Understanding Iran-Israel Conflict: Asymmetrical Warfare and Geopolitical Dynamics

okay so um as you know from your research on April 1st the Israelis struck the Iranian Embassy in Damascus

Syria killing seven people including two commanders this is an active War because the embassy is considered Iranian

territory and never before has this been done intentionally okay and this follows um

The Killing the assassination of their General Kasam salamani in 2020 right this is when the Americans launched a

drone strike against him in in Baghdad and he was really the top um one of the top Iranian

generals and what both of these um incidents show us is that the Americans and the Israelis have dominance over

Iran okay so military dominance so the first thing is they have technology

right so te technologically America and Israel are so much Superior to Iran um so that there's a jet that went

from Israel and went to Damascus to car out the strike now if you did the research you would know that the can

Embassy is right next to the Iranian Embassy and the um strike was so precise that it only hit the Iranian Embassy and

didn't touch anything else okay that's a position strike that's how powerful the technology that the Americans and

Israelis have okay but the other thing that's important is the idea of intelligence so how did the Israelis

know that these commanders would be there at that time right that's intelligence and intelligence comes in

two forms right right there's the idea of human and then signals signals is

basically I can listen in on your cell phone I can track where you go I know where your car is right that's signals

electronic intelligence the other's human so there are spies in the embassy who tell the Israelis that this meeting

will happen Okay so this is clearly military dominance that Israel and Americans possess over Iran

um and when this strike happened um as you know the Iranians had to respond and this was called operation true

promise and the idea of true promise was that um there there's a strike package okay consisting of

300 drones and missiles that hit

Israel now now what they Isel say is that 99% of these drones and missiles were intercepted they caused no

damage and the Israel says this shows that our Iron Dome system is amazing we're amazing Iran cannot touch us what

the Iranians said is that no we design the attack to be um harmless we want we wanted we

intentionally designed the attack so that it would not cause that much damage okay so who's right the the

Israelis or the Iranians I want to make an argument to you today that the Iranians are more

believable more credible okay and the reason why is that the Iranians have to be very strategic

in their response to the Americans in and the Israelis and the reason why is the Americans in the Israelis have

milary dominance over Iran but just because you have military dominance does not mean you'll

win the war okay so what I believe is that Iran and Israel are committed to a war and it's possible that in two years

time there will be a ground invasion of Iran okay but it's going to take time to build up to the ground

Invasion and but just because the Americans and the Israelis attack Iran does not mean they will win okay and the

reason why is that as you know from your research in 2002 the Americans actually tried to invade Iran okay they

had they run a simulation called the 2002 Millennium Challenge and the idea is let's pretend that we will invade

Iran and let's see what happens so they divide the military into two teams right Team USA

and team Iran now um if you know anything about the American Military you will know that

it is the most dominant powerful military ever to exist in human history okay it is crazy

powerful if the entire world were were to get together and said let's go fight the United States the world would

lose the the United States has the most powerful military in the entire world okay and

Iran um it's a it's a very poor country so the United States invaded Iran and they wanted to see what would

happen and it turned out that who won Iran won okay and the reason why Iran won is the idea of asymmetrical

Warfare all right and this is a very important idea that you must know if you are to understand this conflict

so what is as asymmetrical Warfare all right let's pretend that Jack and I are enemies we hate each other and we want

to kill each other okay Jack has armor and he has a machine gun I have nothing okay so in most battles Jack's going to

kill me right but let's pretend that I live in a dark forest and it's really hard to see

in this Dark Forest but I've been living there for de ades okay so I know Dark Forest very very well so if Jack attacks

me in this Dark Forest then it's possible for me to win because I can set traps right I can play tricks on Jack

and that's the idea of asymmetrical Warfare okay even though Jack is superior because I'm inferior I'm forced

to be much more strategic in how I fight against Jack okay and so as as ascal Warfare means that as

long as you can Define the terms of Engagement as long as you can um control how the war is fought you will

win okay so let's look let's look at what this means for Iran and the United States so the United States has these

aircraft carriers and they cost like a billion dollars okay they're very expensive but they're

very powerful now in a s symmetrical Warfare what happened is Iran send its entire

Navy against this one aircraft carrier of the United States and then what happens the United States blows up the

entire Iranian Navy okay that's what would happen so you don't do that okay you do not send your Navy against an

American aircraft carrier what you do instead is you send drones okay or drone swarms so what they did in the

Millennium challenge was they had these suicide bools right charging these aircraft carriers and guess what guys if

there's a lot of them like a thousand of them you can't stop all of them and if one hits then your boat sinks okay does

that make sense okay this is what we call asymmetrical Warfare now what's important to understand is that in as as

asymmet Warfare you have to control how much resources you use okay so for example this aircraft CER cost a billion

dollars the Drone swarms okay a drone maybe a $1,000 for a real one okay but then you

have fake ones that cost $100 $1,000 are these drones that blow up right $100 are drones that don't blow

up right you have a th000 of these and then you that's like $10 million

and then you have 10,000 of these and that's another $10 million okay so it will cost you maybe $20 million to blow

up an air a$1 billion aircraft carrier does that make sense and this is why Iran want would win a war because

Iran would employ as Asal Warfare Jon SWS against the American aircraft carriers okay and um the true promise

actually showed us that the Iranians would probably use a strategy and the reason why is that the total package the

strike package that thein used um cost about 10 to $30 million but how much money did they

spend to bring down these drones did you guys do you guys know how how how much did it cost the

Israelis to defend themselves against this attack okay it was one at least one1

billion doar okay do you understand all right

so this is this shows us that um in a war Iran would use AAL Warfare and it it it and even

though Israel United States have military dominance they may not be able to win this war okay okay so so does

this make sense so far any questions about this okay that's a really good question

okay and the qu the question really is okay listen the the Iranians will use this asan asan IAL Warfare strategy

against the Americans and so shouldn't the Americans respond with more strategic thinking and

that's a great question and the answer is the Americans would not do that why not why is it that a Asal Warfare is so

effective against uh Empires and dominant military Powers what's a problem of Empires

usually what is their biggest problem what is the Fatal flaw okay they have too much bureaucracy

but Iran also has bureaucracy but but the empires have a much bigger problem okay now let's go back to the Millennium

challenge now in the first test in the first battle Iran won against the United States right so what did the United

States do and do what they they they did it again they they

did another sec they did second simulation the second simulation what did they

do exactly okay what the Americans said is nope this is cheating guys can you understand as Warfare is

cheating you cannot cheat and then the Americans won does that make sense okay so remember in the

first instance where you are allowed to use Asal Warfare they one in the second instance the Americans said no as

asymmetrical Warfare is cheating so you're not allowed to use Asal Warfare you must fight us directly and the

Americans won what does this tell us about the about the American

Military exactly thank you okay they are inflexible empires have are inflexible and the reason why is the idea

hubris right if you're an Empire you refuse to Amit your failings and

faults you become very stubborn okay so it's back to the example of Jack has his machine gun his armor right he comes in

the Star Force thinking like I'm Invincible right and like everyone's like Jack don't go into that dark Forest

it's stupid but Jack's like no I have a machine gun I don't care all right so that's a situation that's

why Asal Warfare is so effective because it allows you flexibility and

creativity and the Empire the dominant power refuses to be flexible and creative okay does that make sense all

right and um so the classic example of this is Vietnam where the vietn were clearly dominated by by The Americans

but the vs were using extremely creative and flexible tactics against Americans whereas the Americans insisted on their

main military Doctrine okay does that make sense all right great okay any more questions that was a great question

thank you uh any more questions before we move on okay so now I want to talk about okay

if the Iranians are going to use as Asal Warfare what would it look like and the answer is

this when the when the Americans invade okay the war started before The Invasion the Iranians must do four

things if it is to Prevail in the war okay and this is this is what we call the

Iran strategy Matrix okay um the IR Str Matrix means

that uh from now on EV do must uh fit into the strategy Matrix okay it must accomplish the objectives

of the Strategic Matrix so the first thing it it must do is unite the

population okay second thing it must do is build alliances the third thing is whenn

global opinion the four fourth is weaken the

enemy okay so in other words everything that Iran is going to do from now until the actual Invasion will be to

accomplish all four goals at once and it must if it is to survive a fullscale American Invasion okay does that make

sense all right so you have the population what does this mean okay it means that you win the war depending on

how much your population is willing to resist the invasion and it turns out that even though the Iranians right now

are divided okay there's a lot of opposition towards the current government in Iran um as some of you

know there have been some protests over the past few years women protesting for more rights in in Iran okay so there's a

lot of division in that country but I think that most IR Ians would resist in an invasion the reason

why is that the Iranians have a very bad history with westerners okay so the example is

the 1953 K okay so what happened is that um in 1909 the British discovered oil in

Iran it was called Persia back then and so they so they created a company called the um Anglo Iranian petroleum company

which we now know as British Petroleum okay BP and the idea is that this company

would be responsible for extracting and selling all the oil and but unfortunately the deal was

that Iran Persia would only get 16% of profits okay they only got 16% of profits

so the Iranians are very upset about this it's their oil it's their resource but they're not getting that much money

out of it okay it's basically stealing so for decades the Iranians have been trying to renegotiate the deal in

1953 the democratically elected government of Iran said to the British listen let's do

50/50 okay that's fair 50/50 50% for us 50 50 50% for you you right that's a fair deal and the British instead of

saying yes went to the Americans and the British and Americans together launched a

cout against the democratically elected government of Iran and install a police state called the

Sha okay the shaw which is like the monarchy okay and the shaw the king of of of Iran was so

brutal that he created a police state in 1979 the Iranian people overw Asha okay and and and so uh the

Iranian people do not like the idea of foreign Invaders coming coming in and controlling their resource okay does

that make sense so over time as Israel and as America continues to be aggressive

towards Iran the population will start to coales and fight against um the Americans okay so that's unit the

population second is build alliances now um Iran has two layers of Alliance the first lay is called the

axis of resistance right which which you um which I ask you to research and the aess of resistance uh

includes uh the Shia mil militias in Iraq Syria heson Lebanon Kam M and the hthis in Yaman Okay now what's important

to understand is that this is not an alliance that that sorry what's important to understand is that this is

an alliance okay they agree to fight together because they have common interest which is

to to remain independent of American influence okay but that but that does not mean that Hamas hollah and hufi take

orders from Iran okay they're not controlled by Iran Iran supports them militarily and financially but Iran

cannot completely control their behavior okay so the example is October 7th Kamas launched an attack against uh

Israel right which resulted in this war and Iran says we were not involved and is is Israel Israel says that can't be

true because you control uh Hamas right so that's the first lar of Alli but what Iran needs to do if it is to

win the war is also bring in uh Russia and China okay Russia wants the United

States to fight Iran why yeah but true to to distract and weaken the United States um and also to

uh move their attention away from Ukraine right does that make sense because Russia is about to win the war

in Ukraine um and if there's a war in Iran then United States will be forced to

divert resources away from Ukraine into Iran okay um what would Russia bring to the table Russia will probably not

deploy soldiers okay well what Russia would do is say the United States when you invade Iran you are not allowed to

use new Tactical nuclear weapons okay you understand Russia would say that hey hey hey United States if you use weapons

nuclear weapons against Iran we will we will use nuclear weapons against you okay so basically um Russia would limit

the military options of America in a war which would be of tremendous benefit and advantage to Iran does that make

sense China needs to help Iran why what does Iran have that China really

needs what does Iran have that China really really needs it really needs this Chinese economy needs

what oil right so basically China can afford for United States to take take over both

Iraq and Iran because then it can control the energ energy Supply to China does that make sense so China would

involve itself um over time in order to make sure that it's able to obtain oil from the Middle East China right now is

getting most of its oil from the Middle East okay um but it will take time

for Russia and China to get to get themselves involved for russan trying to to to get themselves involved in this

conflict Iran must prove two things what are these two things what must Iran show to China and

Russia in order to get China and Russia involved in this conflict if you're China and Russia

you're an investor right Why will why will I invest in you Iran why exactly okay so the first thing is

we will fight second thing is we will win okay so this will take time for Iran to

prove this to to Russia and China and the more that Iran can show it can win the more that China and Russia will

invest in Iran both financially and militarily and politically okay does that make sense okay so this will take

time and the third thing is when Global opinion so how will Iran win Global opinion

what's happening right now that's helping Iran win Global opinion basically what's happening in the world

right now that is helping Iran win Global opinion or why is the world becoming more supportive of

Iran what thing is happening right now that is outraging or angering the world uh what's happening right now what's

Israel doing right now that is outraging the world yeah Gaza

okay so this is really important for Iran it must maintain the world Spotlight on Gaza okay because what's

happening in Gaza it's basically genocide right where the Israelis are committed to solving the Palestinian

problem once and for all that basically means removing the Palestinians from Gaza they can go to Egypt they can go to

Jordan it doesn't matter okay but the Israelis the Israelis want them out of Gaza okay and so this will go on for

many many years and as long as the attention is on Gaza then people will become much more sympathetic towards

Iran over time okay if you've been following the news about America there have been major protests at Yale and at

Columbia and other universities about what's happening in Gaza okay all right um and the last is weaken the enemy okay

so what what does this mean it means that when the United States invades Iran two years from now six years from now

who knows but when it does so it wants to build a large Coalition of forces okay because then it gives because then

it gives itself legitimacy right so this this coalition will consist of

NATO uh Middle East countries right um and Israel uh Saudi Arabia many many

countries and what Iran needs to do is create conflict and descent in this Coalition okay and the way it does that

is by building up internal okay does that make sense there are many people most people in America do not

support a war against Iran and so Iran needs to encourage this internal descent okay it can also create conflict between

NATO and the United States okay because obviously America will want NATO involved in its invasion of Iran but why

would France and Germany want to involve itself right okay does that make sense so these are the four major goals of

Iran and it must accomplish all four goals if it is to survive in an invasion okay so from

now on everything that Iran does will be to accomplish all four goals okay and this is part of as asymmetrical Warfare

does that make sense all right now let's look at a concrete example the concrete example

is Operation two promise why did Iran design operation two promise the way it did and the answer is to accomplish all

four goals right the first is unit the population the idea here is Iran needed to show its population that Iran can

strike back against Israel okay so that's the first thing build alliances striking Israel is showing um

its allies and to China and Russia that Iran is willing to fight okay win Global opinion now what Iran

said is we designed the strike to not cause damage in Israel and the reason why is it wants to win glob

Global opinion right if it if it throws all these missiles and Rockets at Israel and it kills a lot of people then

there'll be a lot of people sympathetic towards Israel so the attack was designed Not to cause any casualties

okay does that make sense all right and if you are an observer you think that what Iran did was right because it's a

sense of fairness and Justice right what Israel did was wrong it attacked an embassy of Iran Damascus that's against

that's that that is against international law and Iran to save face uh to pursue

Justice thre some rockets at Israel okay so most people think that Iran's response was show restraint and it was a

measured response okay does that make sense right and the last thing is weaken the enemy why would why would this

weaken the enemy well because after Iran attacked Israel Israel wanted to show a strong

response Okay the reason why is that Israel has a policy of disproportionality so Israel is

committed to dispop disproportionality so what does that mean it means that if you kill one Israeli they'll come 100

they come and kill about a hundred of you or a thousand of you okay if you throw one rocket at them they'll throw a

thousand rockets at you and the idea here is the Torance right to make you afraid of Israel so you would not dare

to think to attack Israel okay so when Iran um attacked Israel for the first

time by the way this is the first time that Iran has attacked Israel then Israel was committed to a

disproportionate response who stopped Israel from a disproportionate response

who yes why why would the United States say Israel do not strike back disproportionately why why would the

United States do that yeah okay so the United States cannot afford right now to fight another

war and also um if the United States were to fight a war it it would have to do so by itself okay NATO would not

involve itself the Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia UAE Jordan would not involve themselves either okay

so the United States had to restrain Israel and so this is creating conflict between Israel and United States okay so

that's why uh so in other words from a from a military dominance perspective operation two promise accomplish nothing

okay because you blew nothing El but from an asymmetrical Warfare perspective you accomplish all

your four major goals and that's why um the Iranians claimed success and you can make the argument that from a strategy

perspective it was a very successful operation okay does that make sense all right any questions about this

anything uh you want to clarify or you don't really understand does this make sense to

you okay so Peter asked a great question like this war how will it affect us we're going to United States for college

we're trying students okay and the answer is this okay the answer is um in war there something called Rules of

Engagement and so before they have a war all the major parties agree on what the rules are okay so for example you look

at the war in Ukraine now the United States and NATO are openly openly supplying weapons and

financing and intelligence to Ukraine right but from the Russian Russian perspective we allow that okay we do we

will not allow NATO to send troops to fight with with the ukrainians but we will allow NATO United States provide

weapons and financing okay does that make sense that this is what we call the Rules of Engagement the rules of

War okay so the same thing would happen if the United States were to invade Iran

before the actual invasion there would be an agreement among all major parties which would include um Iran United

States Russia China Israel about the rules of war and and so one important rule of war is you're not allowed to use

tactical nuclear weapons okay Iran you may have nuclear weapons you're not to use them United States you have nuclear

weapons Israel you have nuclear weapons but you are not allowed to use them in in this war okay that would be the first

uh agreement second agreement is that Russia and China are allowed to provide assistance in a very limited

basis okay so so China would probably provide weapons and material but this will not impact the relationship between

China and the uh United States okay and during this war China will maintain a position of what we call

Strategic ambiguity and all this is saying is that China is not going to say that we support Iran

okay Russia will not come out and say we support um Iran never um before before this war happens Russia and China could

if they choose sign a treaty with Iran saying that if if anyone attacks you we'll come to your Aid right they will

not sign this treaty because they need to maintain strategic ambiguity okay China and Russia do not

want to be dragged into this war does that make sense okay so uh my guess is that China

will provide assistance to Iran but on a very limited basis and on a basis that the United States can

accept Okay that's the first thing second thing is listen I I'm just making prediction that this war that that this

war will happen I don't know it's going to happen Okay you understand I'm I'm just High School

teacher I'm not making the the the decisions okay I'm just teaching you how to think about

geopolitics um and third of all when when you actually in the United States you'll find that there's so much anger

at Israel that no one really cares about Chinese students do do you understand I mean

like at that point um most Americans will be extremely anti-war uh it it would be like the Vietnam War

where um you have these massive you have this um massive protest and civil unrest because there were a lot of Americans

who were against the war and quite honestly it was a pointless War America accomplished Nothing by fighting

fighting the war okay okay so so so great question Peter um does does does that make sense to you okay any more

questions okay great question okay so we talked about the idea of hubris right empir

have hubris um and so Israel is a small nation about 8 n million people right

it's not the American Empire it's not the American Empire the problem is this the problem

is that if you look at the Middle East the strongest military power in the Middle East is Israel by far okay Israel

does not actually need American protection if the entire Middle East got together and attacked Israel Israel

would win because this happened twice before right in the young K War and the Six Day War so military speaking um

Israel is powerful and quite honestly if the United States were to retreat from the Middle East Israel

would dominate okay so even though it does not look like an Empire it's basically an

Empire you understand so therefore It suffers from hubris okay it's not going to be

strategic and flexible and creative it doesn't have to be because it has military dominance over

everyone but but but but that's a very good question okay just because Israel is small does not mean is weak it's very

very powerful okay any more questions

um okay um the question is very interesting so is America constraining Israel and

you can make the argument both ways okay you can make the argument that um um American presence in Israel is

preventing Israel from starting a regional War okay but you can also make the argument that is right now is using

America to pursue a lot of its geopolitical interests okay so um so it's a very

complicated question okay but I think that um I personally think that America is right now constraining

Israel okay because Israel needs American Support and that constrains the actions of

Israel but if America were not around then it's possible that Israel unleashes its the for of of its military and its

military is very very powerful okay right but um if America were to

lead the region then I think Israel would become the dominant power in the region

but um I think the same is true for throughout the world if America left Europe who would become the dominant

power Germany right and if America left East Asia who who who become the dominant

power Japan okay okay does that make sense so I would say that the regional Powers right now are Germany Israel and

Japan and it's a it's American Empire that's constraining all three right now and if America were just like to go back

home and isolate itself then these three nations would rise to the top okay any more

questions that's a great question okay so um first of all I listen this is all Theory and conjecture right America has

not expressed any intent of invading Iran and if America does invade Iran then

ches are it will win the war okay but um an invasion of Iran um it if it lose the war it would

basically mean the end of of the American Empire okay and the reason why is if you look at why Empire's collapsed

it's because of three reasons okay the first is the idea of extension

okay ere extension it's doing to things at once okay it's fighting this war in Ukraine it's fighting this war in Iran

it's fighting this war everywhere basically okay the idea of overextension that's the first reason second is the

idea of um debt it basically just runs out of money right because it's overextended and and

this leads to the idea of civil unrest okay so um the American Empire is

heading to a lot of trouble over next 10 10 years because all three things are happening at once right overextension

debt and civil unrest at the same time the American Empire is extremely wealthy and

extremely powerful so even though America loses the war there's still no peer competitor to the United States but

all that means is that the world will will divide into different Regional blocks okay where maybe Germany controls

Europe uh Japan controls East Asia Israel controls the Middle East okay so so more of a parallel world okay a

multipolar world as opposed to a unipolar world where one nation controls everything the decline of the American

Empire is is is going to take decades possibly centuries okay but um we'll talk about

this uh in in future class okay what what will happen to America if it l the war okay

any more questions yeah okay uh so that's a good question okay like okay the ground

Invasion what what will provoke it okay um and that's and that's something that I want to spend a future class on okay

but um listen we've done we've done we've done a lot of Wars okay and we know that America doesn't really need a

reason to fight a war do you understand it can just make them up a reason it doesn't

care so um basically the argument that I I want to make is that if Trump wins a presidency then it's most likely that he

will start a war against Iran okay that's what I think I think it will be Trump who initiates the war and I think

that um um it will happen maybe two years from now so this is a very complicated

question okay like what what's relationship between Israel and America and the reason why it's complicated is

that um there's something called the Israel Lobby and again we need to spend an entire class on the idea of the

Israel Lobby because it makes no sense okay it's really hard to understand by itself so I'll spend an entire class on

the Israel Lobby you and then you understand why there's an alliance between Israel and America okay all

right but but thank you okay any more questions so we so so just to summarize we will do a class on Jack's question uh

what will the war look like and what will what will mean for America if it loses the war we'll also do a class on

David's question which is what's what's the relationship between Israel and America okay any more

questions we will yes we'll Al also be talking about the rise of Japan and Germany okay all right any more

questions okay great I I I'll see you next week okay