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Home » Peeking through Iran’s fog of war

Peeking through Iran’s fog of war

The New Neo Posted on by

Where’s Khamenei the Younger? He has appeared in public recently as – a cardboard cutout.

I don’t think this is a spoof, although it looks like one [*see below]:

Reports are that he was wounded in the blast that killed Khamenei the Elder. We don’t know how badly, but that cardboard figure probably isn’t reassuring to his supporters. It gives new meaning to the term “figurehead”:

According to former Iranian news anchor Ehsan Karami, Mojtaba Khamenei has been admitted to Sinai Hospital in Tehran and is currently on a ventilator.

Karami alleged that Mojtaba Khamenei was seriously injured in the airstrikes that reportedly killed his father, Ali Khamenei, on February 28. He further claimed that Mojtaba remains in a coma and is unaware of the outbreak of the ongoing war or the deaths of family members in the bombardment.

Iran’s state television has not confirmed the hospitalization but recently referred to Mojtaba Khamenei as a “Jaanbaz of Ramadan,” a term commonly used in Iran to describe a wounded war veteran, confirming his injury.

I suppose, though, that it would be clever of authorities to appoint someone already deceased as Supreme Leader – then he couldn’t be re-killed.

There’s also this:

A report by The New York Times, citing three unnamed Iranian officials, said Khamenei had sustained injuries during the attacks, including wounds to his legs. Officials said he remained alert but was sheltering in a highly secure location with extremely limited communication.

I suppose it’s theoretically possible they don’t want any recordings that could be traced. But not even audio? Seems unlikely he’s “alert” enough to record a message.

At this point in time, is the IRGC being targeted by Israel and/or the US? It’s hard to say exactly what’s happening, but the IRGC seems to be in power at the moment. Israeli strikes have been reported on IRGC infrastructure:

The Israel Air Force has launched another “wide-scale wave of strikes” against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infrastructure across Iran on Wednesday afternoon, simultaneously with strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the IDF said.

In addition, the IDF struck several IRGC infrastructure sites in Tehran and other Islamic Regime military strongholds throughout the country.

Does this include the IRGC personnel?

It is exceedingly difficult to penetrate the fog of this war plus the fog of the MSM – our own, and of course Iran’s. Just to take one example of so many, I saw a link to a CBS article that had the following headline: “Trump vows to end war soon as Iran hits ships, threatens banks, and toll on U.S. forces emerges.” Sounds as though Trump is saying he’ll cry uncle as soon as we sustain losses of any magnitude whatsoever. What is in the story, though?:

— Suspected Iranian drones hit at least three ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz overnight, continuing attacks that have paralyzed traffic through the vital shipping lane despite a stern warning from President Trump.
— President Trump has said again that the war will end “soon,” whenever he decides it should, as Iran says it’s ready for “a long-term war of attrition that will destroy the entire American economy.” Iran also warned that it would start targeting U.S.-linked banks across the Mideast.
— Drones hit Dubai’s airport overnight, wounding four people… The UAE said it was intercepting Iranian drones and missiles, too.
— Approximately 140 U.S. service members were wounded in the first 10 days of the war with Iran, the Pentagon said Tuesday, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the U.S. and Israel were “winning” the war and rapidly meeting their objectives.

Quite a difference between the headline’s implications and the article’s details.

Of course, the fear is that Iran has terror cells seeded all over the US and many Western countries, and that these will be activated. That could happen. There are also threats from Iran that it has ships that will attack California:

ABC claims to have read the [police] alert sent out. It says in part:

“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”

The New York Post describes it as an “army of drones” that could be launched from a vessel off the West Coast of the United States.

Seems to me that if Iran hasn’t done this yet, they might not have the capacity to do it. But it’s certainly troubling. Then again, I think the goal of the MSM is to terrify the American people and spread the word that Trump is endangering us and that Iran is stronger than ever. If he keeps the war up, they’ll say it’s a dangerous quagmire. If he leaves, they’ll say he cut and run before liberating the people. But the goal was always to degrade their missile and nuclear capabilities and kill much of their leadership; that’s already been accomplished. Trump always said regime change was up to the Iranian people.

And the war is apparently still continuing, with Israel and the US determined to keep bombing for at least a few more weeks.

[* Apparently the cardboard part wasn’t real, but the fact that Khamenei was only represented by a photo was true. See this, which also included some great memes.]

Comments

Peeking through Iran’s fog of war — 27 Comments

  1. Well at least Iran won’t unleash the trans maniacal murderers, right?

    Or plucky teens.

  2. @om: …unleash the trans maniacal murderers…
    ______________________________

    So clear the road, my bully boys, and let some thunder pass.
    We’re pain, we’re steel, a plot of knives.
    We’re Transmaniacon MC.

    —Blue Oyster Cult, “Transmaniacon MC”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_5zMWpV_VY
    ______________________________

    Such a great album.

  3. huxley:

    I vaguely remember the band’s name but don’t recall ever hearing any of their songs. Sheltered youth I guess.

    Is MC murder club or cult or just MC undefined?

  7. Is MC murder club or cult or just MC undefined?

    om:

    MC — Motorcycle Club.

    The song is a mythic evocation of the Hells Angels MC at the Rolling Stones Altamont Concert in 1969.

    I’m sure you’ve heard Blue Öyster Cult’s most well-known song, “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

  8. MC — Motorcycle Club. The song is a mythic evocation of the Hells Angels at the Rolling Stones Altamont Concert in 1969.
    I was there. I remember thinking that if the mob near me decided to push down a fence, or something like that, I would be glad to participate. I was sitting too far back to see any of the action that got Meredith Hunter (?) killed.

    Several years later, I had a different perspective on mobs at open air concerts. I was at the Newport Jazz Festival. Tickets were cheap: I easily paid for one from my minimum wage dishwashing job. The crowd outside the fence could hear the music as easily as I could. The mob’s decision to tear down the fence separating paying customers from nonpaying was merely done for the hell of it.

    Result: the subsequent Newport Folk Festival was cancelled. A high school classmate had been scheduled to perform there, but she and her group got cancelled.

  9. “If he keeps the war up, they’ll say it’s a dangerous quagmire. If he leaves, they’ll say he cut and run before liberating the people.”

    Yes, and before he authorized the strike, they complained that Iran was murdering tens of thousands of its people, and Trump was violating his duty to intervene.

    If the regime is not overthrown, they’ll say he lost the real point of the war, and if the regime is overthrown, they’ll blame him for interfering in another country’s politics.

    They really don’t care what they say.

  12. It makes sense for the IRGC to name someone who is in a coma as their supreme leader — no one who is sentient would want the job.

  13. The old adage, believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear, comes close to an accurate piece of advice for dealing with the corporate media. To be completely accurate, it would be, believe none of what you see or hear from that source.

  15. Wendy K

    We have a permanent 5th column in the West that’s dedicated to portraying any action a non Democratic Party President takes as bad. I am very skeptical that the average American will take the time necessary to go beyond the most basic of headlines to find out how this 5th column works.

    In the end it is the voters responsibility to find out about issues. My opinion is that most will not do the work of supporting a Democratic Republic and are subject to believe anything.

    My eternal question is what is a citizens responsibility in our country?

  16. Fog?
    More like very toxic smog….
    (In any event, so much for “Onward Christian Soldier”…)

    “…Union Theological Seminary, A Columbia Affiliate, To Host Talk From ‘Activist-Scholar’ Banned By Columbia for Endorsing Hamas.”—
    https://instapundit.com/782012/

  17. I think we of the West have a very big problem with Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian mullahs do not need to launch drones at the USA. The mullahs can easily keep the Hormuz gate open for China and so force Europe to get gas and oil from Russia.
    That will tilt the planet into a dark evil, because the US will not put “boots on the ground” to open Hormuz and keep it open. China and Russia are strengthened, the West is weakened. For perhaps a long time.

  19. Niketas:

    Thanks. I added a footnote to that effect. The real picture, without the cardboard, is pretty silly-looking too. And today he supposedly sent a message – but other people read it. His voice wasn’t even present.

  20. The picture, which was real, is something you would associate with a funeral– though that might be how the culture would respond to someone injured. They did read a message at that meeting at which the new ayatollah was supposed to address.

    I’m not sure it matters whether Mojtaba is alive or in a coma. It probably doesn’t matter to Iranians in the short term. The IRGC is now in control of the country.

    The question is how quickly can be finish degrading their power to control the running of the country. How quickly can be precipitate a coup– whether by elements of the IRGC or the national army.

  21. The mullahs can easily keep the Hormuz gate open for China and so force Europe to get gas and oil from Russia.

    CICERO:

    Are you sure about that? I rather think our vast military/tech strength has options that can nullify Iran’s threats to Hormuz.

    Here’s a discussion of possibilities — B-52 carpet bombing of where the drones come from, even more drastic attacks on the Iranian leadership, plus using latest tech to set up a “Blue Dome” over the Straits to protect shipping.

    –Max Afterburner, “Iran Strikes Ships In Straits of Hormuz Then THIS Happened”
    https://youtu.be/4qAGCkSKnFM?t=728

  22. huxley:
    Our national munitions warehouse is emptying. We are keeping Israel supplied, and I read nothing about how their inventory is slim. BUT the US inventory is said to be thin and not replaceable for several years.Guns ain’t no good without bullets!

  23. CICERO:

    Some cites would be useful. Trump exaggerates, as we know, but he speaks as though we’re not worried to fight several weeks more.

    But if our arsenal is dwindling, Iran’s is in much worse shape and getting worse from exhaustion and destruction. How does Iran keep fighting?

    They are going to run out before we do. In which case what say do they have over Hormuz?

  24. Some of the data and analysis here are out of date (yet 3/8 was only 4 days ago!), but an example of DataRepublican at her finest.

    https://datarepublican.substack.com/p/data-analysis-of-the-state-of-the

    Data Analysis of the State of the Iranian Conflict on March 8, 2026
    An attempt to OSINT the current state of affairs
    (OpenSourceINTelligence)

    AUTHOR’S NOTE
    I’m a civilian data analyst. I am not a former military officer, intelligence analyst, or defense policy professional. I did something stupid for this article: I pirated a lot of military texts, mirrored multiple websites such as CSIS, loaded my workstation with every bit of data that I could think of, and threw it at AI agents. This was for my own education as much as it was yours.

    For military strategy and doctrine, I have relied on credentialed professional analysts: CSIS, ISW, CEPA, the Institute for Science and International Security, CENTCOM and IDF public statements, and Gen. Michael Flynn’s published strategic framework. Where I make military analytical judgments beyond what those sources explicitly support, I’ve labeled them [ASSESSED] and tried to anchor them to the underlying source reasoning.

    The people best positioned to correct this document are those who have actually planned air campaigns… or anyone else in the world who isn’t me, really. I’d welcome that correction. What I’ve tried to produce is a pipeline for automated, rigorous OSINT synthesis.

    Where I speculate, I say so. And where the data simply doesn’t exist in open source, I’ve tried to name the gap.

    One-stop-shopping for most of the information needed to keep track of the players and the played.

  25. I draw attention to the top comment at DataRepublican’s post:

    Arthur Nimz 3d

    A new definition of TACO – TRUMP ALWAYS CALCULATES OUTCOMES. In the last 10 years of my 30 year career working for a major DoD contractor, I managed an organization of software engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, intelligence analysts and military subject matter experts that were used to develop Major Combat Operation (MCO) wargame simulations. Some of those simulations used first gen AI models. The DoD contracted our organization to use sophisticated models and war game simulations to build a library of MCO scenarios. Weapons systems models, -INT and C2ISR models were populated with the latest capabilities of the US and potential foreign adversary’s. I cannot disclose how we know the capabilities of our adversary’s, but suffice it to say it is to an eye watering level of detail. These models and their outputs of their data were fused to support the simulations. All of these activities were at the S, TS and/or CNWDI levels of classification.

    The DoD models used the capabilities of our current weapons systems and those of our various adversaries to trade off outcomes over the time of a MCO and to answer the question: can the US destroy the capability of specific adversary to wage war under a variety of conditions. What weapons does the US military need to overcome those of an adversary and destroy its capability to wage war? It DOES NOT provide specific timelines but does provide detailed metrics for timed estimates of the completion of specific objectives. Your analysis has captured the details of the completion of many of those metrics.

    I can tell you for a fact that planning for Major Combat Operation Epic Fury began shortly after President Trump took office and appointed Pete Hegseth as Sec Def and GEN Dan Caine as CJCS – not a coincidence that a USAF General is CJCS.

    That planning used that latest updates to the Iran MCO and those sophisticated wargame simulations to help develop the Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) – the force structures, support units and weapons geolocations required to initiate Major Combat Operations (MCO). Those simulations and planning models defined the underlying TTP’s (tactics, techniques and procedures) which were then used to run the simulations to develop the metrics.

    As you have pointed out, President Trump recognized a historic opportunity to destroy Iran’s decades of using proxies to create terror and chaos around the world. The Islamic demons can bloviate all they want but the question they need to answer is who will be left alive to finally unconditionally surrender.

    President Trump also understands the the best way to destroy an adversary’s capability to wage war is to control their energy supply – oil. This MCO had multiple objectives and those are being achieved in the follow on operations. It ain’t over yet until the fat mullah surrenders.

    You are also correct in assessing that these operations will not substantially impact the US economy that has been growing at a record pace since President Trump took office.

    Great job and great example of the use of event analysis to capture the reality of the situation.

    Now, the commenter could be who he says he is and could know what he says he knows; or not. (“On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”)

    But IF he’s legit, this is a good confirmation of DataRepublican’s work.

    ****
    https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/on-the-internet-nobody-knows-youre-a-dog

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