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Originally posted by second:
Sources Briefed On Iran War Say U.S. Has No Plans For What Comes Next

“The administration doesn’t have a clue. They do not have an actual, real rationale, endgame, or plan for the aftermath of this.”

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This is not how it was supposed to go for Iran.

For years, the Islamic Republic worked to build up a network of allies throughout the Middle East, widely known as the “axis of resistance,” which, in the event Iran itself were attacked, could rain down destruction on Israel, the US military, and American allies in the region.

Key takeaways

- Iran’s “axis of resistance” has failed. Built as a deterrent force meant to overwhelm Israel and constrain US intervention, the network of regional allies that included Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Hamas has responded weakly to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

- The key turning point for the axis was Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel. While Iran may not have directly orchestrated Hamas’s attack, the war it triggered allowed Israel to systematically degrade Tehran’s allies.

- As a result, Iran is now more isolated and vulnerable than at any point in decades, giving Israel and the US greater freedom of action, as seen in the current war.

The axis includes Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militants in Iraq. At its peak, Iran relied on the network to promote its hardline brand of Shia Islam against rival powers associated with Sunni Islam, intimidate governments into submission, and scare off Western threats. Perhaps even more than its ballistic missiles stockpile, its nascent nuclear program, and its conventional military, these regional groups were Iran’s deterrent against exactly the sort of all-out attack we’re not seeing.

“The idea was never to be engaged in a war of attrition,” said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow and expert on Middle Eastern armed groups and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “Everyone would fire at once, so that Israel would be overwhelmed before the US was able to completely deploy its defenses.”

And yet, since the joint US-Israeli airstrikes against Iran began over the weekend, killing its supreme leader and devastating the regime’s military and infrastructure, the response from the axis of resistance has been fairly feeble.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which in the past has boasted of the ability to destroy Tel Aviv, fired a “handful” of rockets into Israel, which prompted a much larger campaign of airstrikes by Israel in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Wary of being dragged into yet another war, the Lebanese government has taken the unprecedented step of banning military activities by the group. Yemen’s Houthis, who dramatically shut down most global shipping through the Red Sea two years ago, have been conspicuously quiet. Militants in Iraq claimed a drone attack on a US military base in Erbil, but the attack was intercepted without any casualties, and some groups seem to be staying quiet.

The impotent response is part of a larger story of the Iranian regime’s collapse from a fearsome military power to a weakened state fighting for its survival against an emboldened America and Israel. Rather than secure it from attack, its strategy of backing proxy forces in conflicts abroad played a critical part in dragging it into the existential crisis it faces now.

And while there are a number of factors that led to its unraveling, there’s one clear moment when it all started to go south: Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Pride before the fall

In the spring of 2018, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had every reason to feel confident about Iran’s position in the Middle East. It was arguably the moment of greatest power and influence for the axis of resistance.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces had taken the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus — seemingly ending the threat to the Iran-backed regime after a long and bloody civil war.

In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias were also tasting victory, having retaken all the territory held by the radical Sunni terror group ISIS and a good chunk of Kurdistan as well. That year, Hezbollah, the Lebanese hybrid militant group and political party, and its allies won an outright majority in Lebanon’s first elections in nearly a decade. In Yemen, the Iran-backed rebel group Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthis, were proving themselves an international threat by firing missiles into Saudi Arabia.

With its friends in secure positions of power in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, landlocked Iran had achieved its long-sought “land bridge” to the Mediterranean. In a confident letter to Assad, Khamenei wrote, “”If you and we, and other elements of resistance, stay determined, the enemy cannot accomplish a single thing.”

Eight years later, that strategy lay in ruins, buried under the rubble along with Khamenei himself.

The axis strategy had its roots in the 1980s, the early days of the Islamic Republic that took power after a revolution in 1979. During a long war with Iraq, Iran’s conventional military fared poorly, but gained an advantage by aiding Iraqi Shia militias opposed to then-dictator Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government. Around the same time, Iran began providing aid to Shiite militia groups fighting against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which eventually evolved into Hezbollah.

The alliance was coordinated by the Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, an armed force that answers directly to the supreme leader and is separate from Iran’s conventional army.

Over the years, members of the axis have inflicted serious damage against Iran’s enemies. Hezbollah killed 241 US service members in the bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and fought the Israeli military to an inconclusive standstill — something accomplished by no other Arab military — in a month-long 2006 war. Later, Hezbollah fighters played a key role in the defense of Assad’s Syrian regime.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iranian-backed militia groups were a key component of the anti-US insurgency, often employing improvised explosive devices assembled in Iran itself. The Pentagon has claimed that one in six US casualties in the war in Iraq can be linked to Iran. (Ironically, years later the US military would form a tacit alliance with these same militias in the fight against ISIS.)

Though Iran may have been militarily outmatched by the US and Israel, and was struggling under crippling international sanctions — particularly after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated with President Barack Obama — it had every reason to believe that if the worst came to pass, its allies could inflict heavy damage. Even after Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard commander viewed by many as the architect of the axis of resistance strategy, was killed in a US drone strike in 2019 along with the leader of one of the most powerful Iraqi militias, many experts believed the axis would remain a potent threat.

Then came October 7.

The turning point

Hamas was always the odd member out in the “axis of resistance.”

It’s a Palestinian Sunni group that began in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist movement that favors government run according to strict religious laws. Nearly all the other members of the axis adhere to various branches of Shia Islam. On paper, therefore, they’re on opposite sides of the Middle East’s main sectarian divide. But the two share a common enemy in Israel. Iran’s hardline Islamic government broke off ties with Israel after its 1979 revolution, viewing it as a religious affront and Western imperialist power; Hamas is an offshoot of the Palestinian resistance movement that has existed since Israel’s founding.

In the early 1990s, Iran began providing Hamas, and fellow Sunni Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, with tens of millions of dollars of funding per year, and Hamas later opened an office in Tehran.

Hamas became notorious around the world in this period for its use of suicide bombers against civilian targets in Israel, which helped derail negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, led by the secular Fatah movement, to establish a Palestinian state. But its militancy made it an increasing regional player: In 2007, its fighters purged Fatah from Gaza after Israel withdrew its soldiers from the territory, giving it a territorial base under its direct control.

Israel instituted a blockade, but Hamas — with Iran’s help — began amassing missiles that could strike deeper and deeper into Israeli territory, and material for command bunkers and tunnels to withstand counterattacks.

It fought a series of limited wars with Israel, and Iran and Hezbollah directly coordinated with Hamas during rounds of fighting. The relationship with Iran was strained at times by their ethnic and religious differences, which led to a rupture when they backed opposing sides in the Syrian civil war. But they repaired the damage and were once again closely aligned as of 2023.

Then, on October 7, Hamas and allied fighters launched a surprise series of attacks on Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, and taking 251 hostages back into Gaza. Israel responded by launching a brutal air campaign, and later ground invasion, in Gaza.

Iran’s axis members quickly involved themselves in the fight. Hezbollah, believed to have an arsenal of up to 200,000 rockets, began firing them into Israel the day after October 7 and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, praised the attacks, but seemed to hope to keep the fighting contained, particularly as the US had deployed naval ships specifically aimed at deterring the group. Nonetheless, the rocket, missile, and drone fire between Israel and Hezbollah continued to expand in the months that followed, displacing thousands on both sides of the border. At times, there was more active combat on Israel’s “northern front” than in Gaza.

As the war in Gaza dragged on, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria launched dozens of attacks against US military bases. In January 2024, three US soldiers were killed in a drone strike near the Jordan-Syrian borders — the first US troops killed by enemy aircraft since the Korean War. Using missiles and drones and taking advantage of fortuitous geography, Yemen’s Houthis managed to shut down the majority of commercial shipping through the Red Sea.

But despite Iran’s involvement in the expanding conflagration, it’s not clear they knew about, or intended, the spark that started it. Documents that were seized later by Israel suggest that Hamas leaders in Gaza had discussed an upcoming major attack with Hezbollah and Iranian officials in 2022 and 2023, but there’s no evidence to suggest the Iranians played a role in coordinating or carrying out the October 7 attacks. In fact, US intelligence agencies believe Iranian officials were taken by surprise when it happened.

This may not have been a war Iran itself chose, but the alliance appeared to be working as hoped.

The “axis of resistance” crumbles

While the Israeli war effort initially was concentrated in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet viewed the attack as fundamentally tied to the larger threat of Iran’s “axis of resistance.” The next phase of the war began to target them more directly.

In August 2024, Ismael Haniyeh, one of Hamas’s top leaders, was killed by an explosive smuggled into a safehouse in Tehran. In an audacious operation the next month in Lebanon, thousands of pagers distributed to members of Hezbollah exploded, injuring hundreds of fighters and killing 12 people, including some civilians and children.That same month, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as well as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard leader in Lebanon were killed in an airstrike in Beirut. The Israel-Hezbollah conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire in November 2024, though Israel has continued regular airstrikes into Lebanon since then.

But the domino effects in the region began to intensify, cutting further into Iran’s allies. In December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria fell after a brief and shocking rebel offensive. Assad’s rapid fall, seven years after he appeared to have “won” the civil war, was made possible in part because the allies who had come to his aid before were unable to this time: Russia was tied down by the war in Ukraine; Hezbollah was decimated by the war with Israel.

Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is the worst of both worlds from Iran’s perspective: a former Sunni jihadist who has become a close US ally. Assad’s fall denies a safe haven to Iranian militants. The land bridge was closed.

By 2025, when Israel and the United States launched a major strike against Iran’s nuclear program, it was clear that the axis was no longer the deterrent its architects had hoped for.

It’s an open question whether the axis was always just a paper tiger, or whether Israel’s intelligence and military capabilities — which had been unable to overcome Hezbollah as recently as 2006 — were simply more formidable and ruthless than observers realized. But the effect was undeniable: Iran was isolated and its military options were deeply constrained, making it a tempting target for an Israeli government and Trump administration that had long viewed it as an urgent threat.

“These guys were generally taken aback by October 7 and they struggled to adjust and didn’t understand the kind of war they were in,” said Hokayem. “They didn’t understand how Israel’s risk appetite had shifted.”

Could the axis return?

For the moment, Iran’s regional allies, drained after the post-October 7 war, seem reluctant to get dragged into another high-intensity conflict. It’s possible that as it continues, if the Iranian regime appears to be truly at risk of destruction, that could change.

Israeli authorities believe Hezbollah still has around 40,000 troops and 30,000 reservists — roughly the same as before the war — and about 20 percent of its prewar rocket arsenal. The Houthis have been relatively quiet since the Gaza ceasefire in January 2025, but that could change. The most powerful of Iraq’s Shia militias have also avoided direct attacks on the US military since 2024, but could rejoin the fight.

For now, however, the axis no longer appears to be a serious constraint on US or Israeli action, leaving Tehran to rely on its missile forces, which have so far been unable to overwhelm air defense systems.

Hamas’s decision to launch the brutal October 7 attacks were reportedly motivated by its desire to prevent the normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, a goal it apparently felt was worth the inevitably destructive Israeli retaliation against Gaza. It hoped, in other words, that the attack would reshape power dynamics in the Middle East. It did do that — but mainly by giving Israel far more freedom to act as it pleases.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

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Originally posted by second:
Sources Briefed On Iran War Say U.S. Has No Plans For What Comes Next

“The administration doesn’t have a clue. They do not have an actual, real rationale, endgame, or plan for the aftermath of this.”

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And not a single name to any of the "sources".

Go fuck yourself, stupid.

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Be Evil. Be a dick.

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Originally posted by second:
6ix, even if you knew who these people were, you wouldn't know who they were. I'll give you an example: Robert Guest. I can know how your tiny mind works because every Trumptard I know thinks exactly the same way, regardless of how unique/special/brilliant/wise they each feel themselves to be. Which is why they struggle in America. None of them has what it takes.

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President Trump and defense officials praised the U.S. war effort in Iran on Thursday, saying Operation Epic Fury had almost eliminated the Islamic republic’s ability to defend itself and launch retaliatory strikes.

Mr. Trump said joint strikes by U.S. and Israeli forces had eliminated most of Iran’s air force and missile defenses, and continued assaults were making communication on the ground impossible.

“The United States military, together with the wonderful Israeli partners, continues to totally demolish the enemy, far ahead of schedule and at levels that people have never seen before,” Mr. Trump said at the White House.

The president said the U.S. had sunk 24 of Iran’s naval vessels.

Speaking at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper, head of CENTCOM, echoed the president’s comments. They added that retaliatory attacks by Iran’s drones and missiles had declined by more than 90% since the start of the war.

Adm. Cooper said U.S. bombers had struck more than 200 targets deep within Iran in three days.

Mr. Hegseth rejected growing concerns among lawmakers and analysts that U.S. strikes have put extreme pressure on American stockpiles of precision-guided munitions.

“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad calculation,” Mr. Hegseth said. “We’ve got no shortage of munitions.”

Adm. Cooper and Mr. Hegseth had previously confirmed that the U.S. would soon switch to less-expensive munitions, though they said this was because air superiority had been achieved and less-sophisticated munitions could therefore be used with much less risk.

War powers bid fails

Congress failed to pass a war powers resolution that would have halted Mr. Trump’s actions in Iran.

The attempt in the House failed on a 212-219 vote one day after a similar measure died in the Senate.

The administration and congressional Republicans say Iran is an imminent threat, and the strikes Saturday were carried out as a way to stop the U.S. from getting hit harder if they had waited.

“We have seen Iran as an imminent threat against America, not just for the last four days, not just for the last four months or four years, but for the last 40 years,” said Rep. Brian Mast, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Iran has rejected U.S. and Israeli assessments that it is losing the war and has only increased its hostile rhetoric over the past few days.

Iranian cleric Abdollah Javadi-Amoli told state-affiliated media Wednesday that Shiite Muslims require the blood of Israelis and Mr. Trump.

Eliminating Iran’s missile and drone production capacity has emerged as the primary justification for the U.S. war with Iran.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Hegseth said this week that Iran was developing a “conventional shield” to protect the uranium enrichment infrastructure that enabled its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby reaffirmed this position before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday and once again reminded lawmakers that the Trump administration is not interested in nation-building or regime change in Iran.

The future U.S. role

Despite such claims, Mr. Trump said he should play a role in selecting a new leader for Iran.

He said Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the apparent front-runner to replace him as Iran’s supreme leader, would be an unacceptable leader.

Intense U.S. and Israeli airstrikes may have seriously delayed Iran’s selection of a new supreme leader.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the 88-member body tasked with selecting a new supreme leader, has not revealed its choice nor the top contenders.

International analysts have predicted that, among other clerical leaders and former Iranian politicians, Mojtaba Khamenei could be one of the more popular options.

Mr. Trump’s comments are perhaps his most explicit on the topic of Iran’s future leadership, a question that has plagued the administration since the death of Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday.

The president previously said that his administration was looking at several contenders to replace the current leadership in Iran after the operation, but “most of them are dead.”

Mr. Trump has called on protesters to rise up and overthrow the leadership of the Islamic republic amid U.S. and Israeli strikes, but has not provided any details as to how they should do so.

He said Thursday that Iranian diplomats abroad should help the U.S. form a new government in Tehran.

“We urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran,” he said at a White House event.

Aside from scattered celebrations in reaction to Ayatollah Khamenei’s death, there are few signs that an organized Iranian resistance is fighting Tehran.

Kurds get involved

Reports this week indicated that Mr. Trump has been in contact with Kurdish opposition forces in Iraq in anticipation of a ground offensive against Iranian forces.

He told Reuters on Thursday that he supported the idea but declined to comment on whether the U.S. had or would provide the Kurdish militia with military support.

The CIA has provided small arms to a collection of Kurdish groups near the Iran-Iraq border, but it is unclear what the goals of a Kurdish offensive in Iran would be and whether they could handle the Iranian military.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, the central leadership body for the Kurdistan region in Iraq, denied reports that its militia was preparing to invade Iran.

Iran lashes out

An Iranian drone struck targets in Azerbaijan on Thursday, marking yet another expansion of the already devastating war that has killed at least six U.S. service members and hundreds of civilians across the region.

The drones exploded in the Azerbaijani city of Nakhchivan. Videos showed large clouds of black smoke and small fires. The attack injured two people and caused minor damage to a nearby airport, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

Iran denied launching the drone and blamed Israel for the attack. It claimed that Israel is seeking to “disrupt relations between Muslim countries.”

The attack is yet another expansion of the war and a sign that Iran is trying to strike throughout the Middle East. Iranian missiles and drones have targeted Cyprus and Turkey this week, members of the European Union and NATO, respectively.

Iran denied targeting Turkey with a ballistic missile Wednesday.

As for the Cyprus attack, British intelligence suggests a pro-Iran militia operating in Lebanon may have been responsible for launching the Shahed-type drone attack on the Royal Air Force base in Akrotiri.

Although Turkey is a NATO member, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the Iranian attack would not trigger the alliance’s collective defense clause. He said the missile’s interception was evidence of NATO’s strength.

Europe ups participation

The recent strikes on Cyprus and Turkey alarmed several European leaders, who have since ordered an increased military presence in the Middle East.

Britain, which previously initiated a standoff with Washington over the use of its military bases for strikes on Iran, has since permitted the U.S. to use its stations for defensive strikes against Iran’s ballistic missile sites.

The bases cannot be used to launch strikes against Iran’s political leadership.

Britain has dispatched a Type 45 air defense destroyer, capable of intercepting up to eight missiles at once, to the Mediterranean in addition to deploying F-35B fighter jets, which have destroyed Iranian drones over Jordan.

France has deployed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Mediterranean, bringing a full air wing and escort frigates.

U.S. personnel are now allowed to use French air bases in the region.

Greece, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany have deployed fighter jets and various warships to the surrounding waters.

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Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

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