserting control. I have much less certainty about the chances of economic and/or regime collapse, but it’s certainly a very real possibility. Probably more likely than not in the coming year or two.

The obvious cop out is that any number of curve balls could enter the scene such that I am shown to have been insufficiently imaginative or wise. In my defense, President Trump did a 180 from “total surrender” and “regime change” to “ceasefire now” in like 72 hours. The Israelis and Iranians, however, are more consistent in their underlying goals and behaviors. The Israelis have been openly advocating for regime change, in recognition that’s probably the only real solution to Iran as an enduring threat. The Iranians remain at least rhetorically defiant. Something has to give.

I feel like this analysis basically requires that you unquestioningly believe every claim the Israelis made while ignoring key pieces of evidence that contradict said claims, for example:

  1. Nearly all of the big achievements (eg. the decapitation strikes) occurred at the very beginning of the war, the opposite of what one would expect if Iran's air defenses were truly crippled
  2. Nearly all of the strikes were performed with Mossad drones or with air-to-ground missiles rather than bombs, a sign that the IAF didn't feel like they could just freely fly over Tehran dropping bombs
  3. Israel's interception rate fell calamitously in a relatively short period, going from 95% on day 1 to around 50% by day 12

Despite the dire threats coming from Katz, Israel has yet to actually try restarting combat. You'll notice that they don't feel the need to bark when talking about bombing Syria or Gaza, they just do it. There are really only two explanations: restraint imposed by Trump or fear imposed by Iran's missiles. What this war has really demonstrated is that Israel can't handle Iran alone, even with basically unlimited NATO and Arab backup on defense. It simply doesn't have the strategic depth to handle regular hits on essential targets every single day; to win, total, unconditional and most importantly indefinite American offensive support would be necessary. Though if the Houthis are of any indication, even that might be insufficient.

As to the fate of the Iranian regime, frankly it's probably in the strongest position it's been in decades. By all accounts the internal division around fighting Israel was resolved instantly by the sneak attack and discredited the Shah supporters just like how supporting Saddam discredited the MEK back in the 80s. The advocates of negotiating with the US look like chumps and the hardliners who proposed building ballistic missile cities carved into mountains look like brilliant strategists. I suppose the IRGC warrior caste might increase it's power relative to the clerical caste but if anything the IRGC are more interested in nuclear weapons than Khamenei and the religious authorities ever were.

At this point if Iran wanted a nuclear weapon there's very little Trump or Israel could do to stop them, though making a weapon that could actually be plausibly useful ie. one that could be put on a warhead would take considerably longer and would be very difficult to hide the development of. Ironically the one thing that could prevent this would be Russia and China, neither of whom have an interest in Iran going nuclear, offering some sort of protection in exchange for some degree of oversight.

It simply doesn't have the strategic depth to handle regular hits on essential targets every single day; to win, total, unconditional and most importantly indefinite American offensive support would be necessary. Though if the Houthis are of any indication, even that might be insufficient.

I think the problem is more that Israel has all these ambitions about being a tech startup hub, and even occasional missile attacks pretty much end that prospect.

  1. They've been dealing with that for a couple of years now.
  2. That's a big reason they're so motivated to decisively end the threat from Iran.

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