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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28251 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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Thanks for the analysis.

Here are some issues I see:

  1. The decapitation strikes necessarily needed to happen right off the bat to hit the targets before they went into full defense mode. Gotta have a "surprise" to have a surprise attack. This was indeed before Israel had achieved full air superiority/dominance, as those operations in the early phases were in parallel.
  2. In the early phases, yes, using air-launched missiles is a way to avoid air defenses and increase aircraft range. Had the conflict continued more bombs would have been employed.
  3. I do not think this is an accurate description of how the interception rate went, but yes interceptors are expensive and finite.

Obviously, the Israelis have not tried to significantly restart the conflict because of Trump. I see no way to justify the view that Israel stopped because of a newfound fear of Iran's retaliatory options. Iran was almost entirely militarily ineffective on both defense and offense during this conflict.

I also think it's incredibly backwards to conclude from all this that Israel can't handle Iran alone. Certainly, it would be far harder without U.S. support, but that's a lot different than saying they couldn't do it.

As to the fate of the Iranian regime, frankly it's probably in the strongest position it's been in decades.

I can't even comprehend how someone could think this for some definition of "strong." In terms of military power, they've taken immense damage and been shown to be incapable of air defense. Everyone can see the craters and coffins. The Axis of Resistance is a shadow of its former self. For domestic power, they have maintained control of the public (and there have been no major attempts at protests, smartly), but the economy is now even more in shambles and everyone is even more paranoid than they were before about Mossad agents everywhere.

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.

This take is directly contradicted by the NYT article I cite. I'm not sure exactly how accurate that portrayal was or is now, but the IRGC hardliners look like they just died a lot.

I suppose the IRGC warrior caste might increase it's power relative to the clerical caste

I don't think this is a good way to map power dynamics in Iran. The IRGC is devoted to Khamenei and Islamic jurisprudence.

At this point if Iran wanted a nuclear weapon there's very little Trump or Israel could do to stop them

Assuming such activity was detected in advance, do you think Israel would not attempt nearly everything possible to do this? Do you think they'll be incapable of maintaining/reestablishing air dominance? Do you think they're bluffing about doing an airborne operation if necessary?

One could argue that the Islamic regime is better off than I make it out to be, but I can see no way to judge it as stronger than before the 12-Day War.

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