The Purim War - Part 4, The Ceasefire Fog*

The rally in the stock and bond markets and the collapse in oil prices is signaling that the Purim War is all but over. That, indeed, may be true, but we are a long way from a final settlement and there is a nontrivial chance that fighting will resume.  In fact, both sides have already reported ceasefire violations. We will know more this weekend when the U.S. and Iranian negotiators meet in Pakistan.

In the meantime, ships aren’t traversing the Hormuz Strait, and it looks like Iran wants to set up a tollway. Should that happen, it would represent a severe challenge to “freedom of navigation” on an international waterway, a concept that the U.S. went to war three times in its history. (War on the Barbary Pirates, The War of 1812, and World War I) If Iran prevails on this issue, it could rightly claim, that despite its enormous tactical defeat, it won a significant strategic victory enabling it to hold the global oil market hostage.

Although President Trump has stated that Iran will give up its enriched uranium and end its nuclear program, this hasn’t been confirmed by word and deed by the Iranians. Remember that ending the Iran nuclear program was the primary goal of the war to begin with. We will learn much on this point in a few days.

 

As we previously noted Israel would take the opportunity to take care of its unfinished business in Lebanon. ( See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-purim-war.html ) As we speak Israel is pounding Hezbollah in Lebanon and both the Iranians and the Pakistanis are saying Israel’s war in Lebanon are part of the overall cease fire. Both the U.S. and Israel believe that it is separate issue.

 

Thus, the way I see it, the war is far from over with the ultimate winner being determined by the Hormuz and nuclear issues.

 

*- See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2026/03/purim-war-part-3-end-game.html

The Purim War: Part 2

 We are now nine days into the Purim War (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-purim-war.html ) where the U.S. and Israeli air forces are pounding the Islamic Republic of Iran. With Iran attacking Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States the war has widened to encompass the entire Persian Gulf with shipping all but shut down in the Straits of Hormuz. At this writing the price of WTI Oil has skyrocketed to $106/barrel. The attacks on the Sunni Arab states are all part of Iran's plan to create chaos in the Gulf to force the U.S. to backdown. In addition as we noted Israel has taken the opportunity to respond to Hezbollah attacks to pound them in Lebanon with the Lebanese government intervening on the side of Israel for the first time.

All of this was expected, but if we step back the Israelis and the Americans have made great progress. Iran's air defenses have been neutralized, weapons warehouses have been bombed, police stations have been taken out and earlier today a major oil depot in Tehran was set ablaze. Tehran was suffering from a severe water shortage before the war, the hit to the depot will only exacerbate an already bad situation.

Make not mistake, from both the Israeli and the American points of view the war is progressing well. Within in two weeks much of Iran's offensive capabilities will be eliminated and with that the Straits of Hormuz will have been cleared.

Today Iran selected Motjaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, as its supreme leader thereby undoing a promise of the 1979 revolution to not allow hereditary changes in the leadership. The delay in his appointment signaled major divisions within Iran's ruling circles. By the way Motjaba just happens to own a mansion in London.  My guess is that Motjaba will soon have the same fate as his late father. Once that happens the way will be open for disgruntled members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to seize power and open the way for a political settlement. They will be pushed into it when they lose control of the streets of Tehran to the populace and the oil workers at the giant Abadan refinery strike.

Israel and Iran: The Fog of War

 With Iran rushing headlong towards nuclear weapons, last Friday Israel engaged in a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear programs and its leadership exactly one day after President Trump’s 60-day deadline for a negotiated settlement expired. Iran immediately counter-striked with a barrage of missiles on Israel’s population centers. Since then, the world has been watching successive Israeli air raids on Tehran and Iranian missile attacks on Israel.

 

To Israel this is a war of necessity. Iran has promised to destroy Israel since the Ayatollahs came to power in 1979. Over the years Iran built up its proxy fighters in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. However, with the destruction of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the removal of the Assad regime from power in Syria, and the degrading of Hamas in Gaza, Israel, for the first time, had a free hand to strike Iran.

 

Israel’s goal is to eliminate Iran’s capability to develop nuclear weapons. To that end it has decapitated much of the program’s leadership and has degraded parts of its facilities. However, Iran’s major uranium enrichment facility is buried 1500 feet below ground at Fordow. It is not clear that Israel has the ability to take out Fordow, which might require U.S bunker-busting bombs. If Fordow remains operational, the war would be a failure.

 

As of this writing it is unclear whether the U.S. will attack Fordow and risk a much wider war in the middle east. Alternatively, if the U.S. does not act, the risk of a nuclear Iran would be far greater. Absent Israel pulling a rabbit out of the hat, the ball is in Trump’s court.

 

What happens at Fordow will determine the course of the war and that will not be televised. Without U.S. support can Israel use special forces in a very risky operation and/or taking out the above ground infrastructure (electric power, water, ventilation) by air that keeps Fordow operational remains to be seen. We know Israel has a presence on the ground in Iran, but it is likely inadequate to overcome the heavily guarded and forewarned Fordow site. Remember, Israel cannot conquer Iran, it is pursuing a limited goal of removing Iran’s nuclear capability and that has to be done quickly because Israel doesn’t have the resources for a long war.

Stay tuned.

My Thoughts on the First Anniversary of October 7th

 There are many dates that are seared into our memory.  President Roosevelt, responding to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, called December 7^th, 1941,” a date which will live in infamy” and demanded a declaration of war against Japan. December 7^th,1941, resonates with me because that was that was the day my Dad proposed to my Mom in Central Park.  Four days later Hitler asked for and received a declaration of war from the Reichstag against the United States. Sitting in the audience cheering him on was Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Yes, the antagonism between Jews and Palestinians predates 1948 and 1967. Indeed, well before 1941.

 

On September 11^th, 2001, Al-Qaeda crashed two airplanes into the World Trade Center towers and one plane into the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. I witnessed the attack on the towers from across the street.

 

Today, we memorialize another date, October 7^th, 2023, Israel’s, and World Jewry’s day of infamy. On that day 1200 hundred people in Israel’s Gaza envelope died and 240 were kidnapped by the Hamas terrorists. To put this event into perspective 1200 dead in Israel is equivalent to 40,000 dead in the United States.

 

Now, a year later, a war rages on in Gaza and Lebanon testing whether Israel, a light unto the nations, can remain true to its founding as a democratic home to the Jewish people. It is a war where about 725 soldiers, who in the words of Abraham Lincoln “gave the last full measure of devotion.”

 

It is my hope that “these dead have not died in vain.” (Again, from Lincoln) Just as our Civil War can be viewed as the second American revolution, so too can Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon be viewed as its second war of independence. And it is my hope the war will midwife a new generation of Israeli leadership that will have the wisdom to rise above the country’s divisive internal politics and find a path to seek peace with its neighbors.

My Amazon Review of Ronen Bergman's "Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations"

Clausewitzian Realism in Service of the State

Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman has written a well-researched and readable book on Israel’s secret war of targeted assassinations against its most feared enemies ranging from Iran to Hamas to Hezbollah. In fact as I write this review there is a front page New York Times story (8/7/18) on the assassination of a Syrian rocket scientist on the streets of Damascus that was attributed to the Mossad which remains pound for pound the best foreign security agency in the world. He starts in the pre-state era and goes through 2015 and covers the three main organs of state security: Mossad (external), Shin Bet (internal) and AMAN (military). He covers their great successes and their failures. Unfortunately he is way too much of a critic for my taste.

Bergman begins his book by quoting from Talmud: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” That in a nutshell is the major lesson of his book because a small state surrounded by enemies has to act preemptively if it is to survive. The state has to be a Clausewitzian realist who understands to paraphrase Clausewitz “assassination is the continuation of politics by other means.”

Perhaps the clearest example of realism is when the Mossad hires former Waffen-SS Lieutenant Colonel and Hitler favorite Otto Skorzeny to disrupt an Egyptian missile program in the early 1960s. At that time Nasser recruited World War II German rocket scientists to develop missiles to attack Israel. The operation was a success. Just think about this, Israel hiring a Nazi leader to defeat its current Egyptian enemy.

There are many stories like this with hits taking place in Europe, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Each and every one had to be personally approved by the prime minister. Of course thing often went awry, most notably during the 1982 Lebanon War. It is a high risk business where the lives of the agents are at great risk and the mission can fail if civilians are killed. However, unlike their opponents, the Israeli’s agonized over the potential for collateral damage and actually called off operations because of undue risk to non-targets.

Bergman’s main source for more recent events appears to be former Mossad head Meir Dagan who ran the operation from 2003-2012. Dagan died in 2015 and was a harsh critic of Netanyahu, especially with respect to his Iran policy. Bergman too dislikes Netanyahu but he more kind to Sharon and Begin. I did not like Bergman using his pejorative term “right wing” to describe the Likud faction. I would have used center-right. After all he never called the Labor Party “left wing.”

Despite my criticisms Bergman has written a terrific book. There is much to learn about Israeli tradecraft and how their decision making process worked. And when one reads about operational failures, the critic has to sit in the shoes of the decision makers at the time the decision was made. In the spy business it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Bergman ends his book by noting that we can’t confuse tactical success with strategic success. Israel’s strategic dilemma hasn’t much changed since the aftermath of the 1967 war. It has yet to reach a long term settlement with the Palestinians and still faces a very hostile Iran.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1PFY89UKBK8SG/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv