The Israeli Strike of October 25/26

There are three narratives of the Israeli strike on Iran on October 25/26. Let’s summarize them.

(1) The Israeli Narrative

“We struck Iran with over a hundred planes, we destroyed all their S-300 air defenses. We struck a former nuclear building (Taleghan 2) at Parchen. We destroyed two buildings at Khojir used to house blenders of solid rocket fuel and set the Iranian missile program back two and a half years. We hit one fuel tank at an oil refinery with three waves of attacks. We won, the mission was a great success.”

This is the narrative pumped out by mainstream media. There are a few problems with it, which are addressed in this article.

(2) The Iranian Narrative

“The Israelis attacked, but our air defense held. They struck some targets and we suffered some damage, but our capability is largely unaffected. The significance of this attack should be neither understated nor overstated. The Supreme Council will decide how to respond.”

What could possibly be wrong with this narrative? It is Iran’s usual “balanced” and “humble” line. Don’t they do it well? They usually respond this way before they pull the nasty out of their bag of tricks.

(3) The Alternate Narrative

The Israeli attack on the night of October 25/26 was a cluster. The damage inflicted on Iranian military capability was nothing more than a handful of pinpricks. Israeli strikes on surface targets were feeble, and they did not touch Iran’s underground facilities at all. They’re asking us to take their word for it that they broke Iran’s back. But there are important reasons the Israeli attack failed.

Problem #1. A US NSA intelligence leak on October 17 spilled the beans and caused the Israelis to initially cancel the attack. All the details of the types of weapons to be deployed and their numbers were leaked. Many analysts concluded the Israelis were planning a decapitation strike. None of this is controversial. The document has been made public, and the FBI’s ongoing investigation has identified a suspected leaker. The document is shown in Figure 2 and available here:

NSA Document Leak Published on Twitter X