The never-ending (and very transparent) Big Game

Tom Cooper

Tom Cooper

18.06.2025

The never-ending (and very transparent) Big Game

Where shall I start today…?

Ah yes. Think it might be useful to start with a bit of important information for Ukrainians, or those interested in developments in Ukraine.

Esteemed readers,

Those of you hoping that Israel’s aggression on Iran might diminish, curb, even stop Russian onslaught by attack UAVs on Ukraine, are falling for just another illusion (and then yet another based on Israeli lies). This is so because the Iranian sale of Shaheds to Russia was a ‘one-off’ business deal: 6,000 UAVs for gold. That’s it. That was back in 2023, and ever since, Iran is not delivering any kind of UAVs to Russia. Have explained why, quite extensivelly, in The Mess of Russo-Iranian Arms Deals 1 and The Mess of Russo-Iranian Arms Deals 2. It’s becoming quite pointless to post such features if I all the time have to remind about them, because people are not reading them… isn’t it?

Besides, if you google for just 30 seconds, you’re rapidly going to find plentiful of well-documented features (the mass on them based on Ukrainian inspections of recovered Russian wreckage) explaining that 80-90% parts installed into Russian UAVs (including not only their electronics, but engines, too) are of Chinese origin.

Means: ‘even’ if I am regularly using ‘Shahed’ to describe the Russian attack UAVs, 300-400 are released into the Ukrainian airspace every single night, the systems in question are such like ‘Russian assembled’ (where, strictly speaking, even that is an exaggeration) Geran-1, Geran-2, Geran-3, Garpiya etc.

Point is: Russia needs no Iran to assemble such UAVs. Nor does Russia want to need Iran. Nor is Russia in any kind of military or economic alliance with Iran. Indeed, the Russians are, actually, knowing – far better than average people anywhere in the ‘West’ – about the Netanyahu-Putin connections. They - the Russians - know about Netanyahu happily granting citizenship to whatever Russians want to settle in Israel (including foremost different mafia bosses, whose ‘bodyguards’ then love shooting at each other by night on the strets of Tel Aviv). …and at least since Putin explained them that Israel is a brotherly, Russian-speaking nation, ‘half of Russia’ is outright celebrating an Iranian defeat at the hands of Israel. For the Russians, Iranian is just a useless pawn. Something Putin is happy to use for playing a ‘strategic mastermind’ and deal-broker.

Something similar is valid for all those – especially Ukrainians – now expecting Trump and Netanyahu to ‘finish off Iran’, so they can go after Russia as next, defeat it, and in turn teach the Chinese a lesson so this does not attack Taiwan…

To put it mildly: thinking that way cannot even be described as daydreaming. Not even as science fiction. And this not only because Haghset was meanwhile confirmed that the USA have completely stopped its military support for Ukraine.

The reason is something far more important: PROFIT. Not only Netanyahu’s alliance with Putin, but also the alliance of those that matter to them – and that’s not only characters like Musk, Thiel etc. – with ‘investors’ (read: Arab dictators) from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar etc. All of whom, in turn, are in an alliance with both Russia and the People’s Republic of China (should there be doubts: google ‘UAE, China, alliance’, or ‘Saudi Arabia, China, alliance’ - and see results with your own eyes). Which is why one then gets such photos to see, like from deployment of UAE air force’s Mirages (and other Western-made stuff) to the PRC for joint exercises…

…or Qatari EF-2000s in joint exercises with Pakistan (via which China is then obtaining yet additional intel on Western combat aircraft).

…and do I have to explain in detail about how delighted are all of them – Putin, and all the possible Arab dictators – about Netanyahu’s onslaught on Iran causing a rapid rise of oil prices?

Bottom line: to anybody in possession of more than one brain cell, it must be crystal clear that ‘Ukraine’ is so unimportant that it’s absolutely impossible to overemphasise this fact. The characters in question are running a genocide on Palestinians, shown ‘live on TV’: the latest method is to attract masses of starving civilians - half of them children - to ‘points for distribution of humanitarian aid’, and then mortar, shell, and machine gun them by dozens…

…but you expect them to rush to Ukraine’s help because the Russians killed 19 Ukrainian civilians the last night? How anti-Semitic - and also ignorant of the fact that the ‘elites’ of ‘the West’ are more scared of Russia falling apart if defeated in Ukraine, and concerned about retaining their business links to Pudding, than about helping Kyiv defend the country…

Seriously: please, be so kind and find yourself something else to celebrate and daydream about.

***

Khamenei’s Missle-Men

Now ‘back’ to the Israel’s aggression on Iran… where, ‘up front’, I would like to observe that no, I do not assess Iran as something like ‘capable of winning this war’. Actually, Iran’s position is near-hopeless. Not only because of Israel's (vast) technological superiority, subversion of the Iran’s chain-of-command. It’s foremost because of fundamental, strategic mistakes its IRGC dictatorship committed over the last 20 years.

You see, the old-fart-generals of the IRGC (most of whom were meanwhile killed by Israelis), were not only endemically corrupt (like Iran’s generals used to be already since the times of the Shah’s rule) but ‘missiles obsessed’. Arguably, back at the time they came to the idea to become obsessed with missiles, so in the early 2000s, that was ‘OK’. Even a ‘good idea’. Because the country couldn’t rebuild its air power: Russia wouldn’t deliver and China had nothing to deliver. Therefore, they embarked on developing a ‘shield’ in form of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and a ‘sword’ in form of (intermediate range) ballistic missiles (IRBMs). However, in 2011, they then also launched their ‘Saving Private Bashar’-project in Syria, and then wasted (at least) some US$200 billion for that purpose over the following 13 years. This left Iran with no money necessary for a more rapid expansion of SAM- and IRBM-capabilities. At the same time, and despite financing its rebuilding in period 2008-2012, the smart asses of IRGC generals have left the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) so starved of funding that as of 2024, this was de-facto grounded. Sure, since the terminal collapse of the Su-35-deal with Russia, late last year, the IRGC has granted the IRIAF funding for additional overhauls for F-14s, but meanwhile it was too late…

As for ‘how comes’: well, I find it ironic anybody is still considering Iran for a ‘theocracy’, where the regime is an obvious ‘kleptocracy masquerading as religion’, run by – between others – extremist religious nutjobs.

…which reminds me how good it is that there are no extremist religious nutjobs in power of genocidary idiocracies of Israel or the USA…

…I’m, sincerely, relieved about this realisation (even that itch in my little toe all but disappeared)…

But, I’m digressing… thus, ‘fast forward’: even in the first three-four days of the latest Israeli aggression on Iran, and although its top brass of old-fart-generals has been shot away, the IRGC continued making strategic mistakes. As always, the way the IRGC is fighting war ‘in messages, signals, and symbols’. Correspondingly, it Operation True Promise 3 remained characterised by what can foremost be described as a ‘usual PR charade’. Big announcements, followed by mass missile strikes – that were only exposing units of the IRGC Air & Space Force (IRGCASF) to Israeli air- and UAV-strikes. They would pull out their TELs with missiles, demonstratively drive them out and then fire them in groups. Eventually, these ‘demonstrative’ operations have reached such proportions that they strongly reminded me of the times back in late September and early October 1980, when the Tehran-regime-controlled Iranian media was publicly announcing every single of IRIAF’s air strikes on Iraq’s oil industry – in advance.

Typical ‘group-launch for PRBS-purposes’ of IRGCASF’s IRBMS, from early in this war.

That, however, proved extremely costly: there are estimates that up to a third of some 300-350 of IRGCASF’s TELs for IRBMs have been knocked out, meanwhile (arguably, together with numerous decoys or innocent civilian trucks… but hey: there are no innocent civilian trucks in Iran: only terrorist, anti-Semitic trucks).

Eventually, it took the new Chief of General Staff in Iran, Rear Admiral (ret.) Sayyari (a former SBS and veteran of the Iran-Iraq War), ‘days’ to ‘convince’ the IRGC to change its modus operandi. Since 16 June, instead of driving out lots of TELs at the same time, the IRGCASF does so with only two, three or four launchers, then rapidly fires several missiles, before disappearing – usually before the Israelis can reach and target the TELs.

Obviously, this is resulting in a ‘lot less of spectacular action’ in Israel’s skies, every night. Occassionally, it’s resulting in missile strikes on Israel by day, too. But, in turn, it’s enabling Iran to extend the resulting battle of attrition – and the longer the same goes on, the better for the regime in Tehran (and, as we’re going to see: also for effectiveness of IRBM-strikes). Of course, that’s valid only unless Netanyahu really converts the US into Israel’s external subject, and the US armed forces into an extension of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – through, ‘finally’, forcing Dump to join this war.

***

Iranian Targeting

Where Sayyari obviously still has a major problem while trying to command and control the IRGC is the issue of targeting. Now, sure: about 99% of people ‘monitoring’ and ‘commenting’ this war in the social media – foremost the powerful and omni-present Zionist PRBS-industry – know, 1792% for sure, the Iranians are ‘only targeting civilians’. Indeed, ’10 million civilians are under Iran’s attack’, so the official IDF.

Actually… and despite strenuous efforts of IDF’s military censorship to curb all the related reporting (including threats to not only shut down any media instances publishing videos or specifically mentioning what have Iranians hit), the available evidence is confirming only one thing: the IRGCASF is exclusively targeting

a) Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and associated military units (Unit 8200, Unit 9900),

b) air bases of the Israel Air-Space Force (IASF; foremost Tel Nov and Nevatim),

c) Israel’s ‘dual-purpose’ facilities (see the refinery and power plant in Haifa), and

d) surface-to-air missile (SAM) -sites defending the above-listed.

There’s no evidence for this, you think?

Oh, there is. It’s just so that all the Western professional experts that are diligently geo-locating all the possible Israeli air strikes on Iran, are persistently not doing anything similar with Iranian missile strikes on Israel. Because that’s anti-Semitism, you know. Thus, let me reach back upon the Iranian anti-Semites doing the same: you can complain about all of this being wrong, later on (should that surprise anybody, any more? This entire blog is worth just one conclusion: wrong…and anti-Semitic, too…).

For example, on 15 June, the IRGCASF almost hit an Arrow-III SAM-site: this Shahed-101 attack UAV was shot down by gunfire from an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter while already in the process of diving towards it.

During the night from 15 to 16 June, the IRGCASF hit an Iron Dome or David’s Sling SAM-site in Haifa…

…and then went on to… erm… not demolish the local power station and the refinery. Because it takes so long to acquire necessary parts, alone the repair of the power station is likely to take 13-15 months.

Later in the evening, the Iranians did not hit Nevatim AB (possibly/probably while targeting the Dimona nuclear complex, too), causing a fire that wasn’t extinguished for hours…

Yesterday, the IRGCASF also did not hit the Glilot Military Intel Complex in northern Tel Aviv,

…just like the one Iranian missile that did not hit ‘something next to a bus depot of Herzliya’, and for which the BBC hinted that it was ‘something intelligence or military related’ (but could not provide any details because of Israeli censorship), has ‘clearly missed and hit civilians’…

Fact is: Iranians striking Israeli intel and military facilities simply can’t be truth. Firstly, that’s anti-Semitic to say, and second, because the Israeli - and US deployed in Israel - air defences shot down 194% of all the incoming Iranian terrorist missiles targeting Israeli civilians. So also when that SAM-site defending the Glilot complex missed with four interceptors…

Additionally, the Iranians did not hit a IDF logistic centre in Aman:

…nor something in the Afula area, that reacted with secondaries and big fire:

The last night, one Fattah-1 IRBM did not hit the Lod/Ben Gurion IAP area, another did not hit an Iron Dome SAM-site outside Netanya, one or two other missiles did not hit the Haifa area, while a third Fattah-1 did not evade some 17-20 Israeli anti-ballistic missiles to hit ‘something’ in Tel Aviv. In turn, yet another (4th, 5th or 6th in the last 48 hours) Israeli Arrow-III SAM did go rogue, decided to become an anti-Semite - and malfunctioned on launch…

This is so promising for the European-financed - and Israel-managed - Sky Watch project, can’t say. Can’t wait to get hit by the wreckage of an Israeli missile whenever they install some Arrow-IIIs in Austria…

In total, some 30 Iranian IRBMs were reported as launched the last night alone.

…to be continued…

This text is published with the permission of the author. First published here.

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