Iran Blinds US With Unprecedented Campaign of Strikes on Region's Strategic Radars
We get back to the Iran conflict as there are so many things to cover, a single report doesn’t do it justice.
First we must mention the current temperature in Iran, CNN sent a correspondent who confirmed that things on the ground appear stable. There are no signs of panic or shortages anywhere:
Iranians on the streets of Tehran also appear upbeat:
The biggest buzz of the day came from Iranian FM Araghchi’s interview with NBC, wherein he stunned the slack-jawed presstitute by calmly asserting that Iran welcomes a US ground invasion in a must-see exchange:
The presstitute blinks in total vacuity at the unprecedented chutzpah—he’s used to slave nations who bend over for the empire.
And note Araghchi’s demurral at the question about what aid China and Russia are providing. This has become a key focus of online discussion given that an avalanche of new satellite intel has revealed shocking region-wide damage that Iran has done to US’s most priceless assets, which—it would seem—could only have come by way of major Chinese and Russian help.
In particular, NYT and other outlets have now confirmed total attrition of US’s irreplaceable AN/TPY-2 radars meant for THAAD and other high end systems. This radar has an upwards of $1 billion dollar price tag and numbers only in the dozen range total. Only one or two units of these can be built per year at the very most. Iran just potentially destroyed 50% or more of the US’s entire global stock of this rare and irreplaceable system.
New satellite imagery released by Airbus confirms that the AN/TPY-2 THAAD radar at Muwaffaq Salti Base in Jordan was destroyed by Iran.
The U.S. openly denied this.
Some analysts have the count as follows:
Iran has managed to hit multiple high ended US radars worth more than $3 Bn which form critical core of US BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) in Middle East:
Muwaffaq Salti Air Base: AN/TPY-2
Umm Dahal: AN-FPS-132
Prince Sultan Air Base: AN/TPY-2
Al Ruwais & Al Sader Air Bases: 2x AN/TPY-2
Even heavily pro-American propaganda OSINT accounts are forced to concede the losses:
CNN confirms with satellite imagery receipts:
The shock of the outcome cannot be understated: Iran is literally blinding the US in the region. And following that, it is launching its most advanced hypersonic Khorramshahr-4—also known as the Kheybar—ballistic missiles at Israel, which are now impervious to interdiction. They are said to release upwards of 80 submunitions in a tight pattern.
Footage showed what appears to be the missile arriving in Tel Aviv, where widespread damage is now being reported in spite of Israeli authorities heavily banning and punishing the distribution of any post-strike videos to keep society from learning the extent of the damage.
Tel Aviv being heavily reamed:
And that’s not even to mention reports of Israel sustaining heavy damage in its new incursion against Hezbollah. Not only were several Merkava tanks said to be hit and taken out, but Hezbollah has been striking various Israeli camps and positions along the Lebanese border, claiming to have hit several IDF troop groupings.
Two separate new reports of shot-down American F-15s hit the waves today as well, despite US denials. Again even top pro-American OSINT accounts were forced to admit their ‘trustworthy’ sources had confirmed at least one of the shoot-downs:
Basra Police Command has confirmed that a U.S. Air Force (USAF) fighter jet crashed in Iraq. The pilot ejected and landed in the Al-Khawrah area, where local residents, along with units from the Counter-Terrorism Service and federal police, are currently searching for him.
Meanwhile, Arab clans in Basra are reportedly offering a $1 million reward for anyone who captures and hands over the USAF pilot.
That’s besides the smorgasbord of drones Iran has been nailing, of both Israeli and American origin:
Iran appears to be suddenly doing far better than anyone imagined, and is holding its own against the US superpower.
Another big question that has naturally arisen in the wake of these developments is what exactly is the feared US naval power doing, that we watched forebodingly build up for so many weeks, surrounding Iran with two aircraft carrier battle groups?
Today Iranian reports claimed that they had hit the USS Lincoln with some type of missiles, and that the ship had run away. OSINT accounts have tried to piece together the events, and though it’s extremely speculative, it seems the USS Lincoln attempted to move in toward Iran, having thought Iranian defenses—particularly its navy—had been attritioned enough for it to be safe. Instead, Iranian drones chased it away, though it’s uncertain whether it was actually hit or not:
If true, the war appears to be quickly becoming a sham for the US-Israeli axis, with Iranian leadership and command structures holding strong despite desperate propaganda outlays from the US side.
Amidst US fighter jet shoot-downs, recall that all talk of “air superiority” over Iran have been completely debunked as confirmation came that US continues to use long-range stand-off weaponry fired from outside Iran. Footage of B-52s armed with JASSMs emerged, rather than the much shorter-ranged JDAMs and GBUs. This was confirmed by top aviation expert and founder of TWZ.com Tyler Rogoway:
But debris from a shot down JASSM has already been found in south-western Iran:
Meanwhile, Trump appears to be living in a propaganda bubble, already toasting to victory with his aristocratic coterie, while glibly planning the next “successful” military campaign to topple Cuba:
Just look at the unprecedented hubris as Trump lavishes himself with unearned glory and pretends the Iranian operation is going without a hitch:
Now an energy crisis is feared to be developing as Iran has tightened its yoke over the Strait of Hormuz, with various reports throughout the day of tanker ships on fire after being hit. Experts believe this is only the beginning, because with Arab states depleting their interceptor stocks, Iran may soon have full authority over the region’s key energy infrastructures:
WaPo writes that US may be “days away” from having to literally allow some missiles to pass through:
You can’t make this up.
As I said in the last report, Iran no longer needs the same level of saturation because it has depleted the entire region’s vital anti-air resources such that single drones can fly freely and penetrate strategically significant areas.
Time’s running out for Saudi Arabia to resume oil exports before storage tanks fill up — Financial Times
In TWO WEEKS it could be forced to cut production
Other oil producers in the Gulf have EVEN LESS time
Such production shutdowns could lead to further RISE in oil prices
That’s not to say Iran isn’t taking major damage itself, but there are no indications so far that Iran is buckling in any way. Its objective appears to be a redux of the Tanker War of the ‘80s but to a far greater extent, in order to engulf the region and the world with a politically destabilizing energy crisis.
Prices for oil, gas, and everything energy-related have already spiked dramatically.
Oddly enough, however, despite outward claims that Gulf states are diplomatically pressuring Washington to cut the war short in order to stave off the coming crisis, there are reports that privately the states are doing the opposite—outlining the definition of sunk-cost fallacy:
The above makes a plausible case: if Iran is not stopped now, it will have essentially learned to ‘undress’ the entire region, and the strategic assets it is now attriting are irreplaceable and will cripple the region’s ability to respond to threats for the foreseeable future. The same goes for interceptor stocks, which will not appreciably improve any time soon. Iran has uncovered a kind of escalation dominance over the US and its allies given that it’s able to produce cheap and ‘precise-enough’ weaponry much faster than US and its allies can restock their prestige systems, which puts them all in a major bind.
All things being considered, Iran is holding on remarkably well and thus far appears to be closer to realistically achieving its chief objectives than the US and Israel are to getting theirs. The political situation is worsening for the US each day—particularly with the strike on the girls’ elementary school in Minab—while Iran’s socio-political structures appear to be only strengthening, with no signs of deterioration.
Things could change, but as of the moment, we must assess that Iran’s strategy is winning out, and I would give the edge to time being on Iran’s side.
As a last note symbolic of US’s fall from grace, American admiral Brad Cooper shamelessly touts US’s cribbing of Iran’s weaponry:
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