© AP Photo / IRNA/ Mostafa Qotbi
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.
T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Israel's shock'n awe on Iran - straight from the trademark US playbook - essentially failed, despite the initial combination of speed, meticulous military planning and the element of surprise, including hacking the Iranian electronic communications within the military grid; decapitation of the vertical IRGC nomenklatura; the spiderweb drone attack playbook; and bombing - ultimately ineffectual - of key nodes of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
It took hours for top Iranian technicians to get their grid back. And once that happened, the tide began to turn, to the point that after surgical missile volleys deep in the night on Sunday, the IRGC announced its capability to seriously disrupt Israel's command and control systems using "enhanced intelligence", thus breaching Iron - or Paper - Dome.
© AP Photo / Leo Correa
Absolutely key infrastructure nodes in Tel Aviv and Haifa have been destroyed - from the Rafael weapons complex (specialized in missiles, drones, cyber warfare and Iron Dome components) to the power plant and oil refinery in Haifa. This is historic in more ways than one.
Compound the cries of joy all across the lands of Islam to the massive psychological trauma inflicted on Israel. The myth of Israeli invincibility has been definitely shattered. Unleashing hell from above, killing women and children and spinning like there's no tomorrow does not win a war against a real opponent.
The tweaked IRGC strategy - applied by an instantly revamped leadership - is being fine-tuned day by day in a calculated, surgical manner. It's not that hard for the IRGC to totally paralyze Israel's economy. Israel has only one oil refinery (already bombed); three ports, of which one is already bankrupt (Eilat) and another is on fire (Haifa); and one airport (already in dire straits).
The blowback on Tel Aviv's desperate, indeed suicidal move - no chess involved - is in effect. Tehran is proving that every Zionist axis calculation that Iran could - and was - bled dry in a matter of hours was, predictably, false.
Comment: There clearly is not enough stress, strain, murder, destruction, war and deceit to feed upon. We have to invent and nourish it...like the crime of hunger.