Posting it here to explain some of the weirdness in the MAtriX News:
April 13, 2024
Iran's Retaliation Delay Keeps Pressure On U.S. And Israel Earlier today the navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp boarded and seized the container ship MSC Aries near the Strait of Hormuz. The ship is operated by Zodiac Maritime, a company owned by the Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer.
The seizure of the ship can be understood as a warning to the U.S. and its Gulf allies to not get any funny ideas and to attack Iran. A closure of the Strait of Hormuz would increase global oil prices and jeopardize Biden's re-election.
Iran has announced to revenge the Israeli attack on its embassy building in Damascus, Syria.
But it did not announce when, where or how it will retaliate.
By holding back on any hints it increases the anxiety in Israel and Washington DC.
“The pressure is now on Israel and the US rather than Iran. And yes, there are a lot of threatening remarks directed at Iran in the hope that the Iranians don’t act. But the die was first cast by Israel,” said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs at John Hopkins University. “And now people are trying to avoid what might be consequences.”
Biden does not want the US to be pulled into a war with Iran, particularly as he seeks reelection in November. But Washington’s default policy has long been to support Israel, Nasr added.
Would a real superpower ever do this (archived)?
The US has asked China and other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to urge Tehran not to launch a retaliatory attack on Israel for its air strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Neither of the countries asked has any reason to be helpful to the U.S. and certainly not to Israel.
The costs of keeping the watch up and the weapons manned will over time become unbearable for Israel as well as for the U.S.
It is thus better for Iran to wait with any bigger retaliation it may plan to carry out.
Posted by b at 13:30 UTC | Moon of Alabama
I often wonder if things appear one way but are really another. Why would Israel carry out the strike against Haniyeh's family when they have a hostage deal on the table and a lot of internal pressure from the families. I can imagine a few different scenarios, but obviously can't really know. Why would they carry out a strike against the Iranian consulate at this time? Or at all? One thought that occurs to me is to wonder if they are sometimes coerced to make moves they otherwise wouldn't to serve agendas that extend beyond their own. They would have surely sought to count the cost and war game scenarios for potential consequences militarily and politically. Something seems off to me about all of this, but then I'm not the most politically knowledgeable person.
I am not entirely sure that it was Israelis, seeing as they have never officially claimed the Consular strike in Damascus. I questioned who else might benefit, and came up with the neo-cohens, wanting to do anything to get the impasse in US Congress, to nudge them into releasing (i.e. deepening the debt hole) MOAR funds, for the MiDdlE EAsT front.
Be that as it may, both sides in this particular flare-up (Yes I remember: Sharif don't like it, Rock the Casbah) are saying one thing and doing another. It turns out that the Iranians are playing the game so that they sent lots of drones and some missiles - with hours notice. So, no hypersonics just yet, just a little play. (Steel fist inside a velvet glove).
The Israelis spent over $1B in one night, with the help of US and Jordanian (LOL Princess) pilots, to shoot MOST (but not all) incoming out of the sky.
So the current status quo is that the carefully calculated military maneuver on part of Iran is to poof some cotton balls in the air. Enough to appear to be doing something in their local population's eyes, and subtle enough to not be escalotory in a War sense. After all, No-one was hurt. But, it is also the Arab revenge on the Jew - as in: it hurt the latter's pockets.
I'm pretty sure that it was DJT who shared that after the assassination of Soleimani, the Iranian govt told him that they would have to make a strike in order to satisfy the Iranian people, but that it wouldn't be lethal. That's what happened and then the drama seemed to dissipate. This could be the same sort of thing. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Israel is responsible, the timing of it seems a little surprising. On the one hand, they probably had an idea of what to expect from Iran. I also wonder if they would make a move like that w/o the US. They might. What was going through my mind is that it seems to me that the elite, including our own highly corrupted govt, wants a world war. I was wondering if they might be looking to provoke an escalation. So far, it doesn't seem to be going that way. At least not for now. Biden himself has admitted that world leaders will orchestrate accusations against one another. "I'll say this then you say that,"etc. This probably applies to other things as well. At least one time, I've actually believed that something he said might actually be true. 😏