Iran has to proceed very carefully up the escalation ladder because there's nukes at the top of it. 'Israel' has completely illegal nukes and a complete disregard for international law, so it won't hesitate to nuke Tehran. America doesn't give a shit, they've been singing 'Bomb Iran' since the 80s. 'Israel' has already dropped four Hiroshimas worth of American bombs on Gaza, what's one more?

This is the strategic calculus Iran has to balance. They have to deter the entity without detonating a nuke, which is delicate work indeed.

The Escalation Ladder

Iran's non-nuclear deterrence involves scaling something called an escalation ladder, which I will let Ibn Riad explain at length:

The Resistance Axis have been very gradually escalating operations in the region. But even gradual escalation builds up over time, and this is central to the doctrine of the Escalation Ladder by which they are pressuring the US-Zionist aggression. As discussed prior, this pressure takes away the one element that the US-Zionist aggression was banking on for their war against Gaza's resistance: time. They will not be allowed a gradual, risk-free operation more akin to a medieval siege than an assault.

Another purpose of the Escalation Ladder is to avoid forcing the US-Zionist enemy into immediate deadly retaliation that leads straight into all-out war. If the nations & factions of the Resistance Axis had conducted attacks from day one at the same level and scale that they are conducting them at today, there is a high chance it would have sparked an immediate regional war. By gradually building up, this has thus far been avoided.

This also means the US-Zionist faction have an ongoing chance to back down at any point. For us, this means avoiding the widespread regional (maybe even global) bloodbath that all-out war will result in. For them, it is a chance to avoid a war that they surely know can end them. But this is not an indefinite offer—the longer their assault goes on, the higher the price they pay (whether through Iraqi fire against US bases in the region or Lebanese and Yemeni strikes against the Zionist army), and the closer an all-out confrontation becomes. The Resistance Axis is not afraid of total war, but want to take every chance to avoid the devastation the US-Zionist faction would cause across West Asia.

Unlike the colonizer and their conscript colony, the natives actually care about the land and do not want to rule over a ruin. Iran has very different strategic goals to 'Israel,' which is just wild-eyed violence at this point. 'Israel' needs its enemies to leave the earth. Iran just needs the Americans to leave 'Israel'.

'Israel' The Non-Entity

It's important to know your enemy, and 'Israel' is a non-entity. 'Israel' would cease to exist in an instant without American insistence, making America the proper point of contention. As Nasrallah said in November 2023,

From the very first days, Israel demanded new weapons, new missiles from the United States. From the first day, Israel demanded ten billion dollars. Is it a strong state, an invincible army, as claimed? A state that requires this amount of US and Western support? Heads of state, heads of government, top brass generals flocking from all over the world to provide moral support. This is what Al-Aqsa [Flood] has caused, this frail entity.

The fact is that 'Israel', even with America, loses to non-state actors. As Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The army that claimed to be among the strongest in the world has been defeated; by whom? By a powerful state? No! By resistance movements, by Hamas and Hezbollah.” You might say the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah were assassinated, but every leader of Hamas and Hezbollah has been assassinated, it's in the JD. The organizations only grow stronger as commanders get promoted to martyrdom, their names inscribed on the next generation of weapons, wielded by the next generation of resistance.

Because the Resistance has been slowly scaling the escalation ladder, 'Israel' has gone from not getting bombed at all before October 7th, to getting bombed in the north and south, to getting bombed in Tel Aviv. Any one of these acts would have triggered regional war before, but because they've been scaled up, one step at a time, they just become the new normal for 'Israel'. The non-entity increasingly does not exist. 'Israel' first lost land in occupied Lebanon in 2006, now it's lost land in occupied Palestine, and now it has to be on daily life support from America or it will cease to exist entirely.

America The Empire

Nasrallah's greatest insight was knowing your enemy. He wasn't distracted by 'Israel', hiding behind Jewishness. He named the Great Satan, which was America. As Nasrallah said,

We all must establish this fact. The United States is totally responsible for the war raging in Gaza against unarmed, defenceless people. It is the United States that vetoes condemnation of Israel in the security council, the United States that stands in the way of a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the United States proving once again as described by Khomeini - it is the greatest Satan, the great devil, from Hiroshima to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine. The United States must be held liable and then penalised for all what has been perpetrating against our people and the people of the region.

Thus Nasrallah named the true manipulator behind his martyrdom. 'Israel' is merely the weapon, America is the one wielding it. Israel is just another proxy army of America, which has had (and discarded) many historically. Take America out of the equation and there is no 'Israel'. The tail does not wag the dog, and you'd be a fool to take the dog's word for it.

Defeating 'Israel' thus means defeating America and—as daunting as this seems—America has lost every war for decades. The last 50 years have been America's long retreat from the world, covered up in a big smokescreen. Ask (North) Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, et cetera. America kills, tortures, and scatters a lot of people, but eventually leaves in ignominy. As the Taliban said, “You have the watches, but we have the time.” In yesterday's (1 October 2024) missile attack on 'Israel', for example, the US fired 12 SM-3 interceptor missiles, of which they only produce 12 a year. When you're throwing Rolexes at Casios, eventually you run out of both time and money.

The lesson every freedom fighter has learned is that you don't have to knock America out, you just have to wear them out. The guerrilla army wins by not losing. As the late, great Palestinian pharmacist and philosopher of war Basil Al-Araj said, “Our direct human and material losses will be much greater than the enemy's, which is natural in guerrilla wars that rely on willpower, the human element, and the extent of patience and endurance.” He continued, before he was cut short, “Today's wars are no longer just wars and clashes between armies but rather are struggles between societies. Let us be like a solid structure and play a game of biting fingers with the enemy, our society against their society.”

The Quranic Clock

The idea of a 'solid structure' is, I think a Quranic reference. Whenever I pray at English Mosque in Colombo, I'm not that good at it. They always tell me to 'straighten the rows'. Worshipers are supposed to pray as one body, like bricks in one edifice. As current Ayatollah Khamenei said in a sermon in 1979,

‘Indeed, those who have believed and migrated and struggled with their possessions and their persons’—and against their possessions and their persons—‘and those who gave them shelter’—when they were refugees without a home—‘and helped, they are guardians of one another’—they are bound together on the same side. They are of a single substance. They are the bricks and mortar of a single structure. ‘The likeness of the faithful is like an edifice; they support one another.’ Have you seen how these bricks go together in these ornate ceilings? Each brick is a single believer. Each believer is a single brick. They fit together and support one another. Together they form a structure that takes great effort to demolish. Tens of bricks side-by-side. This one brick helps to protect the whole, and the whole all help to protect this one brick. ‘They are the guardians of one another.’ Held together by strong bonds. United.

Or as the recently ascended martyr Khaled Al-Najjar said, while being tortured by IOF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz,

Khaled said, "You don't have any positive points. When we attacked your military positions, we sought death and martyrdom, while your soldiers sought life. And when your soldiers seek death, they will find life." Mofaz responded, "Forget the philosophy. We will demolish your house, and your children will be displaced." Khaled replied, "I don't advise you. It's just two rooms of brick, not worth it. And when you demolish them, the kids in the neighborhood will grow up to be fiercer than me."

Indeed, the children were fiercer.

Philosophy matters, and those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it, in a death spiral. Any study of the Resistance shows that they only got stronger through assassination. Hezbollah could barely hit a hundred yards away when the first General Secretary was assassinated. Now they can hit hundreds of kilometers. Hamas was one in-fighting faction when 'Israel' assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Al-Yassin in his wheelchair. Now they've created the mythical Unity of the Fields, unifying the Resistance across multiple fronts.

'Israel' repeating targeted assassinations when it always blows up in their face is one definition of insanity. They don't have a real strategy, only terror tactics. On the other hand, the Resistance has a clear strategy, executed slowly over decades, coming to a slow boil abouts now. The strategy is slow escalation along the escalation ladder, turning up the heat but never quite boiling over. As Nasrallah said in 1992, “It is impossible for us to fight the Israeli enemy through traditional and classical methods, but rather [we must fight] through a war of attrition, whereby we drain its energy, weaken it, then one day force it to withdraw.” Indeed, 'Israel' was forced to withdraw from Lebanon in 2006, and is now being forced to withdraw settlers from more and more of occupied Palestine. The Resistance had a plan and—though it seems slow if you view it through the news cycle—they're actually right on time.

As the assassinated leader of Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Al-Yassin said, “To be precise, I say that by 2027, there will be no Israel. The Quran tells us that the generations change every 40 years. During the first 40 years, we had the Nakba, in the second 40 years, the Intifada started, with confrontations the fighting, and the bombs, and the third [group of] 40 years, will see [Israel’s] end, inshallah.”

Within 'Israel' this is what they call the “curse of the eighth decade,” (starting the clock from 1948). Every Jewish state, once constituted, has collapsed within eight decades. David's in 81 years. The Hasmonean in 77. The 'Israeli' state is 76 now, and looks like shit. They've covering up their military losses, which are significant and require a constant spigot of munitions from America, which has also sprung a leak in Ukraine. 'Israel' also requires a constant influx of funds, and their credit rating keeps dropping. They also require a constant influx of migrants and migrant labor, which has all dried up cause it's a war zone. 'Israel' is far less wounded than the Resistance but they're also far more sensitive. The Resistance will live and die in tunnels but 'Israelis' are pampered white people and can't take it. The breaking points of the two combatants are quite different. 'Israel' looks quite unlikely to defeat the 80-year curse, which is a blessing to the region. Unless they go crazy and nuke the earth, which they will, which is why Iran has to be careful.

This is why, most unfortunately, Iran can't just stop the genocide the only way genocides stop. As Gregory Stanton said in the Ten Stage Of Genocide, we are now at the penultimate one, extermination. As he said, “At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide.” Of fully functional states, only Iran is answering this call in earnest (shout out Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon), but Iran can only do so much without getting their own people killed. If they ascend too quickly up the escalation ladder, they'll fall and take millions of souls with them. It's a delicate balance, getting nuclear crusaders out, without getting nuked in the process. These are deeply dangerous times for all of us, if you enjoy being unradiated. Godspeed (whatever speed that is) to the Resistance.