Well the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not been seen since last Friday. He has released another video from somewhere - just to assure his loyalists that he is alive. It is also designed to thwart any revolt from within the ranks. The Boss is nowhere to be found but he is still alive might prevent possible pretenders to the throne from making a move. Where exactly he is is anyone's guess. Mr Trump says he knows exactly where Ali Khamenei is and that Khamenei will not be "taken out yet".
The Ayatollahs and Iran are still reeling from this really unbelievable turn of events. Exactly seven days ago the Turbanned Terrors were going about their daily dramas, costume changes and scripted speeches (heavy fiction). Then in a sudden flash the sky started falling (quite literally).
It reminds me of the verses in the Quran:
(105:2) Did He not bring their plan to naught?
(105:3) And He sent against them swarms of birds
(105:4) which smote them with stones of baked clay,
(105:5) and made them like chewed up straw
It took a long time coming but when it happened it was a sudden event. For which the preparedness was grossly inadequate. That is the point I am making. Grossly inadequate preparedness. What happened to all the bluster of the past 46 years?
So almost certainly they are also not prepared for Stage 2. Stage 2 is the actual regime change. It looks like it will happen and possibly very soon.
The conventional thinking had always been that if the Israelis attacked the nuclear sites it would be a one time event. Possibly a one hour event. Like when the Israelis destroyed Osirak in Iraq in 1981 and Al Kibar in Syria in 2007. They flew in and they flew out - the attacks were over in minutes.
This time they flew in (a week ago) and they are still flying around. They have not left. To be able to keep flying around quite wantonly, flying here there and everywhere, they made extensive and detailed planning with the capacity to not just execute but to stick to their plans exactly. They even got President Trump to play a part by saying 'the US will not attack Iran'. Which has been a true statement - the US has not attacked Iran. Or still not yet.
They had to completely eradicate (DEAD - Destroy Enemy Air Defenses) the Iranian air defenses. They achieved this within hours.
The Ayatollahs built ballistic missiles most of which they launched from the back of trucks - mobile launchers. The ballistic missiles were stored in hardened underground bunkers - about 40% of which have already been destroyed. But the Ayatollahs parked the mobile truck launchers outside - which the Israelis have been picking off one by one. Including by their on site sabotage crews using small drones. Without the mobile truck launchers the Ayatollahs cannot fire their ballistic missiles.
No one was expecting a more than one hour attack by the Israelis. So no need to hide the mobile launchers. Oops.
The one state, two state, three state solutions are fully out the window. The people who collect money for the two state, three state solutions etc can rejoice. They can collect donations for the next hundred years and more. That one woman can settle down permanently in Jordan and make those videos as though she was in Gaza. But what have they solved?
Pie in the sky versus pie in your face versus pies on your table. You choose.
