🚨 Massive Retaliation: TelAviv Burning, Haifa Struck, Iron Dome Useless. China Condemns Israel

## The new phase of violence What emerges from this exchange is a picture of a transition from covert confrontation to overt, reciprocal warfare—and the shock of that transition is still rippling across political and military establishments. The conversation frames recent events as the culmination of a long-running cycle of strikes, assassinations and shadow operations that finally spilled into what many participants describe as “all-out” fighting between Israel and Iran. The significance is not only tactical; it is symbolic. Cities once shielded from direct attack are now front-line targets, and the psychological boundary that separated the populations of these countries from sustained retaliation appears to have been breached. That shift matters because it alters expectations: states that previously calibrated responses to avoid escalation now confront a new baseline in which large-scale damage and civilian suffering are part of the immediate aftermath of strategic decisions. The discussion stresses that this is not an isolated incident but the predictable result of a pattern in which clandestine operations, targeted killings and incremental provocations have been allowed to accumulate. The narrative advanced in the exchange insists that the present conflict did not emerge in a vacuum; it followed a surprise strike and a diplomatic environment that, according to the participants, was being used strategically. The consequence is a harder, more dangerous geopolitics where assumptions about restraint and proportionality have been eroded. ## Military capabilities and the limits of defense One of the clearest themes of the conversation is the spotlight on defense systems—how they are tested, how they fail, and what their limits reveal about modern warfare. The Iron Dome and other air defenses, long portrayed as bulwarks that make certain kinds of strikes politically and operationally tolerable, are now portrayed as patchy and insufficient against the types of rockets and missiles reportedly used. The exchange highlights footage showing large explosions and strikes penetrating air defenses, raising questions about both technological limits and the strategic calculus that relied on these systems to prevent mass casualties. Beyond the headline claims about failed intercepts, the discussion brings out a more nuanced point: defense systems are not binary shields. They can degrade under quantity and quality of fire, be outmatched by hypersonic or unconventional delivery systems, and be tactically circumvented by attrition and deception. The participants also emphasize that both sides show vulnerabilities—air defenses in Tehran have been breached, as have facilities in Israel—so the narrative is not simply one of unilateral failure but of mutual exposure. The implication is stark: modern conflicts between well-armed states can quickly inflict significant urban and industrial damage even when sophisticated defenses are in place. ## Diplomacy, deception and the fog of war A persistent thread in the conversation concerns the interplay between diplomatic negotiations and military action. What the exchange repeatedly emphasizes is that talks and strikes have been running in parallel, and sometimes in tension. The idea that ongoing negotiations should preclude military strikes is treated as a reasonable assumption—but the participants argue that this assumption was exploited. The conversation advances the claim that diplomatic engagement created an intelligence and political environment that made a surprise operation feasible, and that one of the core grievances fueling fury and mistrust is precisely this mixing of diplomacy with deception. Closely related is the theme of the fog of war: the abundance of conflicting images, manipulated clips, recycled footage and purposeful propaganda. The conversation insists that social media and mainstream outlets alike are awash with material that can mislead the public and policymakers, inflating successes and minimizing losses. In such an environment, decisions taken under uncertainty are more likely to be risk-prone. Participants warn that the fog of war is not merely about imperfect information—it is shaped actively by strategic communications designed to produce advantageous narratives, from claims of imminent nuclear capabilities to suggestions of imminent regime collapse. ## Strategic asymmetries and supply chains Another strand of the discussion highlights the stark asymmetries between the adversaries in terms of industrial base, logistics and external support. The exchange draws attention to how one side can rely on a sustained supply of munitions and spare parts from allies and global defense production, while the other must conserve and manufacture under the strain of sanctions and limited access to parts. This imbalance affects both how long a campaign can be sustained and the tactical choices available: a side with near-unlimited resupply can absorb attrition to its missile inventories in ways a sanctioned state cannot. Energy and infrastructure targets emerge as critical nodes in this contest. Both sides appear to be striking at refineries, ports and fuel storage facilities, recognizing that crippling the energy backbone strains economies, war-making capacity and civilian morale. The conversation posits that degrading these assets is not merely tactical but strategic, designed to erode the opponent’s ability to produce and deploy weapons and to create leverage for negotiations or to hasten a political collapse. Yet the exchange also cautions that attacking such infrastructure carries enormous humanitarian and environmental costs and can invite escalation if the damaged facilities are deemed critical to global trade or provoke third-party interventions. ## Escalation dynamics and the risk of a wider war What the discussion presses on most forcefully is the precariousness of escalation management. Conversations of this sort show a preoccupation with tripwires: incidents that would pull additional actors into the conflict. The exchange repeatedly warns of how narratives of victimhood and the search for a pretext—an American casualty, a sunken vessel in a choke point, an attack on a military base—could be used to justify a more direct and expansive intervention. That logic is familiar from historical precedents, and participants in the video express concern that once a major power frames itself as the aggrieved party, domestic audiences will rally and policymakers will find it starkly easier to authorize kinetic responses. The discussion also points to the logic of copycat tactics: if one side normalizes strikes from within an adversary’s territory or the smuggling of delivery platforms across borders, the other side has incentives to replicate those tactics. This diffusion of methods increases unpredictability and raises the prospect of operations that target dual-use facilities or civilians in ways that break existing norms. Against this backdrop, the exchange stresses that stopping an escalation spiral requires credible signaling, restraint and third-party mediation—none of which are readily forthcoming in the current atmosphere. ## Information warfare and the shaping of narratives The conversation devotes substantial attention to the information battlefield. Participants highlight how competing narratives—about responsibility, proportionality, capability and the prospects for regime change—are being constructed and disseminated rapidly. The discussion highlights two main tactics: one side emphasizes existential threat and imminent nuclearization to justify preemptive strikes, while the other presents retaliation as legitimate self-defense against aggression. Both narratives seek to mobilize domestic support and to influence international actors. The participants also point to the instrumental use of diplomacy as cover and the deliberate planting of misinformation to mislead adversaries. They argu

Massive Retaliation: TelAviv Burning A second night of all out war between Israel and Iran has produced large-scale destruction not only in Tehran but also in Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities. The "iron dome" is not able to shoot down Iranian projectiles and the operation won't be as much of a cake walk the neocons might have thought it will be. At the same time, this is a new low even for US standards, as it is now clear the US was not negotiating in good faith with the Iranians but, on the contrary, was trying to distract them from the sneaky surprise attack that was being planned. #M2 Hello, everybody. So we just had a second night of all-out fighting between Israel and Iran. Of course, all of this is following the surprise attack that the Israelis carried out on Iran, an attack which is an act of war and a clear violation of the UN Charter. What we are seeing unfolding at the moment is exactly as I said two days ago: the Europeans are basically all repeating the mantra that Israel has the right to defend itself, by which they now mean that Israel can basically do whatever it wants. And the Europeans are currently calling on all parties to stand down, which is, of course, a joke, because Israel already from the very beginning said that this is going to be a multi-day and probably multiple-week assault on Iran, and this is not going to be done in just one day. So currently calling on all parties to stand down is basically a call for Iran to surrender. This is not what they are doing. Iran actually is firing back, and don't get me wrong, I find all of this horrible. It is an utterly despicable situation. But it's a despicable situation which, once again, was started—a chain of violence that was started by Israel. And now Israel is actually getting hit pretty hard as well. Although in Iran too, we see that the air defenses of both countries are not able to intercept the projectiles and implements of war coming from the other side. So on the one hand, we get a lot of imagery. I mean, we know by now that at least 78 people have died in Iran, at least on the first day. We hear now that another building, with 60 people who died, was hit in Tehran. We know that people died also in other parts of the country. But at the same time, we're also getting a lot of footage now from Tel Aviv. Iran is successfully firing a lot of rockets into Tel Aviv and is able to take out certain military infrastructure. I don't know what exactly they are—the Israelis were also firing in Iran at an oil refinery, the largest one in the region, or even the largest one in the world, actually. And in return, the Iranians are now also shooting at the oil facilities in Haifa, Israel. So the two sides are going after each other's energy infrastructure, it seems. What exactly is being hit will only come out over the next couple of days. -- 1 of 10 -- But, you know, some of the video footage that is coming out, also on Twitter and verifiably now from this conflict and from Tel Aviv, really speaks a unique language. I mean, the impacts here are huge. So the Iron Dome is definitely failing. I mean, we knew the Iron Dome could not intercept a good part of the Iranian missiles from the last time these strikes happened, about half a year ago, and now we see again that certainly all the hypersonic missiles are making it through. Although, it must be said, the Israelis are able to intercept a good number of missiles—you can see them explode in the skies. But at the same time, a lot of them are coming through, and some of these explosions are very, very frightening and scary. You can see how large these explosions are, and that Israel's defenses are not able to intercept all of them. There's also talk at the moment on the internet that a good part of the missiles that Iran is currently firing are actually older versions, or what they still have in their stockpile, in order to force the Israelis to deplete their missile defense system and then strike through with their more modern weaponry. Although, at the moment, I must tell you all, what you read on Twitter, what you see on Twitter, and what you read in most of the newspapers and so on—all of this is being reported under the fog of war. Especially on Twitter, there's a lot of fakes, a lot of fake videos. It's quite scary, especially videos about jets, like military airplanes being shot down, and some of these things are straight out of video games. Some footage is from other wars, some footage is from Ukraine, some footage is from previous attacks on Israel, like when Iran, the last time, struck Israel after Israel fired and killed people in Tehran. I mean, I must emphasize this time and again: so far, we haven't had a single instance where Iran fired at Israel first. Iran has always fired in response to Israel—either killing people in Tehran, assassinating people there, or assassinating and killing people in the embassy buildings of Iran in Damascus. There are countless such instances in which the Israelis are forcing the Iranians to somehow react or otherwise lose escalation dominance. The point also, at the moment, is that if Iran stands down and stops counter-striking, then Israel will just take that as proof that Iran is weak and double down. And you see this narrative unfolding in front of our eyes, unfortunately, at the moment. I think I have it here. Let me see. This idea that is being circulated—and you see it in several Western newspapers—that Israel's attack on Iran has a real chance of bringing about regime change, that the Iranians and the Americans are operating under the belief that if they carry out this attack on Iran well enough, then not only will they be able to seriously cripple the nuclear program, which is, of course, the number one reason the Israelis are giving at the moment for their unprecedented attack—that the nuclear program is so horrible and is such an imminent threat that if they don't destroy it today, then tomorrow Israel will be annihilated with a nuclear weapon. Luckily, the wonderful Glenn Greenwald on System Update already picked that argument apart and showed that this idea—that Iran is just one or two years away from a nuclear bomb—actually goes -- 2 of 10 -- all the way back to 1984. Glenn Greenwald showed that in 1984 we already had that headline, and ever since '84, every other year, you had these alarmist reports coming out, saying that Iran is just about to get the bomb, just about to get the bomb, just about to get the bomb, and that Iran needs to be taken out now. So the difference this time is that now Israel got the green light—and of course, it got the green light from the United States. What was not clear until very recently, until about a day ago, is that the United States—Donald Trump was intimately involved in this. That's something that is now currently being reported on several news sites with a lot of glee. You know, the gleefulness with which you can read in several outlets that the Israelis and the Americans outsmarted the Iranians, because the Iranians were under the belief that no attack was imminent until the nuclear talks with the United States were concluded. Because—and this is absolutely logical—myself and others, we were all working under the premise that as long as these negotiations were ongoing, the United States would not okay any kind of Israeli strikes, because the goal was still to achieve, through diplomatic means, the denuclearization or a nuclear promise, right? A new nuclear deal, a new JCPOA deal with the Iranians. Because under our mindset, and in the mindset of any kind of rational analyst, that's the best-case scenario, right? You achieve, through peaceful means, a diplomatic breakthrough that then allows for a political reality to take root. And the political reality most of us assumed, for the United States—what they wanted—was that Iran commits to not having a nuclear bomb, and not only commits to it, but that there is a framework agreement that then allows for the verification of that not happening, because that's what the JCPOA was. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was an international agreement that had monitoring branches and gave access to the IAEA in order to monitor the nuclear sites of Iran, and thereby make sure that all of the enriched uranium and so on that they produced would not be able to be used for military purposes but were purely for the civilian program, which is absolutely under the Non-Proliferation Treaty—the right of Iran—and something that also major European countries and the US under the JCPOA didn't question. The right of Iran to actually have a civil nuclear program was recognized, whereas having weapons was outlawed. The idea for most of us was that Donald Trump would want to get back to some form of that kind of deal, which he himself sabotaged back in 2018 by just leaving the JCPOA that was created under Mr. Obama. And the idea that we were operating under was that as long as these negotiations were ongoing, and as long as the "peace president," Mr. Trump, could come back to his people and say, "I got an agreement that makes sure—and is verifiable—that Iran will never have a bomb," that was the goal. But now what we are finding out—and Mr. Trump actually said as much; he admitted that he was fully aware, on Truth Social, that the Israelis were preparing a strike, and he was also gleeful about the fact, and spoke in very high praise about the successful surprise attack by Israel on Iran—that this was a good thing, and that the Iranians had it coming because he gave them 60 days, and on day 61, the Israelis carried out their strike. He said this was all the mistake of Iran, but that he is -- 3 of 10 -- very proud of the fact that he carried out this deception, that he led them to believe everything was still fine, and therefore they were not prepared. Although people knew that if the talks failed, then an attack might come, the fact that the attack came before the talks were even concluded was a surprise. And that is a real surprise. And, you know, the sixth round of talks was supposed to happen today, on Sunday. That's something that also, in Iran, understandably led people to believe that we were still in this diplomatic phase where a positive outcome might be achievable. Now, the Israelis clearly, clearly, utterly abused this. And they also used very, very dirty tactics in order to attack Iran, including smuggling drones into Iran and then launching them from inside Iran—which is exactly the same thing that Ukraine recently did in Russia, starting drones from inside Russia to attack these cities and military bases. Now, Iran has been doing the same—I'm sorry, I constantly mix up the sides. Israel has been doing the same with Iran. And yes, on the one hand, this is now being celebrated as being super cunning. On the other hand, this is really scary. You know, if Israel can do this in Iran, then probably Iran will find a way to do that in Israel. And it's just, you know, it's just a terrorist tactic. It's just a terrorist tactic to try to use the infrastructure of the other against them and then just blow things up. And, you know, also target a lot of civilians—target civilian scientists, nuclear scientists, and civilian infrastructure, civilian blocks. It's a terrorist strategy. And Israel, I would be very careful about being happy about this, just as Israel was very happy about the Pager attacks. But again, if Israel can do this to their enemies, then their enemies will copy this kind of stuff, right? And this is just a form of escalation. And tomorrow it will hit Israel. And actually, Israel is being hit right now. And I cannot emphasize this enough—how much of a shock this must also be to the Israelis. Let's just look at this, for instance: the scale of destruction that Iran is now able to inflict on the capital, Tel Aviv. Entire apartment buildings and neighborhoods are starting to look like the neighborhoods in Gaza. You ca