Eric Zuesse
ZUESSE SUBSTACK

On August 5th, Sergei Shoigu, who recently was promoted from being Russia’s Minister of Defense, to the post of Secretary of the Security Council, met in Tehran with Iran’s President and other top Iranian officials, and agreed to supply to Iran the world’s 2nd-best air-defense systems, the S-400 Triumph systems, from Russia (second-best only to the Russian S-500 system, which is in shorter supply). Right now, Iran is still awaiting the installation and setup of these systems, and that’s why Iran hasn’t yet attacked Israel after those assassinations. 

The S-400 is considered by all experts that I have consulted, to be highly likely to be effective against the two main categories of weapons that the U.S. is preparing to unleash against Iran, by the hundreds, when Iran will respond to those assassinations: Tomahawk missiles, and stealth F-35 and F-22 fighter jets. The Tomahawks are not stealth, and they are subsonic (very slow), but they have the advantage of flying very close to the ground and thus being undetectable by most radars. However, the S-400 Triumph’s radar can track all altitudes, and its missiles fly at a large multiple of the Tomahawk’s speed, and so the system is well suited to hitting Tomahawks. A single S-400 can simultaneously engage 36 targets; and, so, perhaps 10 to 20 S-400s will be needed in order for Iran to deal with the hundreds of missiles and planes that will likely soon be coming Iran’s way in a few days from the U.S. forces. Israel might also be sending its own planes and missiles there, but not likely if Hezbollah in Lebanon unleashes simultaneously against Israel their tens of thousands of missiles, in which case, this would be at least a two-front war for Israel, and so, quite possibly, not predictable as to its ultimate outcome. It might be a victory by Israel against Hezbollah but a victory by Iran against the U.S.; or else it could be a victory by the U.S. against Iran but a defeat of Israel by Hezbollah; or else the Iran-Russia alliance could either win or lose together against the Israel-U.S. alliance together. But the outcome — whatever it would be — could have massive future international repercussions, for each one of the four parties that are involved in it. Furthermore: if not only the U.S. but also Israel end up losing, then that might quickly terminate America’s being the world’s #1 power; so, that would be the biggest upset ever since America became the unchallengeable #1 power when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.

If Israel responds to the missiles from both Iran and Hezbollah by dropping one or more nuclear bombs upon Iran, then either that possibility has already been discussed between American and Russian officials and they will have together anticipated and come to an agreement about what will happen after; or else, they won’t have come to any such mutual agreement; and, if the latter is the case, then either what will come after it will be WW3 between America and Russia, or else America will be abandoning Israel at that point, because, in that situation, the U.S. officials would need to decide whether continuing its alliance with Israel would be worth escalating this matter into becoming a world-annihilating war. If the answer to that question is no, then the entire world, except for perhaps the farthest-rightwing Israelis, will suddenly become greatly relieved to find that there is a limit to how insane America’s leaders are.

In point of fact: the U.S. Government has NO treaty or other ‘legal’ obligation to escalate at that point to WW3. There isn’t even a ‘NATO Treaty’ type of such U.S. obligation regarding Israel. If the U.S. Government chooses at that point to do so (escalate to WW3), it would be entirely optional — not at all obligatory, in any sense.

Here is how that might happen:

The U.S. Government is racing the clock to get all its warships into optimal position to defeat Iran, as Israel’s Government prepares to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon.

America’s aircraft carriers, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Gerald R. Ford, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Georgia, are racing from locations as far away as the Pacific, so as to be ready in time for an expected imminent sudden launch of missiles against Israel by Iran and Hezbollah responding to Israel’s July 30th and 31st assassinations of leaders of Hamas and of Hezbollah.

These U.S. warships carry hundreds of Tomahawk missiles, and numerous stealth F-35s and F-22s, which would presumably be unleashed against Iran immediately if Iran does retaliate against those two assassinations — one of which occurred on Iran’s territory. Iran has promised to retaliate.

On 21 May 2024, National Interest magazine, one of the most respected authorities on war-equipment, headlined “S-400: The Air Defense System That Could Track F-22 and F-35 Fighters: The S-400, a critical part of Russia's defense, is a sophisticated SAM system capable of detecting advanced aircraft, including America's stealth fighters, according to many experts.” It reported: “Summary: The S-400, a critical part of Russia's defense, is a sophisticated SAM system capable of detecting advanced aircraft, including America's stealth fighters, according to many experts.” It sub-headlined “S-400: It Can Likely See F-35 and F-22 Stealth Fighters.” It is likewise very effective against missiles.

As regards America’s Tomahawk missiles: They are subsonic (i.e., very slow), and here is an interesting story about them from the incident on 7 April 2017, the launch of 59 U.S. Tomahawks by Trump against Syria in response to the fraudulent charge by U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media that alleged Bashar al-Assad was behind the actually false-flagged Khan Sheykhun 4 April 2017 alleged sarin chemical attack, which was actually staged by the Al-Qaeda in Syria forces that the U.S. itself was (and is) arming in Syria so as to overthrow Assad: Trump needed to appear to his public to be tough against Assad, and was going to fire 59 Tomahawks into Syria as Assad’s ‘punishment’, and needed Putin to not use his S-400s there against those missiles, and offered to Putin a promise that the Tomahawks would do only minimal damage; so, Putin called-off his S-400s, and this deal was done and was honored by both parties to it.

So: if it is actually the case that Biden is sending in these forces that leading experts think likely to fail against S-400s, and if Israel fails to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon (which also is quite possible if not likely), then what would be the outcome of that?

There has been a battle of wills between Netanyahu, whose career is funded by conservative billionaires, versus Biden, whose career is funded by liberal billionaires, though all billionaires in both U.S. and Israel want Israel to defeat the Palestinians. In this possible scenario, the U.S. regime will be able to say they’ve done the utmost for Israel, even if they’ve failed — but military failure in the United States has been routine ever since the Vietnam War ended in failure in the 1970s, and voters never blamed their nation’s leaders for it, because these were actually wars of choice instead of (as is the case in Russia now) wars of necessity in order to protect the homeland. (The wars by an imperial power seeking to expand — such as America has ben since 1945 — are always wars of choice, because such wars benefit ONLY the nation’s aristocracy, who own the armaments-manufacturers etc., and harm everybody else.) Anyway, Kamala Harris certainly wouldn’t be blamed for losing this war, because the failure wouldn’t be during her own Administration. And as for Biden, this loss would enable him to destroy Netanyahu’s career, and would therefore be a huge win for Biden, even payback for insults that he has endured from him.

And it would, indeed, destroy Netanyahu’s career. It would also greatly harm Israel. But it might be a net benefit for America, no longer to be bearing the huge international PR burden of supporting that blatantly apartheid regime.