Scott Ritter: Iran’s Retaliatory Attack ‘Reestablished Deterrence’ to Hold Israel, US in Check
By Svetlana Ekimenko | Sputnik | April 14, 2024
Iran’s mission to the United Nations stated earlier that Tehran’s retaliatory drone and missile attack against Israel had “concluded.” The “military action” was a response to Israel’s “aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus,” it said, adding that the strike “hit designated targets.”
By launching its retaliatory drone and missile attack on Israel, Iran “reestablished deterrence,” former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told Sputnik.
“Israel believed that it could launch a strike against Iran and suffer no consequence. That is no longer the case,” Ritter noted.
As Israeli military officials survey the damage done to their bases, “they understand the following: that Iran deliberately chose not to inflict extremely lethal action against Israel,” the analyst remarked.
Iran launched a massive drone and missile attack against Israel overnight, assisted by Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis. Over 300 projectiles were fired at Israeli territory from Iran, with Iran’s mission to the United Nations stating that its retaliatory attack on Israel had “concluded,” and that the strike “hit designated targets.” Israel’s military has claimed that 99% of the projectiles were intercepted.
Iran’s strike was designed to send a signal to Israel and the United States, “that it could do what it did in Nevatim, at Ramona, anywhere in Israel, anywhere in the Middle East, and there was nothing the United States or Israel could do in response.”
“This is deterrence. This means that in the future, if either Israel or the United States plan on carrying out an action against Iran, they have to weigh in the consequences of their actions knowing that Iran has the capacity to reach out and touch any place, any spot, any target in the region in Israel or out of Israel, and there’s nothing anybody could do to stop that,” the retired US Marine Corps intelligence officer said.
US President Joe Biden issued a statement on Iran’s attack against Israel after he spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The POTUS condemned the strike “in the strongest possible terms.” He also reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to help support Israel, and added that there were no attacks on US forces or facilities on Saturday, but that the US “will remain vigilant to all threats.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US does “not seek escalation,” but will “continue to support” Israel’s defense. “I will be consulting with allies and partners in the region and around the world in the hours and days ahead,” he added.
Weighing in on the flurry of talks between US and Israeli leaders, Scott Ritter said:
“This is why President Biden has been on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, telling him, ‘Do not retaliate.’ The United States will not be a partner in any offensive action against Iran. Not because the United States is friendly to Iran, but the United States understands the consequences that will accrue, should such an attack take place. The United States has been deterred against further action against Iran.”
The question uppermost at the moment is, “what will Israel do?” Ritter noted.
“Israel has been trying to lead the United States into a larger conflict with Iran for some time now. Indeed, some people have speculated that the Israeli attack against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus was designed for just that purpose… But the Iranians were very clever in designing their response – just like they did, when they retaliated against the United States for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani back in 2020,” Ritter said.
He recalled that at the time, Iran launched over a dozen missiles against the Al-Asad air base in Iraq, but Tehran gave Washington advance notice that that base was going to be struck. Thus, Iran ended up destroying empty buildings, Ritter recalled.
“But it demonstrated to the United States that it had the capacity to strike any American base in the region with extreme precision and kill as many Americans as they wanted – if they wanted to do that. And America was deterred against future action of that sort. Will Israel be deterred?” the analyst wondered.
No decision has been made yet regarding an Israeli response to the Iranian missile and drone attack, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel. It was added that a potential response would be discussed at a war cabinet meeting set for later on Sunday. Israel’s response to the Iranian attack will be coordinated with its allies, The New York Times reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.
After Iran’s unprecedented strike, Tel Aviv “understands that any escalation could mean the destruction of Israel,” Scott Ritter noted.
“Israel probably isn’t going to launch a response against Iran. Israel has been deterred from launching that response by the Iranian actions. In this case, we can say that operation ‘True Promise’ was an extraordinarily successful operation, not only for Iran, but indeed for the world, because Iranian deterrence now is a reality that can hold Israel and the United States in check,” Ritter said.
Iran describes response to Israeli attack as ‘legitimate defense’
Press TV – April 13, 2024
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations defends the country’s retaliation against the Israeli regime’s recent terrorist attack on the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic premises in the Syrian capital.
“Iran’s military action was based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter concerning legitimate defense in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus,” the mission said in a statement on Saturday.
“The matter can be considered as concluded,” it added.
The mission, however, warned that if the Israeli regime perpetrated another mistake, Iran’s subsequent response could be “remarkably more intense.”
The statement concluded that the conflict was one between Iran and the rogue regime, “of which the United States should stay away.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), on Saturday night, launched “extensive” retaliatory missile and drone strikes against the occupied territories, defining the mission as “Operation True Promise.”
The Israeli attack had resulted in the martyrdom of Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, his deputy, General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, and five of their accompanying officers.
The terrorist attack drew sharp condemnation from senior Iranian political and military leaders, who vowed “definitive revenge.”
On Thursday, the Iranian mission to the United Nations said the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the Israeli atrocity could have prevented the need for retaliation.
“Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated,” it said on the social media platform X Thursday.
End of Escalatory Ladder in Ukraine & MidEast – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
The Duran | April 12, 2024
WHEN IT’S OKAY TO NUKE A COUNTRY
By Norman Finkelstein | April 12, 2024
Historian Benny Morris supports Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolve to attack Rafah (“Israel’s Security Depends on Rafah,” NY Times, 11 April 2024). Normally home to 280,000 Gazans, Rafah now also contains 1.2 million internal refugees swept into the city during Israel’s massive ethnic cleansing the past six months. It’s probably the most densely populated spot on God’s earth. In a disingenuous wordplay, Morris designates these 1.5 million Gazans a “human shield.” This locution denotes the involuntary conscription by an armed force of civilians to protect itself. But Hamas didn’t conscript these forsaken souls as shields; it was Israel that drove them there while now purporting that it must kill them to get at Hamas. Morris’s article is couched in this propagandistic idiom. He still refers to the casualty figures as based on the “Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” even as independent professional studies have confirmed these figures, and they are almost certainly an underestimate. He states that the current 33,000 figure “includes the more than 12,000 Hamas fighters the Israeli military claims to have killed these past six months.” In fact, the casualty figures Israel alleged in its previous “operations”—dutifully repeated by Morris in his books—wildly differed from the findings of human rights groups, while Israel has bandied about a mass of wildly discrepant figures of militants killed during the past six months. The IDF hasn’t even a clue how many Hamas combatants have been killed: it’s almost certain that most militants have fallen victim anonymously alongside civilians in the course of Israel’s deliberately indiscriminate terror assault on Gazan society; there have only been a handful of “battles” where Hamas corpses can ultimately be counted while, judging by previous Israeli operations—in which its “crazy” and “insane” firepower overwhelmed Hamas fighters and thus they rarely made it to actual combat—there cannot have been many Hamas battlefield corpses in the latest round to add up; the IDF doesn’t usually enter the Hamas tunnels it discovers but just explodes the shafts; Israel routinely classifies any dead adult male it stumbles upon during its “operations” as a Hamas “terrorist.” Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister recently avowed that the IDF has killed only one civilian for every Hamas militant it killed. Does Morris believe this?
Morris justified an Israeli assault on the grounds that Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza; that an “expansive Hamas tunnel system” lies beneath Rafah; and that the “Hamas battalions” numbering “thousands of its fighters” ensconced in these tunnels must be “obliterated.” How does he know all this? Yes, Israel alleges that Hamas has built 450 miles of tunnels beneath Gaza. But that figure exceeds in length the famed sprawling, ramified New York City subway system (430 miles of tunnels), and, if true, every 1,200 hundred feet along minuscule Gaza’s 5-mile-long width, there is yet another 25-mile-long tunnel stretching its full length. Is that credible? It’s also anyone’s guess whether “Hamas battalions” are hiding in Rafah. Just a few months ago Israel alleged that Hamas’s command-and-control center lurked beneath al-Shifa hospital. Then it alleged that Hamas’s leaders had fled to Khan Younis. And on and on. Even as each claim proved to be false, they did nonetheless serve as a useful pretext to pulverize the infrastructure of another parcel of land as Israel proceeded to make Gaza uninhabitable. It seems that—with an assist from Morris—that fate now awaits Rafah.
Morris’s admonition that Hamas must suffer total defeat places him squarely within the consensus of Israeli politics. But the Israeli political spectrum is off the spectrum. There’s no center let alone left in Israeli politics: there’s only a right, a far right, and an ultra right. On the US political spectrum Morris’s opinion is echoed in a new publication by the neocon Jewish Institute for National Security of America: Hamas must be “effectively destroyed”; Israel must inflict a “visible and overwhelming defeat of Hamas.” (JINSA, “The Day After: A Plan for Gaza,” March 2024) The lead authors of this report are John Hannah, Elliott Abrams, and Lewis Libby. This trio was last heard from when they played crucial roles in the George W. Bush administration’s decision to unseat Saddam Hussain. So if you’re curious where Morris is coming from, think of the—crazed—mindset that brought us Iraq.
Morris anticipates that if the attack on Rafah goes ahead, “the additional civilian casualties and the attendant further disruption of humanitarian aid … will ratchet up condemnation of Israel’s conduct by its Western allies, led by the United States.” Notice his one and only concern is that the assault won’t go over well in the West. A just-released report by the respected International Crisis Group observes that Israel’s “stated goals of destroying Hamas and toppling the government” cannot be reconciled with “saving what remains of Gaza and preventing mass death from starvation and disease.” It’s one or the other. The report concludes that “The goal of toppling Hamas cannot justify abetting a famine that could claim tens of thousands of lives.” (“Stopping Famine in Gaza,” April 2024) But the moral dilemma of pursuing an assault that could result in a hecatomb doesn’t even register for Morris. His moral calculus only reckons the diplomatic fallout. Here again, he is an Everyman Israeli.
Professor Morris was once a serious historian. Like everyone else, he had his biases, but his books were replete with rich archival findings. But, per the generality of Israelis, he has in recent decades become so consumed by hatred and contempt of Palestinians, so given to bile-filled rants, that not a word he says can any longer be trusted. (I publicly challenged Morris during a debate to answer my stringent parsing of his recent scholarly output. Morris agreed—but then abruptly, albeit predictably, backed out after reading my analysis.) He has exploited his deserved past reputation to disseminate Israeli state propaganda. Like the JINSA neocons, he has been repeatedly exhorting the US to join Israel in an attack on Iran. What’s more, he has even rattled the threat that, if Israel has to go it alone, it will have no recourse except to nuke Iran:
“Realistic leaders in Washington and Jerusalem cannot allow Teheran to have the Bomb. And, in the coming months or year, must do what is necessary to halt and destroy the Iranian nuclear project. And if this involves a protracted, conventional air assault on the Iranian nuclear facilities—then so be it. The Iranians will have brought that assault on their own heads. And, if conventional weapons cannot do the job—and if Israel is forced to go the course alone, it is doubtful that its conventional capabilities will be sufficient to destroy the Iranian nuclear project. Then non-conventional weaponry will have to be used to stymie the project. And many innocent Iranians will die. But the Iranians will have brought this upon themselves by bringing to power and leaving in power a leadership that will have forced Israelis to do what was necessary in order to survive.” (“A Second Holocaust?: The threat to Israel” (2 May 2008; www.mideastfreedomforum.org/de/node/66)
It’s a most intriguing proposition. If the Iranian people elected their current government, then, if they are wiped out in a nuclear attack, “they will have brought this upon themselves.” Doesn’t it then follow that, if the Israeli people elected their current genocidal government—indeed, according to polls, overwhelmingly support the genocide—then “they will have brought this upon themselves” if …?
Indonesia won’t normalize with Israel because Indonesians won’t allow that
By Dina Y. Sulaeman | Press TV | April 13, 2024
In the last few days, Israeli media has been reporting about Indonesia mulling normalization of relations with the Tel Aviv regime to fulfill the requirements for accession to The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a neoliberal market-based alliance countries.
The news circulated at a dizzying pace on social media platforms and triggered a wide array of reactions from netizens worldwide, including in Indonesia. It wasn’t something they were expecting.
Indonesian foreign ministry was quick to deny the reports in a midnight statement, saying no such plan was in offing. “I affirm that, as of now, there are no plans to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, particularly given Israel’s actions in Gaza,” the ministry spokesperson Lalu Muhamad Iqbal said.
Most people in Indonesia, I can vouch for, reject and condemn any plan that leads to the normalization of ties between the two sides or Jakarta’s recognition of the apartheid colonial entity.
Several notes can be taken from this frenzy. First, the behavior of the Israeli media, citing anonymous sources, to report on Indonesia’s plans to normalize relations with Israel. It has happened several times in the last few years.
Indonesian foreign ministry has always denied such reports. It again denied it and then it was as if there was nothing more. There was no apology from the Israeli media, nor was there any criticism of the Israeli media from the Indonesian side.
This time, the news about Indonesia’s so-called normalization coincided with simmering regional tensions in the wake of Iran’s vow to retaliate against the Israeli bombing of its consulate in Damascus.
Bombing a country’s diplomatic mission is a fatal violation of international law and can be equated with bombing the country’s territory. From this perspective, Iran has every right to retaliate.
So, the situation turned extremely difficult for Israel. Many countries issued travel advisories for the occupied territories while Israeli regime officials frantically tried to get Iran to “not escalate.”
The unspecified timing of Iran’s retaliation has caused psychological torture for the Israeli regime and settlers. In conditions like these, rumors regarding Indonesia-Israel normalization appear to have been deliberately circulated by the Zionist media to reduce tensions and divert world public opinion.
The second point is that Indonesia’s support for Palestine is deep-rooted. This support predates Indonesia’s independence, so it cannot be shaken so easily by the Zionist propagandists.
In 1934, when the Palestinians fought against the British (at that time, Indonesia was still colonized by the Dutch), the clergy in Indonesia collected donations from the people to help Palestine.
It is also recorded in history that a rich Palestinian businessman, Muhammad Ali Taher, in 1944 donated a large amount of money to the struggle for Indonesian independence.
In history lessons at schools, our teachers often repeated the phrase: “Palestine was the first to recognize Indonesia’s independence.”
What it actually meant is that after the proclamation of Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, the Indonesian diplomat, M. Zein Hassan, came to Egypt to promote recognition of that independence.
In order to support Hassan’s efforts, a number of resistance figures in the Arab world based in Cairo founded Lajnatud Difa’i ‘an Indonesia on October 16, 1945, including General Saleh Harb Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League and Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Chairman of the Palestine Committee.
The recommendation from the Lajnah was a resolution to support the Republic of Indonesia and an appeal to all countries, especially Arab and Islamic countries, to recognize the new republic.
After that, almost all the Arab countries recognized the Republic of Indonesia one by one.
Apart from that, Indonesia initiated and hosted the Asia-Africa Conference from 18 to April 24, 1955, the first conference of formerly colonized countries in the world whose main spirit was to liberate all the colonized people on earth.
Support for Palestinian independence was one of the dominant issues at this conference. Indonesia has a historical burden to maintain that spirit and fulfill its promise of independence for Palestine.
The third point is, it needs to be acknowledged that there are indeed parties in Indonesia, both politicians and prominent figures, who are secretly establishing personal relations with Israel.
Indonesia’s decision to submit a membership application to the OECD, an organization controlled by Western capitalist countries, instead of joining a new economic power that is far more promising for shared prosperity, namely BRICS, shows the dominance of the West in Indonesia’s economic posture.
Membership in the OECD requires the consent of all members, including Israel. It is very possible that there are figures behind the scenes who are trying to normalize Indonesia-Israel for their interests, especially business interests.
However, they never expressed their intentions openly because it would be tantamount to political suicide. No politician in Indonesia would dare to commit suicide at this time when public sentiment is very strong in supporting Palestine and against Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza.
Thus, it can be concluded that the rumors of normalization were Israeli propaganda that took advantage of the tendencies of a few parties behind the scenes but which immediately hit a wall of failure.
The Indonesian people will not allow that normalization to happen as Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, stated: “As long as the independence of the Palestinian people has not been handed over to the Palestinian people, the Indonesian people will always stand up to challenge Israeli colonialism.”
Dina Y. Sulaeman is an assistant professor at the International Relations Department, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia.
IRGC seizes Israel-linked container ship in Strait of Hormuz
Press TV – April 13, 2024
The special naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) have seized Israel-linked MSC Aries container ship near the Strait of Hormuz, official news agency IRNA reports.
The ship was impounded by the Sepah Navy Special Force (SNSF) in a heliborne operation and rappelling of forces on the ship’s deck, the agency said Saturday.
“The ship has now been directed towards the territorial waters of our country,” IRNA said.
The Portuguese-flagged ship, operated by Zodiac Maritime, is owned by Israeli real estate, energy, technology and shipping magnate Eyal Ofer, it added.
Zodiac Maritime is part of the Israeli billionaire’s Zodiac Group.
A video released by IRGC shows SNSF commandos rappelling down onto a stack of containers sitting on the deck of the vessel.
A crew member on the ship could be heard saying: “Don’t come out.” He then tells his colleagues to go to the ship’s bridge as more commandos come down on the deck.
Reports said the MSC Aries had been last located off Dubai heading toward the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The ship had reportedly turned off its tracking data, which has been common for Israeli-affiliated ships moving through the region.
The incident comes amid Israel bracing for Iranian retaliation after the regime’s April 1 strike on a building in the Iranian embassy compound in the Syrian capital of Damascus, which killed seven IRGC military advisors, including two generals.
Western leaders reveal their total contempt for Palestinian lives
By Dimitri Lascaris | April 11, 2024
Six months into Israel’s genocide, Western leaders continue to issue statements that reveal their total contempt for Palestinian lives.
The Prime Ministers of Canada and France have just issued a joint statement.
In it, they declare that they “unequivocally condemn” Russia’s “ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine”.
They also claim to be “extremely concerned” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and “the appalling situation of the civilian population.”
They “condemn” the strike that resulted in the deaths of several World Central Kitchen workers, including a Canadian citizen, and “emphasize Israel’s obligation, under international humanitarian law, to allow and facilitate the unfettered access of humanitarian aid to Gaza and to protect humanitarian workers and the civilian population.”
Also, “in the strongest possible terms”, they “condemn” the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7 and “call for the immediate, unconditional release of all hostages.”
So let’s get this straight.
In six months, Israel has killed more than three times as many civilians in Gaza as have died in more than two years of war in Ukraine.
And yet, the French and Canadian Prime Ministers still can’t bring themselves to “condemn” Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians, including nearly 14,000 Palestinian children.
With respect to Israel’s crimes, they use the word “condemn” only once, but they apply it not to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians. Rather, they apply it to Israel’s massacre of aid workers who *came from Western countries*.
It is now beyond obvious that Western ‘leaders’ attach little to no value to the lives of Palestinians. These people are anti-Palestinians racists masquerading as champions of human rights.
@dimitrilascaris
‘Silencing a witness to genocide’: Germany detains Gaza war surgeon
Press TV – April 12, 2024
Germany has detained Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah who was invited to attend a Palestinian conference in the capital Berlin.
Abu Sittah took to X on Friday, saying that he was being held at a Berlin airport and would not be able to attend the conference, to which he was invited to speak “about my work in Gaza hospitals.”
“The German government has forcibly prevented me from entering the country.”
Abu Sittah was set to address ‘The Palestine Conference. We will put you on trial,’ that was due to start at noon, with over 800 tickets sold.
German police, however, said only 250 people would be allowed to attend.
“Silencing a witness to genocide before the ICJ adds to Germany’s complicity in the ongoing massacre,” said Abu Sittah, referring to a legal case filed against Germany over its arms supplies to Israel.
Abu Sittah, also a British citizen, returned to Gaza immediately after Israel started its relentless bombardment of the besieged territory in October.
The surgeon became one of the most high-profile and respected medical professionals who highlighted the devastating medical shortages faced by doctors in hospitals across the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to media about the challenges, he once said that doctors resorted to vinegar and other household items to conduct surgery.
After more than six relentless months of Israel’s bombardment, full-scale ground offensive and blockade on fuel, water, and humanitarian aid, the Gaza Strip has been turned into an uninhabitable place that lacks the most basic components of life and basic medical services.
The Israeli attacks have killed at least 33,634 Palestinians and injured 76,214 more, mostly women and children, since October 7.
Abu Ghraib survivors to get their day in court
RT | April 12, 2024
Twenty years on from reports that the US military was torturing prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, three survivors will finally get a chance to bring their claims before an American jury.
A trial in the civil lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib inmates against the US military contractor that they blame for their suffering is scheduled to begin on Monday in a federal court near Washington. The private security contractor, CACI International, has strung the case along for 16 years by making over 20 unsuccessful attempts to have the lawsuit dismissed.
CACI, which supplied the interrogators who worked at Abu Ghraib, has insisted that its employees weren’t accused of abusing detainees. The Virginia-based company also has argued that as a Pentagon contractor, it should be protected by the government’s sovereign immunity against the torture allegations.
However, the plaintiffs claimed that CACI set the conditions for their torture by directing or encouraging abuses by military guards, at least partly to “soften up” prisoners for interrogations. All three of the former detainees are Iraqi civilians who were held at Abu Ghraib until eventually being released without charges.
The trial will be “an exceedingly rare opportunity for accountability for the egregious harms suffered by Iraqis after the US invasion in 2003,” according to a statement earlier this month by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a US group that is representing the plaintiffs. “In fact, this is the first lawsuit where victims of US post-9/11 torture will get their day in court.”
The Abu Ghraib scandal first came to public attention in April 2004, when photos of abused prisoners and their smiling US guards were published. At the time, CBS News aired a report describing the abuse and showing American soldiers taunting naked prisoners. The abuses included stacking nude prisoners in pyramids or dragging them by leashes around their necks. Others were threatened by dogs or hooded and attached to electrical wires.
One of the plaintiffs, former Al-Jazeera reporter Salah Al-Ejaili, claimed he was forced to wear women’s underwear, terrorized by dogs, deprived of sleep, and put in stress positions that caused him to vomit black liquid. Another survivor, Suhail Al-Shimari, has claimed that he suffered beatings, electrical shocks, and sexual assaults.
CACI has argued that its employees weren’t in a position to give orders to military police and that the US government was responsible for setting the conditions at Abu Ghraib. The company has continued to receive lucrative US government contracts for the past two decades, and only low-level soldiers were criminally prosecuted for the abuses.
A Pentagon investigation found that acts of “brutality and purposeless sadism” occurred at the prison at the hands of military police and US intelligence agency personnel. Retired US Army General Antonio Taguba, who led the investigation, concluded that at least one CACI interrogator should be held accountable for directing military police to set the conditions that led to abuses. Taguba will reportedly testify at the Abu Ghraib trial.
Red Sea rising: Exposing the West’s diminishing naval power
By Ali Halawi | Al Mayadeen | April 12, 2024
The Red Sea has witnessed several developments that brought to light the West’s fading power, as its enemies simultaneously and continuously develop precision weapons and naval capabilities.
Although ongoing escort, air defense, and aerial attack operations in the Red Sea are viewed as uncostly, in terms of human capital, and training routines that will raise the preparedness of NATO forces in the region, they have also unveiled a quite unpleasant reality for Western navies. On the flip side, the aerial attacks of Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) on Israeli-affiliated ships, which were later expanded to include US-UK-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, add to an extended bill that NATO countries pay for securing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.
The weapons used in these operations are similar to Iranian-designed drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles and have been described as “cheap” yet effective weapons by US CENTCOM commanders. These precise guided munitions have been disseminated across factions in the Axis of Resistance, via direct armament or technology sharing. When put to the correct use the weapons have proven challenging for some of the world’s most well-trained and equipped forces.
West Asia casts a shadow over NATO military industrial complexes
Some weapons could have been transferred with the blueprints for the production of their main compartments and assembly at their final destination, bringing costs down and production levels up, further deepening the hole for Western counterparts. In the case of Ansar Allah in Yemen, the YAF owns and announces to locally produce a wide array of anti-ship weapons, as well as missiles, and drones that have been appropriated for attacking seaborne targets; currently being put to use to tighten a naval blockade on “Israel” through the Red Sea.
On the other hand, flailing Western military hegemony over the seas pushed the US and its allies to embark on a poorly planned campaign to protect Israeli shipping routes, forcing them to deal with these relatively low-cost weapons in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, where the YAF has dealt direct hits to multiple non-military vessels and threatened near hits some of the most advanced American military ships. This has been the case in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, where US military bases have suffered from the horrors of cheap low-flying, and ballistic weapons in more than 100 operations on US assets, which dealt precise hits to their targets on multiple occasions.
When countering these attacks, Western forces have utilized some of the most sophisticated anti-air surface-to-air missiles, which are estimated to cost millions of dollars of taxpayer money. In the Red Sea, the US-led Western alliance has relied on NATO-standard interceptors, each of which was developed to counter specific inbound aerial objects.
According to The Responsible Statecraft and news circulating on Western media outlets regarding the mishaps of air defense units, the Western coalition has depended on the use of a layered anti-air model, consisting of RIM-116 (RAM), RIM-66 (SM-2), RIM-174 (SM-6), RIM-162 (ESSM), and RIM-161 (SM-3) interceptors. Each interceptor has been developed to counter specific weaponry, however, they all share in common extremely pricey tags.
Price list for NATO’s Israeli maritime protection campaign
Below is a list of the cost of a single interceptor, excluding operational and battery costs, as of 2022:
- RIM-116 (RAM): $905,000
- RIM-66 (SM-2): $2,100,000
- RIM-174 (SM-6): $3,901,818
- RIM-162 (ESSM): $2,031,875
- RIM 161 (SM-3) Block IB: $9,698,617
- RIM-161 (SM-3) Block IIA: $27,915,625
The price list is retrieved from the US Department of Defense and military-industrial complexes’ official documents.
Germany’s Navy ridicules itself
Keeping the aforementioned price ranges in mind, an outrageous fluke that came as a result of a failed surface-to-air missile interception attempt by the German Navy’s Hessen frigate exposed the deep-lying issues for the US-led Naval alliance in the Red Sea.
What should have been a strike on a low-cost Yemeni drone turned into a shabby affair in which the German Navy misidentified the drone, launched a dual attack on an allied asset, failed to hit the aircraft, and suffered malfunctions that led to the destruction of two interceptors midflight.
At first glance, the attack underlines several glaring issues including, the under-preparedness of the German air defense crew, inadequate storage or production of interceptors, and poor communication between NATO allied forces at Sea. Some military-concerned outlets have attempted to shift the blame on outdated German comms, however, further investigation of the incident reveals an issue of economic cost that could tip the scale towards NATO’s enemies.
Germany’s embarrassing mishap would cost the country around $4.2 million, as the Hessen launched two SM-2s at a US MQ-9 reaper drone that it failed to identify.
No SM-2 batches produced since 2018
The cost of the failed operation should not be the only consideration here, as the last time Ratheon sold a batch of its SM-2 Block IIIA interceptors was in a deal it signed with Denmark back in 2018. The deal was worth $152 million for 46 SM-2 Block IIIA interceptors and corresponding equipment for a couple of vertical launch systems. Now, the company has stopped producing the system, and the interceptors for lack of international orders and plans to resume production in 2035.
However, conflict in Ukraine, the war on Gaza, and tensions in East Asia may prompt reconsideration, especially as the genocide of Palestinian people drags on while their allies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq tie their operations to the status of the aggression on Gaza itself.
Large-scale confrontation might see selective engagement
The fact that Raethon has not received any major orders since 2018 brings up the possibility of Western shortages in air defense systems and interceptors, in case of larger-scale engagement erupting in the region. The phenomenon cannot be limited to SM-2 interceptors but could affect a range of staple NATO-developed and produced SAMs, including the infamous Patriot systems, THAAD, Israeil Iron Dome, and other anti-ballistic and cruise missile systems.
Large-scale engagement will most likely see the Colletive West prioritize assets and selectively down often low-cost but deadly targets.
One Yemeni strike was capable of sinking a bulk carrier in the Red Sea, while an attack on a secret US outpost on the Jordanian-Syrian border injured and killed more than a hundred US servicepeople.
In a war of attrition, the Axis of Resistance’s factions will have the economic advantages of pumping out low-cost munitions that target multi-million dollar systems and vehicles, and the morale advantage of deep-rooted ideological motives related to religion and nativity to the lands they defend.
Another blunder: Denmark’s unreported defensive failure gets chief sacked
More recently, Denmark sacked its defense chief Flemming Lentfer after major faults were discovered in air defense systems on a frigate that it sent to the Red Sea earlier. Lentfer was axed on Wednesday night after failing to report to the Danish Defense Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, that the Iver Huitfeldt vessel had experienced a 30 minutes-long malfunction in one of its missile and radar systems, during a drone attack in the Red Sea. The malfunction led Danish authorities to recall the frigate from its mission, marking the gravity of the faults.
“I have lost trust in the chief of defense,” said Poulsen. Shockingly, he found out about the incident from a specialist military outlet, rather than any of his subordinates.
“We are facing a historic and necessary strengthening of Denmark’s defense forces. This places great demands on our organization and on the military advice at a political level,” he asserted.
Danish news website Olfi was the one to break the news to the Minister of Defense, explaining that the frigate was commanded by Commander Sune Lund, who complained about a problem with the ship’s active radar and C-Flex combat management system.
Unexplained outages to the systems were severe enough to prevent the frigate from launching its ESSM interceptors. The Danish frigate’s 76 mm guns were also reported to be defective on several occasions during deployment to the Red Sea. Other reports revealed other aspects of the commander’s message, in which he stated that the equipment problems reportedly had been known about for “years”, but that little had been done to address them.
Germany’s “Embarrassment” vs Yemen’s Victory
Back to Germany’s flop in the Red Sea, which was described by German media outlet BILD as an “Embarrassment to our (the German) Navy in the Red Sea”, the YAF had just marked another milestone by downing a US-operated MQ-9 Reaper Drone over Hodeidah a few days prior to the blunder.
Although both forces attempted to target different MQ-9-type drones using their own SAMs, the Yemeni Armed Forces were able to destroy the highly prized American drone with a “locally produced” air defense system while the Germans harrowingly failed. The Germans said that they mistakenly targeted a drone on February 28, 2024. However, their failure to down the then-unidentified object was due to unnamed technical malfunctions that led to the detonation of the two SM-2 missiles midflight, rather than active efforts to avert the disaster.
Interestingly, Sanaa had only unveiled two air defense systems capable of achieving such a hit. One of which is seemingly a copy of the Iranian-developed compact air-defense missile, dubbed Saqer-2. The missile can be easily transported and launched to take down close-range targets, flying at relatively slow speeds. The Saqer-2, a copycat of the Iranian so-called 358 surface-to-air missile reportedly functions like a one-way attack drone, reaching the required via a liquid fuel-propelled engine, to later hover near an aerial target, approaching it and detonating its warhead after being manually locked on to it by a ground operator, or by working in an autonomous mode.
However, footage published by the YAF’s Military Media indicated that the air defense system utilized in the incident was similar to traditional supersonic SAMs due to the speed at which it reached its target and the sound produced during its flight in the video.
Notably, the missile impacted the drone in a near direct trajectory and did not pause to hover nearby or for directions by operators. Examining the publicly revealed arsenal of the YAF, this likely indicates that the missile in use was the Bareq-1 or Bareq-2 SAM.
The missiles resemble the Iranian Taer line of missiles, which are used on a multitude of staple air defense systems. Digging deeper into the origin of the technology, it is clear that the Taer or Bareq lines of missiles are actually reverse-engineered models of the Soviet-era 3M9, incorporating certain elements from NATO Standard Missiles.
Presuming that the Bareq-2 was used by the YAF for the operation reveals an even deeper hole dug by Western military complexes for their own armies. Moreover, NATO’s SMs are much more developed than the YAF’s interceptors, as they incorporate a wide range of technological and hardware additions, putting them in a class of their own.
These additions allow for 360° scope for air defense teams allowing Hessen and other vessels to fire at any surrounding target within its range at any time without having to adjust their position while boosters on the SM-6 allow for longer-range targeting.
Still, the single-stage and aimed single launch conducted by the YAF achieved a direct hit to the 20 m-long US drone obliterating it to pieces that were scavenged by fighters on al-Hodeidah’s shore.
Yemen’s support to Palestine uncovers deep crises in NATO’s Naval power
Putting this series of unfolding events into the context of the Yemeni Armed Forces’ support to Palestine, as the Western-backed Israeli regime continues its genocidal war on Gaza, is key to not only regional security but global security as a whole.
The equations drawn by the YAF have been unprecedented in the history of the nation’s struggle against Western imperialism, as for the first time, an Arab nation has taken the responsibility of launching an expansive naval campaign to support a moral and national cause, whose result will alter the course of human history. By setting this historical precedent, Yemen has not only altered regional security to the favor of natives, but it has also exposed essential faults in NATO’s military and naval structure which can and will be taken advantage of by adversaries.
These events have not been limited to uncovering the flaws of Danish and German forces, but they have laid bare essential challenges for the far superior American and British navies.
For the US, issues have concentrated around logistics and the high cost of operating multiple strike groups, in order to maintain feeble objectives. The UK on the other hand has witnessed multiple accidents and complications during the period of its operations.
The Yemeni Armed Forces’ strategic engagements in the Red Sea highlight a significant shift in naval dynamics, exposing vulnerabilities in Western military prowess and logistical strategies. Despite maintaining relatively low-scale engagements, the YAF’s precision attacks on military vessels have yielded valuable experience and expanded their target list, aided by direct repercussions from the US’s involvement in the genocidal war on Gaza. This evolving scenario underscores the importance of the Axis of Resistance’s strategic foresight and adaptive responses in navigating the complexities of Western provocations, in the context of modern naval warfare, signaling a paradigmatic challenge for maintaining Western military hegemony in the region.
Hamas adhering to its conditions for prisoner deal: Haniyeh
Al Mayadeen | April 12, 2024
The head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, told Al Mayadeen that the Palestinian Resistance group is adhering to its conditions in negotiations and will not engage in any deal with “Israel” without their fulfillment.
Haniyeh emphasized the Resistance’s insistence on the necessity of declaring a permanent and clear ceasefire in Gaza.
He made it clear that the Israeli occupation has not eliminated Hamas, and shall not eliminate it, pointing out that the Israeli government has not retrieved its captives held in Gaza and shall not retrieve them except through “an honorable deal.”
The Palestinian leader affirmed the Resistance’s insistence on the complete withdrawal and the return of the displaced people to Gaza without any conditions or barriers, in addition to the conditions regarding relief and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, leading to a prisoner exchange deal.
Haniyeh touched on Israeli media’s speculations that the Israeli assassination of his sons and grandchildren is aimed at pressuring Hamas to ease its demands during ceasefire negotiations, underlining that “this will not happen.”
The Hamas chief indicated that the massacres and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza reflect its strategic failure after not achieving its declared goals of the war.
“Israel, the spoiled child of the West, is no longer as it once was, and its image has been shattered,” he told Al Mayadeen, adding that what is happening in the “corridors of diplomacy” indicates an unprecedented isolation for the Israeli occupation entity.
Addressing the entire nation, Haniyeh highlighted that the ongoing genocide in Gaza requires a different stance from the past six months.
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From the Archives
Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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