Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Any resident OSINT predictions for the war? I feel like it’s impossible to determine what’s happening.
The usual Twitter OSINT pages are pretty barren. Nobody (at least nobody public) seems to really know how much of the IRGC command structure is intact, how many missiles they have left, if they’re still producing drones, whether civilian or other leadership is in charge or if it’s individual IRGC commanders targeting and firing with no overall strategy, what’s happening with the new supreme leader election etc.
One imagines actual US and Israeli intelligence has somewhat more insight given how thoroughly the latter especially penetrated Iranian intelligence (although the source inside Khameini’s inner circle was apparently CIA rather than Mossad depending on who you believe) but maybe they don’t.
Most Iranians don’t seem particularly fond of the regime even if they’re not wealthy North Tehran libs, but the IRGC did recruit heavily from the devoutly religious lower middle class, especially more rurally, and many are now second-generation soldiers. There were stories, as the rebel army marched on Damascus, of wailing and praying at Shia shrines there by predominantly overseas posted IRGC families before they were evacuated. The possibility of true believers holding on for a long time can’t be discounted, although at the same time they’re not used to nomadic hardship and living in caves to the extent that, say, the Houthis are.
I don’t think this will end well. If oil crosses $100 next week and polling gets really really bad for Trump I think a unilateral cessation of US military action is possible, framed of course as a “mission accomplished” just like the strikes last year.
The Israelis might keep fighting but they can’t really; Trump already had Witkoff force a ceasefire in Gaza. Then wait for Khameini’s son to be elected supreme leader, he makes the vaguest overture for peace, go back to negotiations, probably agree to another ‘deal’ along the lines of what was proposed at Geneva, and then the IRGC go right back to the nuclear program all the same. The collapse of the Iranian government requires either a full ground invasion (not a brief incursion by an expeditionary force) or a successful popular uprising.
More options
Context Copy link
3-6 months. CENTCOM requests for intelligence analysts. Start your search with that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link