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Posted on 02/12/2026 3:38:15 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
Ask Big Uncle A.I.:
In a Danny Haiphong video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KImuTBmJxn4 titled "Scott Ritter: Iran's Missile Power STUNS Trump, US Navy Left DEFENSELESS", at the 5'34" mark, former U.S. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter makes the following remarks: "… How many missiles did we fire at the Syrian chemical weapons research facility, even though it wasn't a chemical weapons research facility? I think the number was around 60 or so. To destroy one building. About 20 of those didn't work. Many of those actually were downed by electronic warfare and the Syrians captured them, turning them over to the Russians intact. The most advanced Tomahawk missiles were turned over to the Russians intact. That means the Russians have deciphered its capabilities and now that they have a signed agreement with the Iranians, they've given that to the Iranians as well."
The news is now that, while, during the lead up to the June, 2024, Twelve Day War, Iran did not avail itself of Russian offers for defense assistance, since then, Russia and Iran have made a formal defense pact, with numerous inflights of Ilyushin 96, military cargo planes in Iran.
Several factors may not have been developed in strategic analyses of the impending war:
There is the presumption that Iran does not possess missiles capable of hitting Diego Garcia, so that the U.S. Navy keeps the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln outside of a certain zone demarked by the presumed kilometer limits of Iranian missiles.
The U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran if it should sink a U.S. aircraft carrier with 6,000 hands, seems not to have taken into account the fact that there is an apocalyptic religious cultural strain in Iran, typically called "Twelfth Mahdism", in which Iran is not rigidly adverse to taking the whole world beyond the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Given the extent to which Iranian defensive positions are deeply dug in and moderately fortified over a country of very wide geographic extent; given American limitations on offensive missile operations, requiring that ship-borne missiles be resupplied at distant ports and not out at sea; and given uncertainty about whether or not Iran may have received offensive missile upgrades sufficient to allow Diego Garcia to be reached by missiles technology they may have received from the Russians, who are themselves known for nuclear Armageddonism;
What are the prospects that all the contingencies in the projected, imminent conflict have been taken into account in Washington?
Response
Practical takeaway: treat the “captured intact → deciphered → handed to Iran” chain as a high-claim assertion that needs strong independent corroboration before you build strategy on it.
Practical takeaway: “range rings” are a baseline, not a guarantee of safety. Serious planning considers alternate delivery paths.
It is difficult (layered defenses, escorts, electronic warfare), but not a zero-probability scenario. The most concerning danger is not “one perfect hit” but saturation (many inbound threats at once), mines, submarines, or combinations.
Your text also raises an escalation ladder in which the U.S. might threaten nuclear retaliation if a carrier (≈6,000 personnel) were sunk. This is exactly the kind of scenario planners model—because it is the junction where political psychology, alliance credibility, and miscalculation matter most.
Iran’s dispersed geography and hardened/underground posture complicate offensive campaigns. Likewise, ship-borne missile depletion and the need for port-based resupply can become a limiting factor over time.
Practical takeaway: even a highly capable force can be constrained by logistics, and “hard targets” change the cost/benefit calculus of strikes.
Practical takeaway: it’s prudent to model adversary risk tolerance, but most state leadership—even ideological—has historically behaved in regime-survival terms.
Yes, many are. U.S. planning includes red-teaming, escalation modeling, logistics, electronic warfare, proxy scenarios, and base-defense posture.
No, never perfectly. War produces surprises; intelligence gaps and misjudgments occur; political leaders sometimes discount low-probability, high-impact outcomes.
Grounded conclusion: key contingencies are likely analyzed far more than public debate suggests, but it is unrealistic to assume the analysis is complete or error-free.
The productive way to evaluate “strategic blind spots” is to separate: (1) verified capabilities, (2) plausible but uncertain contingencies, and (3) narratives relying on unverified transfer chains. The strongest parts of your argument are the hardened/dispersion and logistics points; the weakest is the asserted “captured missile tech → Russia → Iran” chain absent strong independent confirmation.
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Fact Error: The Twelve Day War wasn’t in June, 2024, it was in 2025.
Scott Ritter seems to have gone whole-hog anti-USA for a while.
Scott Ritter is compromised. I see his name in print and I run away screaming from the article.
CC
Iran has a large military in terms of personnel, tanks, and regional proxies, plus Iran has larger numbers in its missile arsenal.
Yet, Israel is generally seen as militarily stronger due to its annoyingly persistent lobby embedding Israel’s “qualitative edge” in US law without the knowledge and acquiescence of US taxpayers.
Israel slobbers at the US funding trough 24/7 and is dependent on US tax dollars for its advanced air power, the paper tiger of its super-hyped intelligence apparat, and its presumably “cutting-edge” technology.
Israeli military is totally dependent on US tax dollars and thus can throw around its military weight against anyone who stands in the way of Israel’s quest for world domination.
Israel makes a show-and-tell of “strong US support”...... US taxpayer outlays for its multi-layered air defense system....... thus making it appear superior in technological and conventional military effectiveness.
Agreed. Another point, though not a factually incorrect one, is what Russia learned from a captured 2017 Tomahawk. He makes out like that gives them, and Russia’s allies, intimate knowledge of our capabilities today. But IMHO both missile tech and tactics have changed a lot in the past 9 years. Exhibit A is how horrible Russia’s air defense tech was for Iran during the 7 Days War.
The software should vanish when power is lost when the missile hits or after a timeout.
If Ukraine can hit targets deep in Russia, the US can hit target deep in Iran.
The cooking of the 72 virgins might not be as good as is rumored. And they have lots of guests from Gaza to tend to.
Israel makes most of its wartime expendables.
The two-legged expendables it doesn’t make need to behave.
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