New Simplicius report - Iranian Abyss: Will US Take the Plunge?
It's premium so I can't read it all but here's the key parts of what I can access:
- Simplicius is now only more sure than ever that Israel expected the decapitation strikes to cause an immediate collapse, and when that did not happen, Israel was forced to go to Trump and get the US involved because Israel cannot handle a war of attrition with Iran (running out of interceptors to protect critical infrastructure)
- Simplicius believes the current Iranian strategy is to deliberately slow down the conflict and fight to their strengths (a long war of attrition) rather than their weaknesses (a shock and awe campaign). This is a campaign inspired by Russia's actions in Ukraine. To conserve stockpiles, they send small volleys every day rather than dramatic overwhelming attacks that they can only do a few times before running out of missiles.
- These small volleys are overall more effective as the social and economic pressure of constant sirens and forcing Israelis into the bunkers will deal more damage in the long run. Israel apparently went into this conflict expecting only 5000 settler deaths before Iran is defeated because they expected a giant wave from Iran that killed many people at once and provided a clear American casus belli.
- There is no evidence to support Israeli claims of air domination over Iran. Israel is not flying planes over Iran for the most part; they are using drone strikes and cruise and ballistic missiles instead. This is supported by the fact that the footage we predominantly get out Israel shows drone video footage, and the numerous Israeli booster stages of missiles found in Iraq and Syria.
- The only piece of footage that Simplicius has seen of Israel hitting Iran with aircraft is a video of JDAMs striking Kermanshah, just 100km into the border of Iran, which would have meant Israel penetrated a couple dozen kilometers into Iran to drop them.
- Iranian long-range air defense has not been degraded at all. Israeli strikes are only evidenced on very old Mim-23 Hawks, short-range Karmin-2s, and the short/medium-range Khordad systems. The Bavar-373, an S-300 equivalent, shows no physical/video evidence of being degraded beyond mere Israeli claims, which are always very suspect.
- To be fair, this is because Iran has very probably withdrawn their long-range systems east towards Isfahan to protect against potential US bombing, and Iranian heavy missile launchers are following them east for the protection.
- Israel can't safely fly directly over Iranian territory; they couldn't even safely fly directly over Syrian territory until Jolani let them destroy Syria's air defense, which was substantially weaker than Iran's, and had to bomb Syria from behind Mount Lebanon before then. The US also could not safely fly over Yemeni territory, with F-35s launching stand-off strikes before they reached the border.
- That all this began shortly after Iran finished its major rail link with China is not a coincidence; deepening connections with the East represents an existential threat to the Western program to isolate and weaken Iran that they've been enacting over the decades.
- The West not only hopes to destroy Iranian nuclear sites, and not only wishes to enact regime change, but seeks to permanently divide Iran into a series of statelets from which it would be kept under pressure by dividing ethnic groups, preventing a future reconsolidation of the country.
There's then a section on what the US can and cannot do but my free access ends there.
Simplicius also seems pretty sure about Iran's abilities and about Israel's weakness where he's posted on Substack and Twitter.
