The Progress in Iran

In spite of the fact that the American news has decided to act as the propaganda arm of the Iranian Islamic Republic, there has been substantial progress in the campaign. My old comrades at The Long War Journal are doing some good work right now capturing the movement. 

Another good source is Richard Fernandez, who blogs less now but runs both an X and Facebook page under his byline "Wretchard the Cat." He noticed what I think is a key development in the shift from an air war to preparation to assist the Iranians in overthrowing their government: 

Israeli drones carried out attacks on several Tehran neighborhoods... Fars says the drones flew over southern and northern districts of Tehran, adding that “several members of the security force and the (volunteer) Basij force stationed at checkpoints were martyred.”

Notice it wasn't attacks on "neighborhoods," as the opening paragraph framed it; it was tightly targeted drone attacks on police and security 'checkpoints,' i.e., the places from which regime loyalists planned to shoot any protesters who emerged as they did in the earlier parts of the winter. 

That's the missing piece in all of this. The Kurds are going to break away in the northwest; the Balochi in the southeast; probably the Azeri. The armored units that the military and IRGC planned to use to suppress such actions will be destroyed if they try to move to engage; they will also be destroyed if they try to stay put. The navy is being sunk; the minelayers are sitting ducks for air power. What remains is a plan to allow the central population in the larger cities to move against the regime. 

Accomplishing that means showing those people that they won't just be shot down like the thousands the regime murdered over the winter protests. This is a good first step at demonstrating that even small checkpoints of regime loyalists are subject to strike, and on small scales that don't risk the lives of innocents who might be gathered to protest them.

UPDATE: Overnight, the IDF started allowing Iranian citizens to call in air strikes on Basij positions. There is some risk to this, given that the situation is fluid, but it effectively provides air support to any revolutionary effort. 

I saw something similar in Iraq only once. One time a “Concerned Local Citizen”/Sons of Iraq checkpoint came under attack by insurgent forces, including a technical that had parked in a shallow ditch to provide itself with cover. Under machine gun fire, they called us on a cell phone. In the Division Operations Center, the duty officers realized that they had an accurate map with a ten-digit grid of the location of the ditch. So, we hit it with indirect fire — mortars, I believe it was. Our fire was effective, allowing what was essentially a local tribal militia to survive and win against a coordinated assault with heavy weapons’ support.