https://harici.com.tr/eski-ingiliz-istihbaratci-crooke-iran-savasi-washingtonun-lojistik-acmazina-donusuyor/
Former British intelligence officer Crooke: Iran war turns into
Washington's logistics dilemma
Former British intelligence officer and strategist Alastair Crooke said that the Iran-US conflict cannot be continued in a classic Western air war format, and that Iran's 20-year-old asymmetric war preparation has systematically eroded the American logistics chain. According to Crooke, while Netanyahu's promise of "great victory" is swaying in the void, President Trump's real battlefield is the midterm elections in November and collapsing public support.
Former British intelligence official and strategic analyst Alastair Crooke evaluated the course of the US and Israel's ongoing aggression against Iran in Mario Nawfal's program.
Crooke described the current situation as a "chaos where contradictory explanations and conflicting pressures are intertwined". "There is a great confusion and conflicting pressure on the US side and to some extent in Israel," Crooke said.
The first climbing step that Crooke drew attention to was the attack on the water treatment plant in Iran. The attack affected about 35 villages and towns, but Crooke addressed the main issue in a much broader context.
“I wonder who approves this and what they think, because Iran is only 3 percent dependent on water treatment, while Gulf countries are 40 to 70 percent and even more dependent,” Crooke said. He emphasized that a war targeting water treatment facilities could reach the level of a "disaster" for the civilian population.
The second climb Crooke put forward was the attack on the refinery and storage tanks in Tehran. As a result of the attack, acid rain clouds formed over the capital.
Crooke described this attack as “an ecological disaster, a health disaster; almost a chemical weapon in terms of its impact”. He said the aim of the attack could be to provoke Iran to retaliate against the oil and natural gas infrastructure in the Gulf or to attract the Gulf states to Israel's anti-Iranian coalition.
“Mines are completely unnecessary, Iran is already controlling the strait”
Crooke clearly denied the news about the mining of the Strait of Hormuz. Crooke said, “Iran doesn't need it. Caves and silos along the slope across the strait are full of short-range anti-ship missiles," he said.
Stating that the strait is narrow enough to be controlled even by artillery fire, Crooke said that Iran has switched to the "gated passage" system instead of closing the strait as a strategy. According to this system, ships that comply with the rules determined by Iran - especially Chinese ships and ships of countries that do not participate in attacks - can pass.
Crooke said that Iran has a fleet of 25-30 submarines and that these submarines can fire anti-ship missiles from underwater. Emphasizing that the American navy is gradually moving away from the Persian Gulf, Crooke said, "The American fleet is moving away from the Persian Gulf during this time, because they are more nervous than approaching."
As a matter of fact, during the conversation, the news came that French President Macron announced that he did not receive any confirmation or evidence that Iran had mined the strait.
“Netanyahu needs great victory, because everything is against him”
Crooke has largely confirmed the allegations about Israel's strategy to drag the Gulf countries into conflict. He said there were unconfirmed reports that Pakistani intelligence warned Saudi Arabia, the US embassy and Saudi territory that the attacks came from Israel, not Iran.
Similarly, he noted that the allegations that Iran fired missiles at Turkey were extremely unlikely, because Turkey helped Iran, especially with Kurdish infiltrations.
Crooke explained Netanyahu's motivation to continue the war with domestic political pressures. “Netanyahu really needs to turn this into a victory, because it feels like everything is back against him,” Crooke said.
Stating that the Israeli public opinion supported the war by 82 percent, this rate increased to 93 percent among Jewish Israelis, Crooke said that this support is built on intensive propaganda.
Crooke said, "It was said that Iran would collapse like a house from a playing card. They thought it would collapse in June, it would collapse in January protests. It was told that everyone would be destroyed if you pushed it lightly with your finger," he said.
Crooke said that Hezbollah was strengthened again and started to cause serious damage to Israel while it was assumed that it was out of side, that Hamas was rearmed in Gaza and increased public support, and that Yemen could never be disabled, and that there was a "deep pain" in the Israeli campus.
He also added that Netanyahu is facing corruption cases and is trying to blame the military by taking over the October 7 investigation.
“Missiles become your air force: the logic of 20 years of preparation”
Crooke framed the most critical dimension of the conflict as “structural conflict between classical Western air warfare and asymmetric warfare”.
Stating that the USA implemented the short-term air bombardment and leadership liquidation strategy in the 2003 Iraq and 1999 Serbia models, Crooke said that Iran was preparing for this on the contrary.
Crooke stated that after 2003, Iran radically transformed its entire military structure. According to this, Iran created 57 autonomous command territories; each with its own sealed instructions and was designed to continue the war and make missile-firing decisions even if the central command of Tehran disappeared.
Crooke described this structure as a "dead hand" system. He said that large missiles were deployed in silos at a depth of 90 meters, distributed in the mountainous and forested geography of Iran, and that US forces could not reach these targets. He stated that mobile launchers can retreat to mountain caves in 60 seconds, and that he personally observed this in Lebanon in 2006.
“There is no point in building an equal air force; missiles become your air force and you invest heavily in missile technology,” Crooke said. He noted that Iran has been preparing for an existential Israeli war for 20 years with this logic.
“Amateurs speak tactics, professionals talk logistics”
Crooke emphasized that the element that will determine the fate of the war is logistics, not the front line. He claimed that Israel's intention stocks have decreased dramatically, that Qatar has little capacity left, and that Iranian missiles have now reached their targets with almost no obstacles.
Drawing attention to the Koram Shah missile in particular, Crooke said that military experts stated that Israel could not prevent any missile above Mach 4, while Koram Shah was at a speed of Mach 8-10 and contained about 80 sub-ammunition carrying 20 kilos of warheads each. He said that Iran delivered these missiles to the target without being hindered.
Crooke also emphasized that Iran deliberately reduced the missile fire speed. He described Iran's stance as follows: “We no longer need to send more than one missile, because one is enough. There is no need to send missiles to pull air defenses, because there is no air defense left.” He added that Iran is currently using the old stocks for the 2012-2013 period, and has not yet launched its latest missiles to the field.
"The radar network collapsed, the warning time dropped to two minutes"
Crooke stated that Iran destroyed the main radar bases in both Israel and Gulf countries. Emphasizing that this directly affects the digital battlefield targeting system, Crooke said, "While missile alerts were previously received in Tel Aviv, now there is a maximum of one-two-minute warning time."
Describing the radar network as “the eyes of both the US and Israel,” Crooke reminded that these eyes were largely blinded.
Conveying the extent of the information blackout in Israel, Crooke said that photographing incoming missiles or missile hit points requires a 5-year prison sentence.
Crooke emphasized that the war cannot be read only on the Iran-Israel axis, it is part of a much broader geopolitical transformation. Based on the national strategy documents of the USA, he said that Washington aims to reduce the export capacity of China by narrowing the energy corridors. He stated that the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain serves this purpose, that the Venezuelan blockade is part of the same strategy.
Crooke said that Iran, on the contrary, is trying to "reverse the geopolitics of the region" by taking control over the sea routes and bottlenecks of the region under its influence. He noted that this move was welcomed by both China, which needs imports, and Russia, which wants to export energy.
Making a striking comparison about energy costs, Crooke said that one gigawatt of energy in China is produced by one 16th of the price in the USA. He stated that to close this gap, the dollar should be devalued by 140 percent, and this is politically impossible.
Crooke, who visited China before Christmas, said that Chinese business people thought the West was in a “complete mess” in artificial intelligence applications and that the Western model created inflation while the Chinese model produced price deflation.
“The main battlefield is the midterm elections”
Crooke linked his analysis through President Trump's internal political vulnerability. He stated that Trump saw the markets as the success criterion of the war, but tried to keep the markets alive with "short selling manipulations and similar methods".
Crooke emphasized that Trump's public approval rates have fallen, there is no real public support for the war, and that there is a division even in the Republican Party base.
Crooke said, “The mid-term election is vital for Trump. The approval rate is not good and it is getting worse. There is a majority against the war in America, including Democrats and independents," he said. Stating that Trump will face a "real trouble" if he loses both the House of Representatives and the Senate in November, Crooke also touched on the intensity of the information war.
He noted that Trump's "our magndserous forces are winning everywhere" rhetoric actually prevented the Pentagon and CENTCOM from sharing the real situation with the public, but that "the truth on the ground in the wars eventually emerged".
Green light given in Mar-a-Lago
Crooke also shared critical details about the start of the war. According to the Hebrew press with a broad political spectrum, Netanyahu delivered two key messages to Trump during his visit to Mar-a-Lago: Iran's nuclear bomb verge was no longer the primary threat; the main priority was the destruction of the next-generation ballistic missile umbrella that Iran had built since June.
Stating that Netanyahu told Trump, "These new hypersonic missiles almost make nuclear weapons outdate," Crooke said the Hebrew press confirmed that the attack was given the green light and even a date was set.
He said that the date was changed later, and the operation was taken on Saturday morning after the CIA determined that he was in the religious leader's residence and was launched by an assassination attempt. Crooke also attributed Trump's difficulty in explaining the reason for the war to the American public to this background.