Ambient Sounds
Hello everybody!
Wasn’t after writing another ‘volley’, or ‘feature’ today, but… well, chatting with few people from Iran did prompt me into some ‘loud thinking’ about various ‘ambient sounds’ of this war, and thus I started writing…
For example: while Experten in ‘the West’ remain obsessed with ‘Russian intelligence and arms deliveries’ (apparently: nobody there has learned anything at all about fake news about Iran’s deliveries of additional UAVs, and/or ‘ballistic missiles’ to Russia, from two or three years ago), actually, the IRGC continues obtaining its stuff in most unexpected ways. Read this for a very good example: Iranian Drone Motors traced to sanctioned Myanmar Company.
How comes? It’s simple: the IRGC is nowhere near as dogmatic as US-Israel.
Nor as racist.
How do I come to that with ‘racist’?
Like I’m not religious, nor jealus, I’m also no racist (at most: fiercelly intollerant vis-a-vis racism and racists). This is why I tend to ignore these factors in my assessments.
…which is, ever more often, and especially in the case of wars like this one - rather a problem than any kind of advantage.
However, when I do what I’m doing regularly for decades already - like reading the Proceedings, a magazine of the US Naval Institute (and, usually, light years ahead of what the ‘flags’ of the US Navy can think about in terms of strategy) - then I cannot avoid being reminded of these factors. Especially of racism. Between others, in the feature The Battle of Gallipoli’s sobering Lessons for the Strait of Hormuz, one can find the following passage:
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Allied assessments of the Gallipoli battle suffered from the distorting impact of a “deeply entrenched attitude of racist superiority toward the Turkish people. … [But] at Suvla Bay the cold statistics suggest that every Turk was the equal of ten Britons.” Iranians fighting to protect their land should not be underestimated. A closely related point, of course, is that U.S. forces fighting on Iran’s sovereign territory would once again confront the anger of a people defending their homeland. It is no coincidence that the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, arose out of the single extraordinary battle at Gallipoli. After the bitter lessons learned from wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, U.S. strategists should be wary of brazen challenges on foreign soil.
Gallipoli is the most classic case of expeditionary littoral warfare gone wrong. U.S. military planners should not forget its lessons, and they should exercise utmost caution and humility when approaching the strategic problem of trying to force open the Strait of Hormuz.
Ho-hum... hands up whoever is naive enough to expect the likes of Netanyahu, Barnea, Katz, Brandt, Zamir, Tomer, IQ47, Hegseth, Rubio, Ratcliffe, Cooper etc. - to base their decisions on anything less than (quote) ‘deeply entrenched attitude of racist superiority’?
Even if one remains insistent on entirely ignoring the Israel/Zionist, ‘influence’ (via AIPAC) upon the US Congress and the IQ47 Administration (have had this flatly denied by one of Trumpists, in the second part of a TV-interview for an Indian channel, yesterday), plus the factor blanc racism: permit me to remind you of their ‘know better & no problem to come away with that’-attitude. Should there be any doubts, well, read Mrs Heather Cox-Richardson’s March 26, 2026, and pay attention about this passage:
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But Trump simply began the Iran war without consultation with Congress, and administration officials have refused to appear at hearings, instead briefing Congress behind closed doors. At an annual fundraising dinner for Republican members of Congress, Trump appeared to acknowledge he was violating the Constitution.
...
...then think what kind of effects such an attitude has upon the top brass of the US Armed Forces, which, BTW, was mercilessly purged by Hegseth over the last year.
Unsurprisingly, nobody there is coming to the idea to at least question the legality of IQ47’s and Hegseth’s Constitution-violating orders.
...and mind: in Israel, such orders are not even unlawful. They are the official doctrine.
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The consequence of such circumstances is that - between others & for example, and according to a contact in the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IFRC) - alone in Tehran between 28 February 2026 and yesterday, the noble and knightly IASF has demolished 230 (+) multi-story apartment buildings.
… all in order to ‘de-capitate’ some 20 top politicians, IRGC-commanders, missile- and nuclear scientists…
Sure, the IFRC is trying both to help the victims and keep up with the statistics. However, it’s hopelessly overburdened. As a result, the number of victims - including some 1,900+ civilians - is, actually - still unknown. Not only because of massive damage or because there are too few emergency response teams, or because they’re still trying to clear the rubble, but also because the US-Israelis have either intentionally targeted or ‘accidentally damaged’ over 150 hospitals and medical facilities around the country, plus several dozens of emergency response centres. And because they continue to target emergency responders in Iran. Just like the Israelis are all the while targeting emergency responders in Lebanon, too.
‘But’, how good the USA have killed ‘Ayatollah’ Khamenei, right!?!
This feat, this ‘fantastic military achievement’ of the ‘army of light’, is still cheered - not only by the IQ47, or so many Israelis and Israel-fans, all over the social media.
The fact he was replaced by his son & chief-of-staff, Mojtaba Khamenei is, de-facto, belittled.
Because next to no Experten (not to talk about all the naivlings and paid shills in the social media) understand, or know, that the guy was widely acknowledged for skills in money-laundering and developing all the possible schemes for ‘extra-legal’ oil export already years ago. So much so, even the Russians began copy-pasting his methods.
Resulting in a situation in which, ‘just BTW’, he’s the guy who is seating on IRGC’s money. De-facto the same like Putin’s position in FSB of the 1990s...
Nevermind…
but, how good the Israelis have de-capitated Major-General Mohammad Pakpur, CinC IRGC, on 28 February!
He was replaced by ‘just some’ Brigadier-General Ahmad Vahidi - a ‘nobody’, a ‘blanc piece of paper’.
...at least in ‘the West’....
Problem: Vahidi is not only a Khomeini absolutist (pay attention: Khomeini, not Khamenei), but has unmatched experience across all sectors of the IRGC. The Qods Force, Defence Minister, Interior Minister, running the missile- and nuclear program, you name it...
Foremost, within the IRGC, Vahidi is renowned for systematically subverting civilian authorities through infiltrating these by his IRGC-affiliates.
… and for co-drafting not only the Mosaic Doctrine, but also the plan for the IRGC’s conduct of this war.
BTW, Vahidi began his campaign of infiltrating all levels of armed forces, politics and economy by his favourites from the Shahid Beheshti School of Governance already years ago. The characters in question were not only carefully trained, but trained by the IRGC, not by the clergy or civilians. And, Vahidi simply has no rivals: he’s making them a head shorter as mercilessly as Pudding does. Unsurprisingly, he is not only ‘enjoying’ greater credibility but also broader acceptance within the IRGC than Israeli favourite Ghalibaf. So much so, Vahidi has Mojtaba by his guts, too.
Why should this matter?
Because through their aggression on Iran, and especially their campaigns of ‘de-capitation’, the idiots in charge of the US-Israeli war effort are therefore actively helping the IRGC militarise Iran. They’ve already helped the IRGC institutionalise a system that is going to resemble that of North Korea: which is going to be far more harsher to its own population and neighbours, and far more uncompromising - and thus far more dangerous - to the US-Israel conglomerate.
Much of this can be concluded alone through careful examination of the IRGC’s conduct of combat operations so far. This was foremost characterised by military professionalism. Sure, the Experten ‘in the West’ can continue belittling it, remain insistent on theses like the one about IRGC’s military dilatantism (does, quote, deeply entrenched attitude of racist superiority toward the... people - say anything to anybody?), and the Israelis can continue crying that ‘Iran is only targeting civilians’.
However, hard matters of fact are such like that the IRGCASF has already blinded the US radar network by its strikes on the pillars of that system. Its radars. Including that AN/FPS-132 in Qatar, five US Army’s THAAD batteries, three major radar sites in the UAE, and others in Bahrain and Jordan. One can bet his/her annual income they have done something similar in Israel - alone by the fact that in the last 36 hours, the Israelis had to waste their precious ‘final dozen’ of Arrow interceptors to shot down five IRGCASF’s missiles over the Sdot Micha Airbase, in central Israel.
Do I have to explain what’s that ‘airbase’ about, again?
No doubt: as result of such intercepts, the wreckage came down ‘somewhere else’. Has hit a lots of civilian homes, cars etc. And, yes, no doubt: even US Congressmen have major problems whenever addressed with questions about Israeli nuclear weapons (obviously: because they’re responsible to the AIPAC, not to the US Congress and thus the people of the USA). But, no sweet-talking about ‘probable blunting’ of such attacks are going to make things about such issues even a notch better: it cannot deny the fact that the IRGCASF first targeted the Israeli air defence system, and meanwhile is targeting the IDF’s logistics system.
For comparison, much of US-Israeli conduct of combat operations remains heavily influenced by preferences of ideological-, racist-, and political nature that can only be summarised with ‘idiotism’. Have mentioned a few, earlier today, but, and for example: because they have proven themselves as unable to destroy even one of 27 of IRGC’s underground ‘missile cities’ around Iran, the USA are meanwhile mining approaches to these with help of CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons, disgorging BLU-91 and BLU-109 mines.
If ‘some of mines’ then end up scattered all over the streets and roofs of the city of Shiraz...? ‘Meh, shit happens’, right? It’s ‘just some Iranian Mullahs’…
Alternatively, I’m looking forward for a better description for the Israeli bombing of the Honyak Music Academy in Tehran?
Perhaps the ‘Exceptionalists’ consider famous Persian poems and music and the maintenance of thousands-of-years of Persian culture and traditions for a ‘terror command centre’...? A ‘part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program’?
I’m… open to recommendations for how to understand acts of this kind.
As far as I can say, after three weeks of this Epic Blunder, that is the bare essence of how IQ47’s Special Military Operation is conducted (‘Special Military Operation’ because even he’s admitting it: it’s inopportune to call this a ‘war’, because he’s violated the US Constitution to start it). Kill me, but: experiences from dozens of wars conducted in similar fashion over the last 80 years alone are very clear. All such adventures are doomed to fail. Usually: in particularly miserable fashion.
Because, following von Clausewitz’s famous definition, ‘war is continuation of politics by other means’ - these means have to be clear and achievable. And those of US-Israel are simply none of that. They’re not only clearly counterproductive, but violating (at least) the US Constitution, in addition to violating the UN Charter, the International Humanitarian Law, and few other laws and regulations…
Yes, sure: right now, it doesn’t look like that - like the situation being ‘suitable’ for discussions of that kind. No matter where, whether in the USA, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, or elsewhere, everybody responsible for this catastrophe and its direct and indirect results appears unaccountable. Well outside the reach of the law and justice. Indeed, the situation right now appears to resemble that of around June-September 1942, when the ‘Axis Powers’ were at the peak of their advances, and no defeat of them was anywhere in sight. No doubt, many were demanding it, foremost to bolster the public morale, but: I doubt anybody in 1942 would’ve dared publicly announcing the ultimate capitulation of the Nazism.
Nevertheless: I’m already looking forward for the ‘Third Nürnberg Trials’.
I have no evidence to the contrary, but I do not share your sentiment, that the war is a lost cause for the agressors yet, at least for Israel. Sure, for the US and Iran it was a lose-lose right from the start, but US interests aren't on the agenda anyway. They don't need a strategy, as they are "just" providing a service, following Israeli orders and providing protection and support for the Israeli campaign.
The Israelis have a strategy and their actions align perfectly with it. They want the complete collapse of the governmental and societal structures of the nation and fracture along ethnic lines. Even though nothing has materialized in regards to the latter (yet), the first points are progressing and the longer they can continue, the greater the chance of success, imho. It is a matter of whether they can keep the US long enough in this quagmire and have them pay their bills.
They have destroyed everything they can reach: All police stations, hospitals and healtcare facilities, schools and universities, industries, airports and seaports. Not to mention the attacks on desalination plants, oil depots, natural gas facilities and very soon the energy infrastructure. If given just enough time, they will flatten every city. And they don't have to finish it now, no? This war is the continuation of the start in June 2025 and nothing will keep them from the third installment, in a couple of months or years, after reloading for another round.
Regarding decapitation: I think they have killed over 30 officials and counting. Already at the start of the aggression, has Israel declared that their goal is to kill everybody in the Iranian leadership, "past, present and future". Therefore they have not just bombed the home of former president Ahmadinejad, but also every prison and home, were opposition figures are imprisoned, under house-arrest or normally living. The status of which are so far unknown, at least afaik.
According to Israeli reports, the only reason why FM Araghchi and Speaker of Parliament (IRGC) Ghalibaf have not yet been eliminated, is because the US asked the Israelis not to. But let's be honest. They didn't ask, but begged. If Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran, than the USA is the proxy of Israel, with the neat difference that the proxy is financing the master.
Your overall analysis is, as always, very striking and your description of the "north-koreanization" of the IRI absolutely on point. IRI media had reported, that for every role in the system, depending on the significance, there are three to seven planned successors. If those planned successors are exhausted, I wouldn't rule out the availability of unplanned successors. And as long as the regime survives, with every successor the IRI is practically under reform/transformation, but not as we could hope in the past: The successors are more hardliners, principalists and fundamentalists. The moment they stabilize and consolidate power again, high chance they will go on a killing spree for even the smallest of fish in the population, to send a clear message.
The fact that Ahmad Vahidi is now the head of the IRGC and de-facto appointed Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr as secretary of the SNSC, is a harbinger of bad things to come. The Paydari Front is now taking over the IRI and unlike Larijani and Ghalibaf, who were/are considered moderate or pragmatic conservatives, the Paydari Front is at the right end of the spectrum of hardliners or "right-wing" in Iran. Since Zolghadr is by all accounts considered a "light weight" (to borrow from Trump), relative to Vahidi, it is appearant that he ist just a messenger and the SNSC is no longer a strategic decision-making body. It is another indication, as you stated Tom, that the IRGC is making all the security related decisions and coordinations now. It fits the rumours, that president Pezeshkian has complained that he and his government are completely sidelined by the IRGC. Apparently he threatened with a very public resignation, which the IRGC "turned down".
I have read the claim, but not yet anything official, that Khamenei doesn't intend to "re-issue" the fatwa from his father, to the prohibition of nuclear weapons. Now that I write this, I actually feel like the IRGC is more similar to Israel right now and a "Israelization" of Iran even more on point.
Excellent, I agree with you on this, especially since what's happening, in my view, is a resounding failure for the Americans and Israelis. I think the depletion of their stockpiles will make Israel, in this fourth week of the war, deeply regret it. From my understanding of their operations, the Iranians might launch powerful attacks after confirming the exhaustion of the Israelis' air defense systems, especially with the Patriot batteries in Jordan being hit again by a drone launched by the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. Ultimately, it seems that America is helping the Revolutionary Guard strengthen its influence even in Iraq after the withdrawal of foreign and American forces. I wager that Iraq might have something similar to the Revolutionary Guard in Iran after the war ends, which would be a greater and more significant threat to countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. Or, if I may say so, there will be other Houthis in Iraq, similar to the Houthis in Yemen, with a large missile arsenal after the end of this conflict, which I don't expect to last much longer.