Oh, Jesus.
Sweet Mother of God.
I’m sitting here as midnight approaches, and halfway around the world a situation is developing that might turn a regional conflict into something wider, maybe even something, as the knock-on effects play out, approaching world war. It’s too early to tell, and I’m struggling to find current news. Right now, I can only tell you this much for sure: I’m well and truly frightened.
We’ve all understood that the war in Gaza, which has already spread to involve the Houthis of Yemen and a Western naval campaign to secure shipping lanes in the Red Sea, risked spilling over all sorts of borders to suck in major regional powers, and then the United States. Hezbollah in Lebanon, proxies for Iran, always seemed likely to get involved, and indeed they did, to a limited but still significant extent, repeatedly sending missiles into Northern Israel. Syria, too, seemed likely to be sucked in – after all, Israel has for many years been fighting an attrition campaign there against Iranian-backed militias, while interdicting Iranian supplies bound for Hezbollah, so any action with the fanatics in Lebanon was bound to involve Syria. A key question early on was whether Iran, supporters of both Houthis and Hezbollah, as well as Hamas in Gaza, would dare take more direct action to make things difficult for Israel and its American backers, the latter with all sorts of facilities and military assets in the region that might seem ripe for attack.
Attacks on several American facilities did then occur, conducted by other regional militias backed by the Iranians. Those militias were duly bombed in retaliatory strikes by American aircraft. The ink blot of violent chaos continued to spread. Yet Iran remained content to let its proxies do the nasty work, and didn’t seem inclined to do anything itself that might provoke a much greater conflagration, like attack Gulf shipping, assault US naval forces, hit major U.S. facilities like 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain, or Al Udeid air base in Qatar, or, God forfend, launch its own cruise and ballistic missiles into Israel.
Anyone even halfway sane wished most fervently that it would stay that way, and that Iran would never cross such thresholds, because God only knew what would happen then. In strategic studies circles, they talk of the “escalation ladder”, and there wasn’t much doubt we could all be bounding up its rungs if Iran got directly involved in the fighting.
Which is why it seemed particularly reckless when the Netanyahu government decided, last April 1, that it would be a good idea to pick off a couple of officers of the justifiably hated Islamic Republic Guard Corps, present in Syria to guide local militias and, no doubt, liaise with Hezbollah. Hitting IRGC officers in Syria was nothing that hadn’t been done before, but this time it was a little different, at least superficially. These two were vulnerable, their whereabouts known, because they were visiting an Iranian consulate in Damascus. Probably, they felt safe there. Even in the dirty wars of the Middle East, national diplomatic facilities were supposed to be off limits, even if they served, like this one, as regional headquarters for the IRGC. Not this time, though. Israel hit the place, but good, killing the officers and five others, stepping up a rung of that ladder.
Netanyahu didn’t warn the Americans he was planning to make the strike. This is likely because he knew that Biden would go apeshit, fearing the prospect of pulling Iran into direct conflict with Israel, and, almost inevitably, the United States. The last thing anybody needed, right? Sure, but maybe Bibi didn’t see it that way. Maybe he wanted a wider war, in which the Americans were now forced to leave the sidelines and get their hands dirty on Israel’s side. Or maybe he just thought they’d get away with it. Who knows what goes on with Netanyahu?
Anyway, since April 1, we’ve been sitting here chewing our fingernails, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Iran seemed sure to retaliate, and over the past couple of days, American officials have disclosed their intelligence finding that Iranian action was imminent. Earlier today Biden himself took to the podium to warn Iran not to do anything stupid, as US air and naval forces were bolstered throughout the region, and at least one of the US Navy’s sophisticated Aegis missile defence destroyers moved close into the Israeli coast, there to augment Israeli anti-ballistic missile defences if necessary. Sister ships, already in the Red Sea, were on high alert. I started to sweat.
A few hours ago, around 7PM or so, I was tooling around on Twitter, looking for cat videos, when I found instead the item attached at the top. Hezbollah was launching literally hundreds of missiles into Israel. Hundreds of Israel’s Iron Dome interceptor missiles were screaming skyward to meet them. It was an eerie scene straight out of dystopian science fiction; all technological hell was breaking loose, and as I rushed to consult the usual trusted sources of military analysis, the consensus was that Hezbollah was probably trying to deplete Israeli defences as a prelude to a massive strike by their sponsors in Iran:
Imagine being there, with this happening over your head:
So now I’m sitting here, vibrating, waiting to see what happens. It just turned midnight. Seven AM in Israel. The talking heads on CNN are yapping about Trump’s upcoming trial in New York. MSNBC is replaying its programming from the 9PM slot – more about Trump. The CNN website has nothing beyond the earlier report that US intelligence predicts an imminent Iranian strike on Israel. Nothing on CBC Newsworld.
So what’s happening, for the love of God?
For all I know, a volley of Iranian ballistic missiles is already arcing its way towards dozens of military and civilian targets in Israel. Maybe, right this moment, the powerful Aegis radars of the US fleet, cued by US satellite surveillance, have already detected the incoming. If so, one thing seems likely: it probably won’t be satisfactory to Israel to merely blunt the assault, supposing they can (and given the depth and sophistication of their anti-missile defences, prepared over years for just this contingency, I’m hopeful that they can, especially with American naval assets pitching in); no, you can bet that retaliatory action has already been planned and cued up. I’m not sure the form this would take. I guess I’ll be spending the next couple of hours refreshing my memory on whether Iranian targets are within the F-35’s radius of action, that sort of thing. Iran is certainly within reach of American carrier air power, and regional land-based air power too. Maybe, knowing this, Iran will attempt to do something to pre-empt US action, which would, of course, be the surest way to provoke it. The carriers are very hard, well-defended targets, and I’ve go to assume that Al Udeid is lousy with Patriot batteries, but who knows what could happen? These are assets the loss or even damage of which could not be tolerated. Expect, in that case, for the B-2s to respond; Christ, maybe, probably, they’ve already sortied out of Whiteman in Missouri, just in case. Probably many hours ago – flight time to Iran would be about 15 hours, give or take, maybe more given the need to rendezvous with aerial tankers along the way…
Yup, it may all be in motion already.
We may be about to witness the sort of chain reaction that starts world war. Short of that, a regional war that sets the entire Middle East ablaze would still be a catastrophe. Once again, I find myself advocating what I suppose isn’t possible, wishing that if an Iranian attack is neutralized, the Israelis leave it at that for now, refrain from bombing any more consulates, and hope that Iran decides it’s made it’s point, perhaps itself feeling relieved that it was able to do so without blowing up the whole theatre of operations.
That’s probably not going to happen. Hey, a guy can hope.
We’ll know soon enough just how bad this is going to get. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about August, 1914, and the terrible suction of war.
UPDATE: The skies over the Dome of the Rock, 24 hours later:
the needlefish 