The Unpulled Lever: Why the Iran plan can work

Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence

Sun Tzu famously wrote, “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.” The sheer scale and scope of Israel’s intelligence on Iran and its proxies will be studied for many years as the gold standard of how to win a war against an enemy 10 times your size.

The reports (the ones I believe) coming out on X, and later confirmed by other media, are almost unbelievable. The first person to announce Ayatollah Ali Khameini’s death was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How did Netanyahu know? He was presented with photo or video evidence of Khameini’s body in the wreckage. The IDF had no boots on the ground. The rubble was in Iran’s most secure location, where the senior leaders of the country were meeting. Nobody was supposed to know the time and location of the meeting. Israel knew both.

Israel had (has) intelligence assets on the ground in the place where the senior leaders met, the now-destroyed palace in Tehran. The war of decapitation was over before it started.

Another report is even more unbelievable, so much that I don’t believe it, at least not yet. I’ll just quote it directly.

You’re not gonna believe this latest story. Over the past few years mossad undercover agents infiltrated as doctors and dentists in Iran. The Dentists gave priority to. Key military, and elite Iranian personnel. While doing a routine dental check up, they implanted tracking devices as fillings for cavities. On the other side, Gastro doctors implanted similar devices in their elite patients. Yesterday mossad knew exactly where each one of them were ( komayne’s wife and family members included )and sent missiles at them. Over 400 elite military in government personnel were eliminated in the first few moments ( maybe that’s one of the reasons why they knew where he was hiding )when Israel attacked.

As far as I know, the Iranians have not shot down a single U.S. or Israeli jet. No pilots have had to eject. There are no risky rescue missions. No boots on the ground. We are, with precision strikes, using hammer and tongs to destroy the means of oppression for Iranians who wish to take back their country. It may very well work, because of what I called “the unpulled lever” in my deep dive on Iran back in June.

It’s not smart to think that Israel has pulled all its levers in Iran. We cannot assume that after 40 years of cultivating intelligence and covert assets in Iran, the Mossad has used its last trick and there are no more up its sleeve. In fact, the thought that Israel has yet more tricks like the exploding pagers, or drone bases inside Iranian territory, is likely saving lives, as it makes the Iranians think twice before they order large scale responses that seem to trigger catastrophes for Iran.

Apparently, the Iranians didn’t think twice enough times. They spent an enormous amount of time and effort searching for Mossad spies, only now we learn that the man they chose to lead the unit searching for the spies was in fact a Mossad agent, reportedly leading 20 other agents. I don’t know if this story is true, but it has the ring of truth to it. Iran is and has been thoroughly penetrated by the Mossad.

There’s a reason for this but I don’t have time or space here to go into depth. It has to do with institutional and organizational independence. The Mossad has that, almost carte-blanche authority to do what is needed to protect their country. The Shin-Bet, or Shabak, as it’s known in Israel, not so much. I am not privy to all the reasons why October 7th happened, but intelligence failure is one of the leading ones. And I think Israeli military intelligence and the Shabak are mostly responsible for the lapses, while the Mossad does its job and understands the assignment better.

It’s no different with the U.S. When the Church Report and the Rockefeller Commission uncovered the CIA’s excesses, domestic spying, and assassination plots in the 1970’s, the agency’s human intelligence had its wings clipped. The agency’s organizational independence was largely removed, and now it depends very much on technology to do its job. Not that the CIA is bad at it, but in Iran, we had almost no assets, while the Israelis knew—know—everything. To go down a rabbit hole, there’s a reason why the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover was so effective. Hoover did what he wanted and understood the assignment. He could investigate the government as well as criminals outside the government. Now the FBI is a political tool, and while it’s still impressive, it doesn’t understand the mission anymore.

In Israel, the Mossad is independent and understands the assignment. If Iranians are successful in overthrowing the Islamic Republic, after the decapitation strikes and a continuing campaign against the tools of oppression, it’s going to be because of this intelligence and long-term commitment to understanding the enemy and understanding Israel’s own capabilities. The U.S. is simply providing the muscle for an Israeli operation. Take from that what you will, but my take is: We are not “fighting Israel’s war.” We should be grateful to Israel for giving us victory over something we could not do ourselves.

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