🧵 One of the most misleading narratives is the claim that the US or Israel threaten “war” with Iran…not only is it the other way around, but it’s all a scam because Iran can’t afford a real “war”…you really think a regime like that would risk the results of such conflict
Consider for a second a member of the Iranian theocratic abusive regime, would be risk losing all that power in a conflict, he knows the average people despise him, he knows he crushed protests before
The Iran regime CANNOT afford war and does everything possible to avoid it, either through threats and boasting and bluffing or working with China, Turkey and Russia or by moving proxy pawns around Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to put the “conflict” somewhere else
Iran is a chess player, the regime is the king, it is feeble and weak but it has arrayed ♟ pawns all over to put the frontline far from home and create three thousand miles of potential underbelly it can strike at far from home, from the Gulf of Oman to Quneitra
That is why it is always nonsense when someone says that recent US statements mean their could be “war” this is just fear mongering talking point nonsense.
Ask these people who speak of “war”…HOW would a war take place. How would the Iran regime many of them adore and want to protect by creating a war narrative, how would it risk war? Are they kidding?
Iran’s regime doesn’t fight wars at home. It was traumatized by the war with Iraq in the 1980s that almost strangled the “revolution” in its cradle. Since then it decided to do a forward policy of proxy wars in the near abroad, strategic depth
So when anyone says that if there isn’t a deal there may be “war” they are being either naive, deceptive or purposely lying. The regime can never risk war with the US or Israel. It can accept certain amounts of low level conflict and sabotage and proxy conflict but not war
That is why Iran boasts a lot about war but what it invests in is PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY attacks using drones and rockets and piracy at sea and harassing ships with speedboats and empowering militias and recruiting Afghan kids for the IRGC in Albukamal
Iran will indeed fight conflicts to the last Iraqi PMU, the last poor Syrian, the last poor Shi’ite Hezbollah member, the last Houthi, but how many IRGC members lay down their lives? Not many.
Iran had its “great patriotic war” in the 1980s and saw enough martyrs, those old greying men who run the regime know the horror of war and don’t want more
The regime elites have their aesthetic, the ostensibly austere regime, those types like Ahmadinejad or Soleimani who supposedly had monk-like existence with no possessions like they are Franciscan friars…but massive war is not for them
Iran is a calculating regime. Zarif and friends spreads the “deal or war” lie to western publics they try studied snd focus-grouped this concept via opeds to see if fear of more “Middle East conflict” would scare people in the West.
Westerners want peace…Iran fears war…so HOW can there ever be war????? Israel also doesn’t want war and Israel is so far from Iran it can’t ever have a real “war” with Iran. THINK about it. It can’t happen. Just proxies and some strikes or incidents but not total war
So since we all know this, let’s stop the misleading story. Absence of a deal might mean some tensions and nuclear blackmail and if Iran crosses a nuclear red line and tries to detonate a device at home there will be attempts to prevent that.
That’s like if someone tried to stop the guys at Los Alamos from the test in 1945…..but that’s not war, that’s trying to stop a stupid act by a regime that is far too smart to ever really detonate a nuclear weapon anyway…think about it
Everyone knows that when Iran is at the threshold it will get a call from it’s new friends in China and it’s old friend in Moscow and also it’s partner in Ankara who will say “ok you scared the West but don’t do the next step”….
And they is why there can never be war. Iran can risk it. It’s friends will advise it. And that’s how things work. Learn and study the Iranian regime method. Read the Iranian media. Stop listening to western commentators who invented the “war” bogeyman.
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What is the end game of Israel's current multi-front war? This is worth considering in the wake of the strike on Hamas in Doha on September 9 and a new round of airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen. In addition Israel continues to operate in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. This is unprecedented in Israel's history to be fighting in so many places for so long.
There is no doubt that when it comes to tactical precision strikes and intelligence gathering that Israel has excellent capabilities. After the massive failure of October 7 Israel has clawed back this perception of being able to operate on multiple fronts at a high tempo.
However, the continues to be an elephant in the room in terms of end game and strategy. The war with Hezbollah was a trickle in 2023-2024 until Israel escalated in Sept-Nov and got a ceasefire. Since then Israel has struck Hezbollah but Hezbollah does not strike Israel. Will that be a "norm" for years?
It always surprised me that Doha didn't re-think its Hamas hosting strategy on October 7. It should have seen that Hamas was a destructive sunk cost. Doha had sent large sums to Gaza and Hamas was risking everything through its attack and massacre.
Doha could have used that as an opportunity to pivot, to get Hamas leaders in Doha to distance themselves from the disaster that Sinwar had unleashed. Doha could have leveraged its influence and probably got something out of this. It could have leaked that Hamas leaders in Doha were shocked and that they wanted the movement to go in a different direction. Hamas in Gaza could have been isolated and removed and Doha could have swept in with the "good cop" Hamas leaders from Doha and tried to get a coalition government with Abbas, something Hamas could try to control behind the scenes.
There was an opportunity on October 8 to re-think decades of failed Gaza strategy. For instance, after Oct. 7 Hamas released two American women, and also two elderly women. Clearly someone was advising Hamas abroad, likely via Doha, that holding Americans, women, the elderly, was not a good look.
The pro-Houthi griftersphere is fascinating. It’s solely made up of people who had never heard of the Houthis before October 7, 2023. They were then operationalized, or self-operationalized to suddenly back a group they knew nothing about in a country they never heard about and couldn’t locate on a map; solely because the group claimed to be fighting Israel in the name of Gaza. They adopted the cause of the Houthis, who they often confusingly claim is the government of Yemen (the Houthis are not the government); and now they are all aping eachother like leap frog to one-up how much they back “Yemen” and its “Prime Minister” after Israel targeted the Iran-backed Houthi government.
There isn’t a lone voice among these folk who cared about the Yemen civil war before 2023. It’s just people that adopted this cause and then accept any Houthi slop they are fed.
You could make up a group and claim it is fighting Israel “for Gaza” and these grifters would back it. “The Abjababians are fighting Israel to stop the Gaza war” and the next day you’d have 100 “influencers” very passionate about the Abjababians and their leader General Landocjabr…any random thing you could completely make up…put some AI slop on it and they’d consume it
I don’t know if griftersphere is a word, but I’m happy to coin it and will use it more often. It is the most appropriate word for the phenomenon of these folk.
The pro-Houthi griftersphere should be mapped and studied. It’s so obviously not authentic and so ridiculous.
I found this CNN article about Gaza city interesting because of the elephant in the room. It tells the tale of a city that was once thriving and is now a chaos of war and tragedy.
But what seems to be missing in the larger discussion is why Hamas purposely risked all this to commit the genocidal Oct. 7 attack; Hamas would have known that murdering 1,000 people and taking 250 hostage would result in a long war of destruction. They purposely set out to destroy Gaza city.
"you could still get a matcha latte on the way to a yoga studio, or relax in a park."
So shouldn't someone hold Hamas to account for having destroyed all this?
The report says "institutions set up by the militants, with help from regional governments like Qatar and a robust United Nations aid system, gave some structure to the strip’s exhausted population."
So why haven't those organizations and countries that funded Hamas-run Gaza condemned Hamas for unleashing this terrible war.
I'm fascinated and saddened every time I see a news story about Hamas in Gaza, such as the recent statements about EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaking with her Israelis counterpart and discussing Hamas in Gaza. It always shocks me that after 655 days of war that Hamas continues to control part of Gaza and negotiate to return to control most of it. The existence of Hamas in Gaza shouldn't even be a discussion today. It shouldn't be there. But it is. It is unclear if Hamas will be removed from Gaza. If it is to be removed there doesn't appear to be a clear roadmap for doing so. This lack of a process is part of the wider series of missteps and challenges that plagued the war for 21 months.
It's fascinating that despite murdering more than 1,000 people on October 7 and kidnapping 250; that decisions were made in the early months of the war that would result in keeping Hamas in power. Instead of being laser focused on removing Hamas, so Israelis wouldn't be kidnapped again, so they wouldn't be massacred again; the war was treated as another round in Gaza, another 2006, 2009, 2014. In fact, the plans for the offensive in Gaza were almost identical to past raids. The concept: Go into part of Gaza city or Khan Younis, uproot some tunnels; and then leave. Go into the Philadelphi corridor, clear it out and then negotiate over leaving it.
One of the early examples of a decision that was obviously made to result in Hamas staying in power, was the decision to move civilians in Gaza to be under Hamas rule. The IDF or other officials made decisions early on that under no circumstances would Israel deal with the civilians, and under no circumstances would an alternate authority be created to administer their lives in a non-Hamas zone. As such the result was to move 2 million people to remain under Hamas rule.
There is a lot of talk today about sheikhs in Hebron who want to for an "emirate" of Hebron. This is being greeted by some as a positive initiative. Let's take a look at the claims and also what the results could be.
First, the context. Israel is engaged in a 637 day war in Gaza against Hamas. Hamas still controls around 40 percent of Gaza. In Gaza, Israel has backed an initiative to have armed militias involved in some activities in the rest of Gaza. There is one named commander, Abu Shabab (not his real name obviously) and there are rumored to be others.
Some see this as a wise decision to have multiple armed gangs and militias run a post-war Gaza. Israel's current government opposes having the PA run Gaza, so the theory is that armed militias fighting eachother and Hamas is a good future.
In the West Bank the PA has been relatively successful at ruling Palestinian cities and towns for thirty years. However, Israel's current government includes parties that oppose the PA. The PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is aging and there is talk of what comes next.