The Team House - Israel Strikes Inside Iran | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

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Okay. Hello, everyone. Welcome to a live episode of Aizond for an extraordinary incident, to Israel's attack on Iran. We don't have Jason with us today, but he will be back with us in a couple of days. So we've only got a limited amount of time. I am going to do kind of a stream of consciousness, talk about what we do know has happened

and hopefully put to rest some rather scurrilous rumors that have started flowing around in the media this morning, especially those involving speculation about U.S. involvement, which are concerning. Anyway, I mean, the reports are concerning. So here's what we know. the attack took place in three waves and the initial wave unknown number of aircraft. By the way, there were about 100 aircraft involved total in the attacks, a mix of F-35s, F-15, Charlie, Delta.

No confirmation of F-16s. But some of those planes were also refuelers, and that's important. I'm going to get back to that. And I do want to say right off the bat, because in Twitterland, And there's some rather hysterical speculation that the U.S. provide refuelers for this attack. And I would say there's absolutely no indication that that happened. And in fact, everything points to the fact that the U.S. was not involved in that sense. And in any case, the Israelis didn't need U.S. help for their refueling efforts.

And I'll get into that little bit. So three waves. The first wave went after targets in Syria and get this, in Iraq. right probably not yeah probably not with Iraqi permission

but a radar site in Babylon was hit it's kind of ironic we're dealing with biblical names even as far

as a rock and in Syria they went after both anti-air defense sites and radar sites okay that was in the first wave

now the second wave when I all the way to Iran, which by the way, I want to remind everyone, is over a thousand miles away, which is important when we start talking about refueling. Although the F-35, Israel has some, I think 39 F-35s right now. That's important to know, too, because some of the newspaper report, a lot of media reports say there are 100 F-35s involved, which would have been indeed extraordinary. But in any case, so the F-35 has arranged about 1,300 miles. But, you know, the Israelis, use have have been saying publicly that they can launch an attack on Iran without refueling their

F-35s neither in or that they had the ability to do so and undoubtedly all F-35s were involved but they're also drones too now the first way the second wave this is the first one that into Iran the second wave just like we predicted here on this channel when after anti-aird defense systems, specifically S35 and S-400. The Israelis are reporting that they have removed from the play from the chessboard every single S-300 and S-400 that the Iranians had. And the Iranians just had a plus-up from a Russian on it as 400. That is, yeah, that is significant, right? So, you know, regardless of subsequent outcomes, regardless of what happens after this, the fact that Israel specifically denuded Iran's ability to defend itself, not just for this

particular raid, but for some time until Russia can backfill these systems. That is significant, right? Sensor message, and it means, you know, it's quite smart. It means that Iran's going to be quite cautious about how it responds. Now, the third wave went after about 20 sites, okay, and these range from there were some sites around Tehran. There was a Revolutionary Guards barracks. And I do want to say this. Okay, the Israelis sent a warning to Iran because they wanted to minimize the, you know, to casualties.

And they basically said they didn't list the targets, but they said we're going after these sorts of targets. And they emphasized the fact, we are going to be hitting Revolutionary Guards, barracks. And there was one in particular they hit outside Tehran. But they did warn the Iranians. That's why, you know, there are only two people killed, unfortunately, for those two, but it could have been far worse. But they also went after missile.

They went after a site that manufactures industrial components for these missiles and drones. the in it's called the asharm industrial park so you'll look on twitter you'll see these great explosions taking place in this industrial park where they are after going after factories that are providing components i think it's specifically for drones now in media reports it's saying that they destroy the factories that create you know the shahead drones for that have been exported to russia that's neither here nor there because Russia's actually building its own Shahi drones in Russia. But you know, you get the idea. They're going after that capability to manufacture more drones and missiles.

Now, the U.S. obviously concerned about escalation has jumped in and said, you know, the attack was proportionate. Well, the U.S. was heavily involved in shaping this attack to ensure that it was proportionate. And there's a lot of stuff in the news about all the forces that the U.S. has rushed to the area. Well, yes, there were, plus up certainly on the aviation side, but I think that's more of a proportionate move. And I want to emphasize here that the United States was not involved in the strike. Okay, and you can say, how do you know, Andy? Just call it informed speculation. I don't know, all right, but it's important, I think, to get that out here.

Okay, so let's go back to, you know, what exactly, we'll talk about the ramifications, but let's talk about kind of a little bit more about the breakdown of the strike. So, you know, the logistics challenges have been discussed quite a bit in the media, and there's a lot of uninformed speculation. The Israelis actually practiced this in broad daylight back in August. August, okay? I don't know, you know, it wasn't really picked up in the papers, but you could see this from Israel. I mean, they launched this massive, I don't know if it was 100 aircraft, but it was a massive phalanx of aircraft that took off from various bases in Israel and swing out over the Mediterranean. And again, broad daylight. I think you can find photographs and they even practice refueling using, by the way, the Israelis have some. a very capable refueling capability. And it's not, you know, when people talk about the limitations on Israeli strikes, ranges, everything.

The Israelis have been working this problem the last decade. And they've got, you know, aside from our own K-46, you know, the Pegasus refuelers, they have their own, which is kind of a refurbished. 707. And in fact, they've proven using these, the way they, they operate the boom at night using, so it's a, it's a remote visual system. I wish we had Alex Hollings on here. But here's what I'm saying. The Israelis arguably are as capable, probably more capable than the United States when it comes to refueling, because we have all these problems with the Pegasus that the Israelis seem to have ironed out. They've been practicing this for a long time.

So they did not need U.S. help. That's what I'm trying to say. They really didn't. And that's an important point, too, because when we talk about Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities, we used to say that the Israelis couldn't do it because they didn't have sufficient penetrating ordinance or insufficient quantity to go after the sites.

Well, that may or may not be true. but they certainly do have deep penetrating bombs. And the second thing you say is they need U.S. help for refueling. That is no longer true. Okay. You know, as I mentioned, they reported right off the bat that they destroyed specifically, you know, all the radars for the S-400 and S-300.

They should have been more specific, not the interceptors. That would have been an impossible task. But the radars are all important and they're harder to replace. So everything now kind of rests on the response, right? And all indications are, you know, the Iranians are kind of playing this down. They're saying that they didn't suffer any significant damage. They did release reporting of two military casualties to Revolutionary Guard members who were killed. two of the sites that the Israelis went after were in the western part of the country

and that is significant because they're looking you know again the Israelis are looking at Iran's ability to react and so by taking out missile systems closest to and radar's closest to Israel that was kind of their priority targets and that's why you see all these attacks in the West part of the country in areas that seem to be quite remote. They used oh, and they also, I'm trying to remember the name of the base.

The Parchin military base was hit almost entirely by drones. Okay, there's no indication yet of types of drones, but it's kind of interesting that these drones, we knew they had the range because, you know, obviously they had the range. But the point is drone attacks are normally at that range quite ineffective

because as we saw back in April, you can see them coming and you can track them. But by masking this within a strike package, the Israelis were able to carry this off without drones being intercepted. That takes some planning, all right, on timing and everything else. So again, this was meticulously planned. What do we watch for now? Well, by all accounts, life back in Tehran is back to normal. It's, you know, late Sunday afternoon there.

In Twitter feeds, you can see people just strolling around. There's no sign of damage within Tehran itself. And I think, you know, everyone's waiting to see the next statement from Supreme Leader Alarqqqqomani, because that's going to be critical. And I don't know if he's spoken yet. If not, he's going to be speaking. probably soon. And if he claims that Israel is trying to force a war with, you know, a war between Iran and the U.S., between Iran and Israel, then that's going to be a strong kind of de-escalatory indicator.

Okay. But if you focus on, you know, this is what the community watches say, if you focuses on expressing readiness for war committing to retaliation, well then now we need to worry. I would say absolutely it's going to be the former. He's going to come out and vilify Israel, of course, and the United States are backing it up. And then he'll talk about the dangers of a regional war and Iran has been anxious to avoid that. I think that's those are, you know, I'm going to believe words in his mouth, which we're thinking. But those are kind of the de-escalation. themes that we're expecting to hear. That's what I have.

What questions you had the? We got a good question actually in the chat that I was thinking about to from Brian Thomas. Andy, what's the downside of going after their nuclear sites? Won't hurt the economy the way oil strikes would. Or is there a question if they can actually reach those targets that far underground? Thanks. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Dee.

last part it's a question of whether they whether they can and um you know again i i i mean i'm i'm this is just speculation but we know like the good guys know that since gaza kicked off um the arrainians have been actually since before then in the last 18 months or so the Iranians have been squirreling away centrifuges in an area of Natanz that is that is, you know, obviously we believe to be a weapons enrichment site, but it's much deeper than previous sites. I don't know more than that. So what that, you know, but discovering that means that all the previous calculations, if there were such calculations about striking those sites are now up in the air.

So we don't, you know, that's the real risk. not, oh, we're worried that Iran will do something. If we do destroy its nuclear capability, I think we're just questioning whether we, and I say we collectively have the ability to do that. And if we don't, then certainly the Iranians don't. But aside from a nuclear threat, the Israelis were considerably worried about this the ballistic missiles. So the Iranians have like nine types of ballistic missile that can now range Israel.

And I won't go into, I can't even remember all the names. Yeah, no, you're not Alex. Allings. Don't do it to yourself. Yeah, but I mean, but they, you know, these missiles range everything from, you know, to 2,500 kilometers, which is about 1,500 miles, all right, down to around 9. 900. So they can, you know, the longer range ones can certainly, certainly reach its rail. And they're moving at a hellacious pace. I think it's the sedgy flies at like 17,000 kilometers, 10,000 miles an hour, right? You know, so it's not, it would, so an attack, a mass attack by ballistic missiles like that would be, would be very hard to defend against. And then you've got the whole

a Shahar series of ballistic missiles too. So a significant capability. And I think that's what the Israelis were worried about. And that's why you see them hitting these sites in the western part of the country. So you really think they decimated their entire like most of their SAM sites? Like their S300 and S400 Sams? No, the radars. Oh, the radars.

I'm sorry. I think it's a legitimate claim when they say they have, they have blinded the Iranians by taking out of, you know, for all intents and purposes, all their S-300 S-400 radar. And, and, you know, again, the Israelis have been planning this for a long time. So I remember you did mention a few weeks back, like the Israelis have like really pivoted their military into like their air force and like being able to carry out longer range attacks. When you talk about the Israeli Air Force strike capability, it is all very much.

much adversary based and there's one adversary that's based on primarily and that is going after Iran not just the nuclear sites but that's the you know that's the main concern but also these missiles that have been talking about the problem is that for the last few years Iran's been developing underground missile depots with both transport and firing systems and back in 2020 I can't remember the type of missile but they did fire the first the ballistic missile from a subterranean site and that is a concern uh one thing i have a question about because like in most of the reporting where it said like uh israel communicated to iran friday ahead of the strike like just before uh warning i ran not to respond like that was like

really in every single like reporting was it warning iran not to respond was it that or was it like we're warning you that we're coming and this is a proportional thing we're not going to like completely wreck you. Yeah. It's all part of the messaging, Dee. Yeah. I mean, and remember, when I make these comments, they're agnostic. I'm agnostic about sympathies, but I'm just saying that it was very clever messaging.

So, you know, number one was messaging, hey, here it comes. This is the strike, both for global audience and the Iranians. We're not going crazy. So you better not go crazy in return. Basically, it was message. and then are very unusual to reach out to Iran itself and say we're going after these types of things. And that was with one purpose and that was to reduce casualties because there is an unspoken agreement that that is part of this, you know, retaliation back and forth, right? Right.

You know, not to kill a lot of people. It's, I don't want to be a cynic, but, you know, it's fine to kill a lot of people in Lebanon or Gaza, but not if they are part of a sovereign country. that might strike back is kind of a theory behind it. Do we see more proxy stuff popping off rather than like another ballistic missile or drone attack on Israel? Well, I would say so, but, you know, his baller, which is Iran's main method of striking back, Hasbolo is on the ropes. Look, I, you know, I'm not being polyanish about this. I just, you know, I think we're at a timeout stage here.

I think, you know, as I've said, we've talked about Hezbollah. No one on the Hezbollah Iranians sides wants Hezbollah to respond now. They want Hussbollah to recover, and that's going to take a while. And the Iranians are not in a position domestically or internationally to strike back. It will gain them nothing internationally. It will just vilify them further and lay them open to further attack, especially now they've lost their anti-defense systems. But domestically, they're dealing with a lot of, you know, some unrest, all right? I'm not, you know, we're not talking about kind of a whatever it was, a green or orange revolution as it was back in 2008. Green, yeah, necessarily, but that is, that's everyone's concern.

You know, they've got a new president, I'm talking about Iran. He's a little more moderate for what it's worth. And that's supposed to reflect domestic sentiment. And domestic sentiment, you know, is strongly, militating to be part of the world again, right, as strongly as it possibly can in a non-democratic country like Iran. But people are getting pissed off with all this foreign adventuring. Their economy has gone down the toilet. Price of bread is sky high. People are feeling the pinch. They have been for years. And they don't like reading about Iran gallivanting around jousting with Israel

or anyone else when they're having trouble putting food on the table. And that sentiment, I think, is influencing decisions within the Iranian regime. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense for them to be more pragmatic, right? Because it doesn't seem like even if they were to have an all-out, you can't even have an all-out war, but an all-out exchange militarily with Israel, it's not really going to work out great for them. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not a lose-lose for them right now. Yeah. And, you know, they don't, I mean, the Iranians have a new friend, remember that, Russia. So they're not in quite as, in other words, they have the ability to recoup, recover from this, because Russia, as I've mentioned, will resupply them with, certainly with the air defense systems. And who knows, maybe even with ballistic missile technology. just the same way we're worried about Russia

providing North Korea with some of this technology. Certainly, you know, Russia's not bound by any international ethical norms to prevent it from doing so. But that also speaks to that broader topic of like you see this new access kind of form. I hate that kind of like Atlantic Council word, but that new like access of like country, whether it's Russia, DPRK,

Iran, China. I feel like China is probably providing some stuff more on the low end, like, you know, covertly rather than straight up overtly. Yeah, I'm just, you know, with China, though, I mean, there's, yes, certainly China and Iran recently signed a, signed a deal. And I'm just trying to think a specific technology that may be exchanging hands. there, I think more, I think that deal was more important economically, perhaps, to Iran than militarily, of course, very much more economically as a market for oil. But the Russian agreement is very important because remember, since 1979, Iran has not been able to, or has a limited ability to upgrade its military equipment. In 1979, in the revolution, in time,

Iranian military was outfitted with U.S. gear. You know, I was, and when I was in Iran, just eight years later, that was, that was very visible, you know, when they were going to war with Iraq, in the staging areas, you saw M-1-13s, and, yeah, and, you know, soldiers carrying U.S. weapons back then. It was like the original M16A1. It was very, it looked discordant. You know, it looked strange. But that's even now, I mean, that's a long time ago.

So they kind of kind of shift since then to Soviet pack weapons. And that's where Russia, former Soviet pack weapons. And that's where Russia comes in. And it is a huge asset. Sure. Yeah, I've seen the memes like the lone F-14 that the Iranian. and still have, which I can't believe they start flying. It's pretty crazy.

Yeah, let's hope the Russians don't, you know, start providing them with frog foots. Yeah. Frogfoot, right? The SU 25. Yeah. SU 25 and 29, which had been kind of the, you know, not just the workhorse, but the, I mean, the most capable fighters have we seen in the Ukrainian conflict. Again, we need to get Alex Hollings on here.

Yeah, I mean. When I'm talking about remote boom refueling and Alex knows the variance of every single one. Yeah. And I want to hear, you know, it's very, I find this interesting, but I'm not even going to step under this technical precipice. How, you know, these, the Israelis have played around with the F-35 with its, you know, obviously with its stealth capability, but also its refueling capability to ensure that they can conduct a race. an attack that is both stealthy and self-refuel, you know, using that platform. But again, the Israelis only have, you know, hard to say how many are operational.

But I think we sold them 50, but I think only 39 have been delivered. So again, all this talk about 100 F-35 says absolute trash. Yeah. But yeah, let's get Alex back on. This is a good trailer thing. Well, I mean, there was a reason why they did the three ones. waves, right? The first wave is to suppress the air defenses and the other, right? Well, well, interesting, the first, the first effect, the first wave was to remove any possibility

of early morning, right? So we don't know exactly what tracked the aircraft to it, but it's a safe guess that they went over Iraq and Syria, right? Because that's where the first wave went to remove those you know the radar sites and the air defense sites it was mostly radar sites but as I said I think there were also air defense sites that they removed in Syria in that first wave and then as we predicted on the show the second wave was was intended to totally denude the Iranians of their S300 S400 capability that's pretty scary pretty impressive that they're able to do that I mean because you know if you're even just like a layman who's semi-interested in like air defense and like you know air forces the s 300 and s 400 have

been like the be all end all of like the surface air missiles yeah i mean they i mean the s 300 member which is an out date i mean it's like a 30 year old system was the workhorse in ukraine and has done and did incredible work. But the key vulnerability is the radar. You can move the interceptors around, it disguised them and everything, but the radar gives off its signature. And that's, you know, you can't avoid doing that in those systems.

And that is what undoubtedly the Israelis went off to, you know, anti-radiation missiles. So you either, you know, you either shut down the capability, but if you open it, then you open up a window of vulnerability. Yeah. So what do you think does happen next with Iran? How do they respond?

You know, I think we're going to see, I don't think anything's going to happen. I think we're going to see some rhetoric and then things are going to die down. I think, you know, although the Israelis said, this is the end of the first phase of the strike, what I'm being told is that there is,

you know, subsequent planned phases are, they are contingent upon the Iranian responding to this one. So if we just see rhetoric and return, I would say that is it, which is good news, good news for all. There's another thing, actually, you know, kind of interesting when we bring Alex back on

is the command control of an operation like this. And it gets back to the, you know, obviously you need a really good aerial command and control. You can imagine doing this. That's not easy. And it can't be done from me. the ground. And that is, the Israelis, again, using these converted 707s, so I forget the terms. And one of our listeners will remember, but they're not just refuelers, very capable refuelers,

but they're also command and control aircraft. And that is another, you know, the fact that the Israelis can command and control an operation this size involving multiple types of aircraft, of multiple targets, drones, says a lot for their, you know, their capability. Of course, their Air Force ever since its formation back in 1948, you know, when it was a handful of World War II veterans flying, believe it or not, checkmate BF109, Mishishishmetz, you know, the Air Force has always been kind of a main effort for Israel, you know, the best people. and the most money highest technology.

And they focus very, very much on this capability. This was, in a sense, a superb dress rehearsal for them if they do go after Iran's nuclear capability. Yeah. So a bit more detail on the message that Israel sent to Iran yesterday before the attack. This is from Barack Ravid, the Axios reporter, who's really got a good thumb on the pulse of what goes on. a senior official from another country that was asked by Israel to convey identical messages

to Iran called me today and confirmed the details in the article. Israel sent the messages to Iran in the days and even hours before the attack. One message was we will attack military targets and not nuclear or energy sites. Another message was, do not respond if you react, we'll hit you harder. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as I said, implicit, that there was both explicit and implicit messaging. You know, the implicit messaging is you are now very vulnerable.

And the other implicit messaging, taking out those early warning sites, was simply one of freedom of maneuver. You know, we can do this any time. Yeah. Don't have to ask permission to cross people's terrain because Israel didn't get permission from anyone to fly over there as to fly through their airspace, right? I mean, they were denied entry by all. Jordan, you know, Jordan most notably and recently. So, you know, to avoid offending kind of the forefront Arab powers, you know, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, is very unlikely that the Israelis would ever go near any of those countries when they,

when they conduct their overflight. Although I will say when they went after Yemen, when they released video, of refueling. You could see a friendly Arab country coastline in the background. I won't mention that country. And, you know, not to say, I mean, obviously that country didn't allow them to do it. Maybe they did. I don't know.

Right. But normally this road does not count on being allowed overflight of Arab nations when they do something like this. Yeah, I think that's understandable. Or at least like putting it out there. Yeah. trying to keep that as quiet as possible. So any other questions, Steve?

I'm not short and short, but, you know, we, we're our, this is breaking news. And I think we've, we've covered this as accurately as, as anyone could at this. You says rather pompously, as accurately as it possible at this stage. Yeah. So a bit more from Barack Ravid, as part of the Israeli retaliatory action against Iran. Planetary mixers. 12 planetary mixers that are critical components of the Iran's ballistic missile program were attacked, according to three Israeli sources.

Planetary mixtures are used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles. And their destruction severely impairs Iran's ability to replenish the missiles stockpile. So they hit some, yeah, they went for it. It's very specific. Yeah. Yeah. And that was the Al-Sharm industrial facility, the factory there. So again, some very comprehensive planning here.

Yeah. Any questions from listeners before we sign off? Let's see if there's any create. We'll give you guys a few minutes. Like if you want to throw out a question in the chat, I'll ask it if it's not ridiculous. Children are back in school in Tehran. You know, as I said, back in school,

want to say it's a Sunday it's in Islamic country that's okay do they go to school on Sundays in Islamic countries yeah okay for they get Friday and Saturday off you what do you expect a three day weekend fair point yeah why not I know in in Brooklyn it's like a two day week at school but that's for um that that's for other reasons yeah that's like uh for truance like me um I mean guys, if you have any other questions, shoot them in the chat right now.

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We'll be back to talk Ukraine in a couple of days. Hold on one second. Let me make sure I can get out of this before we start talking too much, Mac.