US/Israel conduct airstrikes on Iran again

Hopefully this will push more people to using solar. Good thing were approaching the warmer months so less heating required.

You are right they were abandoned in Syria

But Iran did attack their infrastructure and their capital in Iraq

That’s what I keep pointing out, Iran lashing out at everyone around them is the height of strategic stupidity

Dublin I say

It’s about same distance from Shannon as Dubai is from UAE military air base in Abu Dhabi

At the risk of applying logic where Iran brought none…

Well, if the US paid heed to Gulf States:

Then hitting the less protected Gulf States could make a certain amount of military sense - forcing them to put pressure on US to agree a ceasefire.
There's no point Iran sitting on a stockpile of missiles\drones because it will get taken out by US & Israel.
What other target should they hit with the missiles that would achieve same goal? Open to suggestion.

But then if the US paid heed to such things they wouldn't have launched the attacks in first place.

I was surprised to read earlier that the ex president of Iran who has reportedly been killed was a vocal opponent of the Russian war in Ukraine.

If this is the death throes, I still think the US will have to put troops on the ground to put them out of their misery.

Finally someone asking interesting questions that are not continuation of “my deplorable team has scored” theme

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If there isn’t in short term and Iran keeps lashing out at everyone but Israel and US whom the have trouble even scratching, all they accomplish is endup with a coalition of very angry dozen or so gulf states and factions whose very political and economic existence is now threatened by Iran whom do have the manpower and modern equipment to occupy key positions that could free up commerce and resume life to some sort of normalcy in the Gulf with US, UK and gulf states who do have modern air power with their modern navies maintaining complete air superiority and blockade via the sea

Them mountain ranges that ring Iran can work both ways and bottle up any response, provided there is anyone left who is not to busy fighting each other for power

In medium term I see Trump running away leaving the gulf states with this mess, he did it to Europe and Ukraine, expect the very same “we done so much for you ungrateful freeloaders” rhetoric

In the long term if there is still no ceasefire most the gulf states will form a nuclear Cordon Sanitare around Iran racing themselves to get nuclear weapons (something about Saudi Arabia getting them is terrifying but that’s another subject)

The Gulf states are now in a fight they didn’t want to be where their very political and economic existence been threatened

As for China they are in bind, most their energy comes from the region so the longer this goes on {and since they been cut out of other markets} they might pitch in to protect their own shipping, same with India

I've been totting up the potential costs of the past few days solely for the GCC countries that have reported the missile and drone numbers as reported by them this morning.
The high end air defence missiles expended and dealt with by the Gulf States, and not counting any American or Israeli launches is already IMO at $6 billion and rising.

America is laughing all the way to the bank on this one as apart from the S.Korean KM-SAM?
They supply the other systems and they will be doing the resupply.

The assumptions underpinning my estimates are as follows;
UAE uses KM-SAM (plus THAAD/Patriot);
Saudi Arabia and Qatar use THAAD (plus Patriot); Bahrain and Kuwait rely on Patriot PAC-3/MSE.
I'm not counting drones as they will be unlikely to attract a High end interceptor unless missed by lower tier protection VSHORAD and gun systems.
I've split out the likely firing rate on a split basis as follows:
UAE: 20% THAAD/40% Patriot/40% KM-SAM;
others: 30% THAAD where available/70% Patriot, 100% Patriot elsewhere).
1.8 interceptors per incoming, and same unit costs ($13M THAAD, $5M Patriot, $2M KM-SAM).

I've tried entering my table as a .CSV and as an extract and it just won't play nicely with vanilla.
Annoying to say the least.
I've swapped in an image and left my .csv available.

The numbers of missiles fired at GCC states are at least somewhat available.
Trying to find numbers for those fired towards Israel is as it was last June, very difficult to pin down.

So let's assume that the same numbers are fired towards Israel, 550 and a similar interceptor launch rate of 1.8 missiles per incoming.
Temper the burn rate with the use of Arrow, David's Sling and US SM3 & SM6 all of which apart from David's Sling, are $4 million dollar plus missiles.
A similar amount of missiles have been expended and a similar level of resupply will be needed.
At minimum if the Israeli targets are similar, another $6 billion already burned through.

That brings us to my guess at as of this morning, approx 2000 high end air defence missiles have been fired.

Missiles that couldn't be supplied to Ukraine, missiles that were and are significant parts of the defence strategy of Taiwan, Japan, Europe and particularly Ukraine.
Missiles that will take literally years to replace and will guarantee production for Raytheon, LM and other big US companies for years to come

Interesting to see that the US are long fingering resupply requests by the GCC states.
Being reliant upon a supplier that is slow to respond and resupply could cause problems down the road and further open the ME missile and fighter market to China and South Korea.

Russia and China have no truck in getting involved.

So at the moment, this war is contained and appears not to escalate anymore.

Only the IT seems to have that story on this side of the pond. It's not clear if the actual meeting was hit as opposed to the building it was supposedly taking place in.

Iran latest: Strikes hit building in Tehran where clerics deciding on new supreme leader – The Irish Times

Strikes hit building of body tasked with electing new supreme leader of Iran

The building of Iran’s assembly of experts has been targeted in an air attack, Reuters reports.

The assembly of experts is a council of about 90 senior clerics that is tasked with electing Iran’s new Supreme Leader.

The building is located in the city of Qom, south of Tehran. Local media showed footage of the building severely damaged in the strikes, AFP reports.