
We all get predictions wrong; I’m batting 2 out of 3 on Trump winning the US Presidency, in that I thought he’d lose in 2016 and 2020, and that he’d win in 2024.
So I’ll take a little credit for my prediction done way back in January 2020, following the US killing Iranian General as I wrote about the aftermath:
Iran goes nuclear
Containment worked against the USSR as a nuclear power, so Iran getting a nuclear weapon would not change the strategy. Certainly it would provide a much better umbrella than exists now for them to push outward with their proxy forces, but conventional US strikes against such forces were the norm in the Cold War, and would be again. The Iranians don’t yet realise that nuclear weapons are a double-edged sword.
In any case I doubt this will happen before at least 2025 with the typical development timetables of such weapons and their industrial base. If that assumption proves wrong then it’s also highly likely that Trump would strike the facilities – and if the USA didn’t there is a 100% certainty that Israel would, given what they did in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.
I was watching Al Jazeera at the gym, and one of their reporters was reporting live from Jordan when one of the waves of Iranian missiles went over head. It was pretty surreal watch the Jordanian air defences knocking what appeared to be a hell of a lot of them out of the sky (they should send Israel the bill).
It seems that Israel has a much easier time attacking Iran then the other way.
Israeli aircraft have the option to overfly Syria and Iraq on their visits to Iran.
Thanks. I wasn’t sure of the regional politics in terms of which countries would allow Israel/Iran to do what