Once again, Israel proves it has the most impressive military in the world
However bellicose the Mullahs in Tehran are this morning, they know they have been absolutely hammered by a superior military power. Operation Rising Lion was the second extraordinary military operation within a few days, which like Ukraine's Operation Spider's Web by Kyiv's secret service will have a strategic impact across the world.
This operation has been years in the planning and, with the autocratic Iranian regime's frightening intransigence over nuclear weapons, amid warnings it has enough material to build 15 nuclear bombs 'within days', Israel had run out of patience. The IDF has likely been preparing this battlefield in detail for a decade. The level of intelligence required to take out key military and political leaders suggests that the Israeli security services have a huge network of spies on the ground, probably at the very heart of military and political command, to produce a comprehensive set of strategic targets.
The precursor to this strike was the annihilation of the main Iranian proxy Hezbollah last year, when pagers and radios blew up in the pockets of operatives, an audacious attack which struck Iran's heart and soul. In the months previously, I was briefed about the complete domination of Syria and Lebanon by Hezbollah, which evaporated with their pagers, paving the way for the fall of the Bashar al-Assad.
Israeli jets and missile destroyed part of Iran's air defence around many key military sites last year, which will have been pivotal to the apparent success of these latest attacks. The main nuclear development site at Natanz seems to have been comprehensively attacked and its many centrifuges likely destroyed. Without centrifuges you cannot enrich uranium, and without enriched uranium you cannot make nuclear weapons.
But this wasn't just about enrichment and crushing the nuclear weapons programme. It was also an attack on senior military and political decision-makers.
The intensity and complexity of these strikes is on a level not seen in living memory, and if Ukraine is given the wherewithal to replicate this, we might see a very different outcome in the fight with the Russians. The axis of evil in its entirety ought to be afraid.
Israel does nothing in half measures and like them or not,when it comes to military operations against legitimate targets, they show the rest how it is done. This operation will be studied by military experts and historians for generations, as a way to achieve military success when you have no limits to the risks you are prepared to take and must care little for what others – even your purported allies – may say.
The world holds its breath. Iran has few allies. Perhaps the silent majority in this evil regime may see this as an opportunity to remove the war like clergy from the helm for a more moderate leadership.
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