The Times of Israel reports that Iran has begun its direct attack on the country, using slow-moving drones. But missiles are sure to follow. There’s a short report from the Times of Israel (click to access; it’s a live blog so you can refresh the site):
The entire content:
Iran has launched an attack against Israel with dozens of drones, according to the Axios news site.
Drones are assessed to take several hours to cover such a distance.
There is no immediate statement from the IDF on the attack.
Iran has threatened to attack Israel over the killing of seven IRGC members, including two generals, in Syria’s Damascus last week
If drones come, missiles will surely be fired soon. And they can come from Lebanon, where Hezbollah has thousands, as well as from Iran. I doubt that the Iron Dome and the new system (I forgot its name) could handle such an onslaught.
This is perhaps the most precarious moment for Israel in its history. If missiles come, let us hope that the U.S. fulfills its promise to help Israel defend itself.
I wonder why slow-moving drones would precede fast missiles, though, for it surely alerts Israel that an attack is about to begin, but hours before it begins.
I expect there will be celebrations by Hamasniks throughout the West.
(If Trump were Pesident, Would Iran have been more cautious?)
I think attacks coming directly from Iran could be a game-changer in terms of Western perceptions. No one could spin that as “a white-settler colony gets its comeuppance from a poor downtrodden oppressed nation”, so it gives an opportunity to cut through all that bullshit. It also obliges the Biden administration to come off the fence.
Well said.
+1
Nup.
Let’s not fall into the trap that assumes the decisions of those with their eyes on Islamic paradise are very concerned with the debates and decisions on Pennsylvania Ave.
This “wouldn’t happen under Trump/Biden/Clinton” etc. is not centering the analysis properly.
respectfully,
D.A.
NYC
Agreed.
So in that case it would depend on the judgement of Trump or Iran to consider the ramifications of all out war and possible nuclear annihilation of the world? Not a good place to be…
Second wave of drones launched on Israel from Iran, according to Times of Israel.
😓 Horrid.
This is likely to coincide with an attack from Hezbollah. The US will have no choice but to get involved.
Whether or not Iran follows up with missiles and how Israel and the U.S. respond will all be telling. If Iran doesn’t follow up with rockets, and the Israeli response is clearly defensive, then this could be the end of it—in the short term. If Israel or the U.S. response has an offensive component, there’s no telling where this could end up.
The people of Israel have nothing to do but wait in their shelters and hope that the Iron Dome and other defenses do their job.
Minute by minute reports at https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-april-13-2024/.
Haaretz also reports that Iran has launched cruise missiles: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-13/ty-article-live/biden-doubles-down-on-iran-warning-dont-u-s-move-additional-assets-to-region/0000018e-d491-d161-ab8f-f4f583d30000?liveBlogItemId=1982976047#1982976047.
Haven’t seen that reported elsewhere, however.
If the drones are not followed up with something else, it could be a face-saving measure – “our glorious military avenged the the cowardly attack on our embassy – can we now go back to saber-rattling and proxy strikes, please?”
I sure hope that is it, otherwise it could get really messy.
Yes.
Live Israeli TV (in Hebrew): https://www.kan.org.il/page.aspx?landingPageId=1009
“I wonder why slow-moving drones would precede fast missiles, though, for it surely alerts Israel that an attack is about to begin, but hours before it begins.”
Presumably the idea is to have them arrive at the same time and overwhelm air defences
Good point.
The boys have done well in earlier years against all odds.
And the “girls”!
Indeed. Valid take from Jim, but there’s no gender apartheid in the IDF.
Certainly. But i worked with a chief engineer (my father’s generation and us expat) from the israeli aircraft industries on a joint project for a number of years and he always referred to “the boys”. The girls has always struck me since my bar mitzvah year (also israel’s) when miss israel who was currently serving in the military came here on a bond drive. I use the boys because of my longstanding and warm relationship with that israeli engineer.
This is how world wars start.
If one imagines 10/7 as being the “start” of something really black swan huge…like the analogy of a pebble rolling down a hill and creating an avalanche. Just think how the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand compares to what happened on 10/7. So yeah, point taken.
Unfortunately, WW3 doesn’t have a comeback story as far as I know. Anyone seen the movie Threads? Scariest movie I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched a lot of scary movies.
Yeah I always think of Threads in situations like this and I said the same comment when Oct 7 happened but now we’re more and more dealing with the Strait of Hormuz & I think that’s what kicked it all off in Threads.
Though the Russians were involved…of course, it came out in ’84. But you’re right. And in the movie it was purposely vague, you’d hear bits and pieces, only what the characters heard, as they were distracted by everyday life, or just ignored “bad news.” That’s part of the movie’s horror. How this life, in a moment, can be torn apart into threads, just like that. And in Threads, no one really knew why.
Electricity shut off in Tehran. Israel should take out their oil facilities and if any drone missile causes one Israeli death, reduce Tehran to nothing.
They worship and revere death, so this is just lending a helping hand. The only way to deal with evil is to destroy it. Completely.
Yes.
That is something in the background in Tehran: their own survival.
In the Middle East they seem to have a better understanding of the possibility of extinction than we in the safe west do. They experience it more often. Tehran is no stranger to death from above – in our lifetime from Iraq, see “War of the cities” in the early 1980s.
Israel’s “Sampson Option” (nukes) surely figures into the analysis of the Mullahs.
Just that they’re there, sitting quietly in their silos in Dimona and in submarines (2nd strike, dead hand option) speak loudly in their silence.
Such a fact gives me a happiness I can barely describe as I feel emotionally invested in this one.
D.A.
NYC
Yes, me too, the Israeli ultimate deterrent is ready and waiting to fulfill the Mullahs dreams of paradise.
Are you seriously wishing for nuclear war??!!! I hope I misunderstood this comment.
Reduce Tehran to nothing? A very large fraction of Iranians are decent, innocent, and pro-democracy. Many oppose the evil regime, as we see nearly every day in Jerry’s postings from Masih Alinejad on this website
Indeed, I feel bad for so many of the Iranians suffering under that regime. I’ve met many Iranians & they’ve almost all been decent people. They have relatives back home that raised them that way.
Thank you for pushing back on this.
It’s worth remembering that the current regime in Iran is a product of the reaction against the CIA-led overthrow (instigated by the British) of Iran’s parliamentary government and Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, and the subsequent US-supported installation of the corrupt and repressive Shah of Iran.
The history is interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
The USA did a mess in many parts of the world. Still, the Shah’s regiime was not so bad. If we call it corrupt and repressive, I wonder what we should call the regime that came after it. I’d blame the CIA not so much for installing the Shah as for the failure to defend him against the Islamists.
The Shah’s regime, brought in by the US, was world-famous for its repression. This gave political traction to the Islamic extremists who run the country today. The lesson is not that there should have been more intervention, but less.
Yes agreed but all the Arab countries are dictatorships of one sort or another. All are repressive, all retaliate ruthlessly against dissent, so applying Western standards doesn’t apply there.
As I understand it, Iran was relatively democratic in the early 1950s, until we started messing with them.
Iran isn’t an Arab country, and like Turkey, is more functional than a typical Arab country, with a better educated population.
The US paid an Arab country with a dictator who was much more of a dictator than the Islamic Republic was back then to wage war against Iran, and helped supply him (the dictator) with poison gas.
“They worship and revere death”? Who they? Average Teheranians? The Islamist terrorists you may be thinking of (and who and whose ilk were financed by the US whenever it seemed geopolitically opportune, as in Syria only very recently, and probably in China) were and are all Sunni. We had heaps of Islamism inspired terrorist murders in Germany since 2015, not a single one of the perps was Iranian.
I recently reread some Nazi documents about “the Jewish problem” in the East, your last sentence sounds somewhat familiar.
There is a live “war room” reportage you can access here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/s/81732925805
500 drones have been launched. Hezbollah is launching missiles from Lebanon. Houthis have launched cruise missiles.
Iran has launched 3000 km-range missiles.
20% of drones are reported already shot down. US and France are shooting down drones. Jordan has raised their air defense systems to shoot down drones over their territory.
Jordans actions are a bit of a surprise, but then the previous King fought a war with the Palestinians in the 1970s that everyone’s forgotten about and won. They don’t have as much cachet in that part of the Middle East as everywhere else.
Jordan and Israel are Frenemies.
Iranian missiles are now falling in Israeli territory including Jerusalem.
Saudi Arabia is also shooting down targets.
The Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are celebrating.
Yes, but are all the people in the west who are not Muslims and who referred to the events of October 7th, 2023 as ‘exhilarating’ also celebrating, because if they are not they are hypocrites…
The British are also shooting down targets.
Israel has 6 different anti-missile systems.
Large inter-ballistic missiles launched from Iran, some of which attained extra-atmospheric height were just reported over Iraq. They will land very soon if not intercepted.
My prediction, for what it’s worth, which admittedly isn’t much, is that this will blow over relatively quickly. Iran has no allies of any worth. Russia has its own losing war to keep supplied and needs North Korean help to do so. The Arab world is no fan of the Persians and the Saudis would love nothing more than for Iran to use jp all of its blood and treasure in a doomed fight. Iran commandeered an unarmed civilian ship and fired drones. This makes a big splash in the media and makes it look like they’ve responded with force, but an unarmed ship is hardly a dreadnaught battle group, and drones are slow and can be shot down. This is an attack designed to fail but save face. Iran has always used terrorist proxies to be its cannon fodder and that is who I predict will be goaded into fighting IF actual fighting happens.
I agree with you Jon.
D.A.
NYC
If there are more than a few Israeli deaths, I could foresee Tehran being completely destroyed.
Solve a lot of problems in that part of the world. Evil must be destroyed.
I hope for the destruction not of the city of Tehran but of the regime residing in Tehran.
That’s pretty much how I see it too. I hope we’re correct.
I suspect Israel will retaliate or really be itching to and perhaps only allies like the US & UK can talk them down. They have been sounding the alarm about Iran for a while as an existential threat & no one listened so perhaps this is their chance to eliminate/reduce that threat. This is where it gets really dangerous.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Russia’s war is losing. After a year and a half of lukewarm Western support that was always a day late and a weapons system short, the USA decided to abandon Ukraine altogether, and the Russians are advancing and destroying the country.
A Middle East Foundation Iran expert has pointed out that the religious leaders in Iran do not share the Western mindset. In fact, they believe that only an apocalypse will precede the return of Islamic rule over the world.
And that, therefore, Israel will likely try to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities.
There is, in fact, a report that Israel has approved a direct response upon Iranian soil.
Drones/missiles are still falling over Israeli skies in significant numbers. Some have struck the ground, but there are no reports of casualties.
Goodby world, nice knowing you.
Chin up, friend. It should pass.
Sarcasm buddy!
Wry amigo.
Don’t get me cynical on all the leadership over there!
Gangs and chess players playing the long game.
Biden has reaffirmed our commitment to Israel. It is only right as Israel has been doing the fighting and dying against Iran. Just as Ukraine has been doing the fighting and dying against Russia.
It seems that Iran did a big showy attack to save face. Blowing up an embassy with air launched missiles was a new level for Israel as well after all. So Iran had to escalate and it did. I find it hard to believe, that after the minor damage in Israel, an actual retaliation by the IDF makes sense.
Unfortunately, the only thing Ukraine is getting from the USA recently is admonition for its strikes on Russian oil-processing plants. It seems that there is a bipartisan and popular consensus in the USA that if Ukrainians do not surrender, it is OK for Russia to slaughter them all.
And just think is that Ukraine is being destroyed only because the USA disarmed it with a false promise to defend it (the Budapest Memorandum)!
It is reported that 99% of targets were intercepted. Some drones did not appear to have an explosive payload. A Bedouin boy has been injured, and an Arab town in Samaria suffered a direct hit.
Please forgive the cheeky note, but due to these developments my Persian wife is thrilled that her ex-in-laws likely won’t be able to fly out of Tehran on Sunday as planned to bedevil us in Canada.
Hilarious — but why is she still bedevilled by them after they’ve become *ex*-in-laws?
I am reading comments in the NYTimes and elsewhere to newsreports….and most are of the opinion that Iran is right to attack Israel as self-defense. Look at these:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/13/world/israel-iran-gaza-war-news
Yep, I’ve noticed that about the NYT readers. WSJ readers are much more pro-Israel.
Waiting for the “death to America” chants to start on US campuses.
Yup….the Hamasniks:
https://twitter.com/TheFP/status/1779285705698513385