The Lemon Fool

Struggling to understand what the Iranian leadership expects to achieve with the missile attack on the US base in Iraq and what the financial consequences may be.

The details of the attack are still very sketchy and as of yet no indication if the incoming missiles were intercepted or hit the base or of casualties or damage. However, all articles I have seen agree that the missiles were launched from Iran at the US and would therefore be a potential trigger for a Nato response. An attack on one member being taken as an attack on all.

It seems likely that gold and oil will rally and as of now Dow futures are down 400 points, all likely reflecting the uncertainty that this action has introduced and the uncertainty of what the US may do.

The performance of the Iranian forces in Iran/Iraq war that preceded both Gulf wars would not suggest they could stand against a US or US coalition invasion nor that they could defend their air space for long making this launch seem far more dangerous to Iran than anyone else, although any conflict as the potential to escalate should Russia or China decide to side with the Iranians.

This kind of volatility may reward investors/traders who put in deep limit orders to buy favoured equities if the markets do plunge but if the US response is to build a coalition, invade and force a regime change, equity markets may be down for a substantial period as happened before Gulf war 1 while forces are massed.

Life would be so much more pleasant and happy if competing powers would adapt the tactics of Gandi, but sadly people are what they are.

Regards,

odysseus2000 wrote:Struggling to understand what the Iranian leadership expects to achieve with the missile attack on the US base in Iraq and what the financial consequences may be.

At a guess, a token gesture to try to satisfy public opinion.

This was a general who made his name successfully fighting off Saddam Hussain, back when Saddam was regional henchman of the West. More recently of course he fought against that unintended creation of Western invasions, the Islamic State. One might suggest something of a Churchill figure - to name a leader in our own history who presided over major atrocities in a fight against a greater evil.

The details of the attack are still very sketchy and as of yet no indication if the incoming missiles were intercepted or hit the base or of casualties or damage. However, all articles I have seen agree that the missiles were launched from Iran at the US and would therefore be a potential trigger for a Nato response. An attack on one member being taken as an attack on all.

Does that apply if someone hits back after suffering an attack? American military interests came under attack in the Vietnam war, but that didn't turn it into NATO-vs-Vietnam. And numerous others.

Iran is a complete irrelevance as an investor: Bottom line is is a long way away, has no money, sells us nothing, we sell it nothing, it has no meaningful allies and nothing to offer other than nihilism.

Their repeated threat is to cut off oil supply in Hormuz. Who buys that Gulf oil? China. Let’s see how long the Mullahs want to play that particular game of chicken. My guess is the Chinese will be mighty pissed off if Iran dares put a theocratic foot on the fuel supply for the Far East. Militarily it is so weak that it couldn’t hold the Strait of Hormuz closed against its many enemies for longer than a few days before it gets reopened by the potent threat of American firepower.

So really it is utterly impotent to do anything other than take hostages and promote terror attacks against good folks, which can only besmirch an already cratered reputation.

A big raspberry to the Mullahs is all I can say. They got nothing except curses and empty threats. Ignore them.

The allegedly fearsome Iranian military appear to have just downed a packed civilian airliner that took off from Tehran. Or maybe it just fell from the sky?

Who gave that buncha clowns S300 missiles?

Oh yeah, maybe they bought em with Obamas Danegeld because he was too much of a weak appeaser to stand up to terror loving Islamic states seeking nukes.

Or maybe they didn’t bother to deconflict the airspace before launching their revenge attack on the Great Satan. Or maybe they have no fire discipline whatsoever. In any case it’s a disasterous result for the passengers and Iranian PR.

Trump is an absolute shoo-in for relection. The Mullahs, also are going to win the vote, even when they dont.

A sad situation. Feel sorry for all those innocents who lost their lives. One can hope for de-escalation.

I don't think the uk troops should be in Iraq. It just seems like a risk to me that we could get dragged into a war.

I suspect neither side wants an all out conflict and it will die down shortly, but uncertainty will spook the markets. Wish I had listened and bought some gold funds now!

fca2019 wrote:A sad situation. Feel sorry for all those innocents who lost their lives. One can hope for de-escalation.

I don't think the uk troops should be in Iraq. It just seems like a risk to me that we could get dragged into a war.

I suspect neither side wants an all out conflict and it will die down shortly, but uncertainty will spook the markets. Wish I had listened and bought some gold funds now!

I just sold all my gold (SGLP)at market open. I bought at a bit too high a price so am welcoming the chance to bail out at a decent profit.

I really would only want to be a buyer of gold below $1250/oz.

Now is the time to pick up risk assets at a bit of a cheaper price. I already have iodine tablets and beans in case of Iranian doomsday, this is just the January sales for to pick up equities.

odysseus2000 wrote:Struggling to understand what the Iranian leadership expects to achieve with the missile attack on the US base in Iraq and what the financial consequences may be.

The details of the attack are still very sketchy and as of yet no indication if the incoming missiles were intercepted or hit the base or of casualties or damage. However, all articles I have seen agree that the missiles were launched from Iran at the US and would therefore be a potential trigger for a Nato response. An attack on one member being taken as an attack on all.

It seems likely that gold and oil will rally and as of now Dow futures are down 400 points, all likely reflecting the uncertainty that this action has introduced and the uncertainty of what the US may do.

The performance of the Iranian forces in Iran/Iraq war that preceded both Gulf wars would not suggest they could stand against a US or US coalition invasion nor that they could defend their air space for long making this launch seem far more dangerous to Iran than anyone else, although any conflict as the potential to escalate should Russia or China decide to side with the Iranians.

This kind of volatility may reward investors/traders who put in deep limit orders to buy favoured equities if the markets do plunge but if the US response is to build a coalition, invade and force a regime change, equity markets may be down for a substantial period as happened before Gulf war 1 while forces are massed.

Life would be so much more pleasant and happy if competing powers would adapt the tactics of Gandi, but sadly people are what they are.

Regards,

1. NATO article 5 states, "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." See https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm It goes on to provide for out of area operations in various circumstances, most obviously various carefully defined other locations, and is written in such a way that it is difficult for one country to drag all the others involuntarily into out-of-area conflicts. So ordinarily an attack on a NATO country when the target was not within the NATO areas would fail the Article 5 test.

2. The missile attack on the bases overnight seems to have been very carefully designed to signal by the Iranians to the man/woman in the Arab street, much more than anywhere else. Indeed it was almost certainly pre-warned to the west so that the chance of any casualties could be greatly reduced, that is consistent with various actions & timings. So far I have not seen any reports of any casualties that have any credence. Let's hope it stays that way.

3. The Ukrainian flight PS752 was of a Boeing 737-NG, not of the 737-Max. Soon after the crash the Ukrainian embassy in Iran issued a statement saying that it was a engine failure. They have since retracted that. On various aerospace forums there is a lot of discussion around the damage patterns. A video shows in-flight fire and pre-impact partial breakup. The two most likely causes are an engine failure or warhead shrapnel damage. Above all people the Ukrainians will be very keen to understand what has happened, and per the shoot-down of MH17 by the Russian missile they will know the damage signatures to be alert for.

4. There was some seismic activity in Iran overnight that has geological fingerprints, source being quite deep, but if you were just a normal person at the time you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So, a lot going on.

regards, dspp

dspp wrote:
Soon after the crash the Ukrainian embassy in Iran issued a statement saying that it was a engine failure. They have since retracted that. On various aerospace forums there is a lot of discussion around the damage patterns. A video shows in-flight fire and pre-impact partial breakup. The two most likely causes are an engine failure or warhead shrapnel damage. Above all people the Ukrainians will be very keen to understand what has happened, and per the shoot-down of MH17 by the Russian missile they will know the damage signatures to be alert for.

Engine failure: A failure mode to be expected where an airframe meets a warhead.

The Iranians are all mouth and no trousers. I think your assesment about face saving and prewarnings is on the money. They ought to be bricking it right now: If they kill a US soldier with Trump at the wheel, all bets are off.

Doesn't the US military have the ability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles? I thought they did but presumably not in this case.

RC

ReformedCharacter wrote:Doesn't the US military have the ability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles? I thought they did but presumably not in this case.

RC

They have the Patriot system which is pretty good but not as good as the S400 Russian system.

John

ReformedCharacter wrote:Doesn't the US military have the ability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles? I thought they did but presumably not in this case.

RC

I don't think they have deployed any of the relevant Patriot batteries (or indeed any of the other systems that can manage anti-IRBM duty) within Iraq at present. Roughly speaking the anti-IRBM missile needs to be located pretty close to the IRBM target for an intercept to be possible. My understanding is that the US or any of the western nations no longer have any expensive aircraft located within Iraq, just relatively light infantry forces, mostly in the training role. They are supported by aircraft flying in from outside of Iraq. Therefore there is no good reason to deploy anti-IRBM batteries to within Iraq, as they themselves would require significant force protection and be at risk from ground threats. And the Patriots that are at / near the airbases outside of Iraq are in the wrong place to do an intercept. Ditto for the enhanced version of the Aegis on the various cruisers/destroyers, they are simply in the wrong place to be useful.

From watching this happen over the last few days there was a lot of signalling going on.

One needs to bear in mind that Iraq is a sovereign nation. The various western troops that are deployed within Iraq are subject to - and pretty much comply with - the legal arrangements that are in place between Iraq and the troop providing nations. What is interesting about the assassination is whether it was conducted by US forces from entirely outside of Iraq, or whether some of them were in fact based within Iraq. The legalities of what happened, and the implications for ongoing western involvement in Iraq, are likely going to be affected by that. If of course the Iraqis really want to know the answer

regards, dspp

ReformedCharacter wrote:Doesn't the US military have the ability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles? I thought they did but presumably not in this case

The problem with "destroying" incoming missiles is that all the "destroyed" bits still have to land somewhere. And since simple Iranian missiles are usually on a basic ballistic trajectory, the bits can still be expected to land on or near the intended target. Particularly if said target is a large area, like a military base.

So a successful intercept can reduce casualties, but it doesn't necessarily eliminate them. As has often been demonstrated in rocket attacks on Israel.

Gryff

gryffron wrote:

ReformedCharacter wrote:Doesn't the US military have the ability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles? I thought they did but presumably not in this case

The problem with "destroying" incoming missiles is that all the "destroyed" bits still have to land somewhere. And since simple Iranian missiles are usually on a basic ballistic trajectory, the bits can still be expected to land on or near the intended target. Particularly if said target is a large area, like a military base.

So a successful intercept can reduce casualties, but it doesn't necessarily eliminate them. As has often been demonstrated in rocket attacks on Israel.

Gryff

From reading around they seem to have used 15 x Fateh 110 which are guided weapons of either the ballistic or semi-ballistic nature. Of these 4 appear to have failed and fallen short. The other 11 have landed somewhere near their intended destinations. Probably exactly at their intended destinations ....

The Fateh 110 has a variety of models. Some of them have various forms of guidance, both GNSS, E/O, IR, and maybe even a ARM version. Open source reports of a 6m CEP combined with a 500kg warhead means that one does not want to be on the receiving end if possible.

(By the way a Patriot intercept on these, or an Iron Dome hit, etc, would ordinarily be a far better outcome for the recipient than no intercept. But it would likely be a bad $$ exchange.)

The evidence so far - i.e. the lack of reported casualties & reported damage - suggests that the targets were deliberately chosen to be empty patches of sand. They could have used larger missiles with larger warheads, and either more or less guidance. Instead they appear to have chosen one of their cheaper mass produced weapons with sufficient reliability, and enough precision, and well-disclosed technology, that they could be fairly sure of not hitting anything and not giving anything away. It will be fascinating to see what they were signalling if we actually get to see photo-imagery.

I have a vague memory of the Iranians using one of these to assassinate a Kurdish leadership group a couple of years ago. They targeted the conference room in a complex and got a direct hit on the room itself, and the people they were after. They are not at all an unguided V2 derivative.

The Iranians have been operating the most effective indigenous military-industrial complex in the Middle East for the last 40-years, excepting Israel. Just look at the strategic outcome they have obtained and one should give due credit. One might not like it, but recognise it for what it is. They are also able to maintain the strategic aim for longer than the West, at least so far. Given the pace at which the end-of-oil is approaching it seems to me they will likely outlast the KSA etc.

By the way the UK is still issuing dual use export permits for exports to Iran, even right today. There is a lot of signalling going on at present, not just by the Iranians and the USA.

regards, dspp

dspp wrote:
4. There was some seismic activity in Iran overnight that has geological fingerprints, source being quite deep, but if you were just a normal person at the time you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So, a lot going on.

regards, dspp

dspp,
please help me understand the significance of this last point
tuk020

TUK020 wrote:

dspp wrote:
4. There was some seismic activity in Iran overnight that has geological fingerprints, source being quite deep, but if you were just a normal person at the time you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So, a lot going on.

regards, dspp

dspp,
please help me understand the significance of this last point
tuk020

My first thought was nuclear weapon test, but could be natural as no reports of other signatures such as gamma rays.

Regards,

TUK020 wrote:

dspp wrote:
4. There was some seismic activity in Iran overnight that has geological fingerprints, source being quite deep, but if you were just a normal person at the time you wouldn't necessarily know that.

So, a lot going on.

regards, dspp

dspp,
please help me understand the significance of this last point
tuk020

Large weapons detonating tend to make the ground move. People with weapons tend to know that. So moving ground tends to make people with weapons twitchy. Especially if there other reasons to be twitchy.

regards, dspp

A good NY Times article, from the archives, courtesy John Kemp Reuters
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013 ... -commander
dspp

dspp wrote:Large weapons detonating tend to make the ground move. People with weapons tend to know that. So moving ground tends to make people with weapons twitchy. Especially if there other reasons to be twitchy.

regards, dspp

Thanks, I thought you were implying a large weapon, but I understand now you are saying that folks locally may have assumed a large weapon(s).
tuk020

I have now seen the wreckage photos purported to be the downed airliner: No doubt in my mind that the fuselage section pictured was battle-damaged. There are patterns of damaged punctured aluminium parts characteristic of shrapnel spraying from a fragmentation warhead in proximity to the airframe.

Let me be the first to salute the indefatiguability in stupidity of the Iranian state.

Either Irans military is so utterly and grotesquely incompetent to shoot down a large civilian passenger jet that left their own airport minutes before and was under their own Air Traffic control scheme. Or they deliberately targeted for murder 176 civilians.

Epic, epic fail either way.

Let’s see your apologist like Jeremy Corbyn excuse this.

JoyofBricks8 wrote:I have now seen the wreckage photos purported to be the downed airliner: No doubt in my mind that the fuselage section pictured was battle-damaged. There are patterns of damaged punctured aluminium parts characteristic of shrapnel spraying from a fragmentation warhead in proximity to the airframe.

Let me be the first to salute the indefatiguability in stupidity of the Iranian state.

Either Irans military is so utterly and grotesquely incompetent to shoot down a large civilian passenger jet that left their own airport minutes before and was under their own Air Traffic control scheme. Or they deliberately targeted for murder 176 civilians.

Epic, epic fail either way.

Let’s see your apologist like Jeremy Corbyn excuse this.

My bold - and your area of expertise is what exactly?