They're Missing The Point

I was idly listening to some UK commentary on Saturday's decapitation strike on Iran, and it convinced me that just about everyone is missing the point.

The UK government has continued to tread a delicate diplomatic line by avoiding explicit support for the US and Israeli strikes on Iran while condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate” attacks on other countries.

. . . The Greens and the Liberal Democrats have both denounced the military action taken by the US and Iran as illegal.

. . . As strikes on Tehran continued, the Sunday Times reported that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had blocked the USA from using British air bases to launch attacks on legal grounds.

Healey repeatedly batted back questions this morning on whether he believed the strikes were legal, saying that “we didn’t participate”.

But by March 1, Starmer had sorta-kinda changed his position:

But Iran is striking British interests nonetheless, and putting British people at huge risk, along with our allies across the region.

That is the situation we face today.

Our partners in the Gulf have asked us to do more to defend them, and it is my duty to protect British lives.

We have British jets in the air as part of coordinated defensive operations which have already successfully intercepted Iranian strikes.

But the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source – in their storage depots or the launchers which used to fire the missiles.

The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose.

We have taken the decision to accept this request – to prevent Iran firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk, and hitting countries that have not been involved.

By Monday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was putting the best possible face on things:

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte voiced full support for President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran, declaring key allies stand "all for one, one for all" amid Tehran’s widening missile retaliation.

"There is no sliver of light between us," Rutte told "Fox & Friends" on Monday.

"The Europeans, Canada, Mark Carney, the United States, the American president… All for one, one for all, because everybody supports, here in Europe, the fact that [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is gone, that the nuclear capability is gone, that the ballistic missile program has been now degraded — which was a big threat for Europe, for Israel, for the whole region," he said.

The question isn't whether Europe supports the move -- the question is that, as Prime Miniater Starmer kept repeating, that Europe had nothing to do with the move. It happened whether or not Starmer allowed the US to use British bases. The B-2s fly nonstop from Missouri, after all. Secretary General Rutte understands Trump better than most Europeans: Trump is willing to walk away from NATO. The raid, without NATO participation, went off just fine. NATO needs the US, the US doesn't need NATO. NATO had simply better get on board.

Another part of the message is that Israel is a better, and more capable, US ally than any NATO country individually or NATO together.

According to reporting by the Financial Times, nearly all of the Iranian capital’s traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei’s compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted.

That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a “pattern of life,” detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel’s intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.

When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would attend a Saturday morning meeting at his compound, the opportunity was judged unusually favorable. Two people familiar with the operation told the FT that US intelligence provided confirmation from a human source that the meeting was proceeding as planned, a level of certainty required for a target of such magnitude.

. . . According to the Israeli military, the operation began with a surprise attack after military intelligence identified two locations in Tehran where top figures in Iran’s security establishment had gathered. The strikes, carried out early Saturday morning, were described as a deliberate attempt to eliminate senior decision-makers responsible for Iran’s military operations and weapons programs.

And the decapitation strikes are continuing, whether NATO participates or not:

General Mike Flynn, former National Security Advisor to the 45th POTUS, has highlighted breaking reports from Israeli media confirming that Iran’s newly appointed acting Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Arafeh (Alireza Arafi), has been killed. Arafi had been thrust into the role following the death of Ayatollah Khamenei on February 28, representing a desperate reach for stability by the clerical establishment. However, his tenure proved to be one of the shortest in modern history, as new strikes on Tehran targeted the very heart of the interim council before it could even begin the process of constitutional transition.

As of today,

The Israeli air force struck a top Iranian meeting on Tuesday where Tehran’s senior clerics had gathered to select a replacement for slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to multiple reports.

The Assembly of Experts, made up of 88 top clerics, were together in the holy city of Qom when an airstrike hit their building overnight, the Times of Israel reported.

The strike came just as the mullahs were counting the votes to appoint the next supreme leader, according to Fox News.

Unverified video and pictures from Qom allegedly show the building that housed the Iranian leaders in complete ruins following the blast.

The message that's being sent is to a worldwide audience, not just Iran, not just NATO, not just China, and not just Russia. In part, it's that the US doesn't really need proxies, and certainly not feckless and unreliable proxies. The US is willing to walk away from any deal, and that includes both the UN and NATO. But also, if China contemplates invading Taiwan, it must contemplate measures equivalent to the Tehran attack. As far as Russia is concerned, as long as it remains bogged down in Ukraine, it doesn't matter to the US; it just keeps Russia from meddling anywhere else, including Iran, Venezuela, or Cuba.

This is the new reality that nobody has quite yet got their head around.