(0729) morning all … grey sky is up. (0729)
8. Steve’s late evening take
First an array of support for DJT’s action, then more from this Shanaka in Oz (see Mon 1):
“The Israeli Air Force released footage of strikes on the IRGC headquarters in Tehran. Millions are sharing it. Almost nobody understands what they are actually watching.
You are watching the largest Israeli air sortie in history. Two hundred fighter jets launched simultaneously as part of Operation Roaring Lion, striking five hundred targets across Iran.
The United States ran its parallel campaign under Operation Epic Fury, deploying Tomahawk cruise missiles, HIMARS rockets, and for the first time in combat, the Precision Strike Missile, a next-generation ballistic weapon that had only entered full-rate production months earlier. CENTCOM released the footage of its first operational firing.
A weapon went from production line to combat debut faster than most defense programs complete testing. The strikes were timed with intelligence precision that borders on the surreal. According to Reuters, the operation was launched to coincide with a high-level meeting at a secure compound in central Tehran where Khamenei was present with his inner circle.
The CIA had tracked his movements for months. When signals intelligence confirmed the meeting, the order was given. Israeli officials told Axios they were targeting the entire Iranian leadership, political and military, past, present and future.
Fox News reported the division of labor. Israel targeted leadership. The United States targeted military infrastructure and ballistic missile sites. This is not two countries cooperating. This is a single integrated kill chain across two sovereign command structures with shared intelligence and synchronized timing. The IDF Chief of Staff said the two militaries worked together for months with unprecedented cooperation.
The first wave was pure decapitation. CNN reported strikes on residences of Khamenei, Pezeshkian, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, and the IRGC Commander. Iran International reported four intelligence officials killed: the head of foreign intelligence, the chief of the security branch, the director of counterterrorism, and the adviser overseeing the war portfolio with Israel.
This was not a bombing campaign. This was an organizational chart converted into a target list. Footage shows more than twenty one Tomahawk cruise missiles transiting Iranian airspace in a single sequence. A Reaper drone operated over Shiraz before twenty explosions were reported. Strikes hit Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Bushehr, Qom, Isfahan, Chabahar, and Konarak.
The geography tells you this was not a limited strike. This was a nationwide campaign from air and sea simultaneously. Every defense ministry on Earth is downloading this footage right now. Not because it shows explosions. Because it shows what an integrated precision strike architecture looks like when the political decision is made to use it at full capacity. This was the demonstration.
The question every capital is now asking is not what happened to Iran. It is what would happen to them.”
7. Now outdated reports from my reading
6. That ole VAR issue
