[POST] Iran's countering long con

The scenario where Tehran still pulls out a W

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Not going to commit to saying this will happen, but rather putting this out there as a potential counter-factual/narrative: Iran’s quietude and acceptance of Trump’s “obliterating” strike and claims is part of a larger plan featuring great deception. In this pathway, Iran debuts a small nuke in some fashion before the end of the year.

I can almost feel your spit takes spraying my face as I type.

Assuming you’re done irrigating your sinuses with chocolate milk … stay with me on this.

The mere fact that Fordo is Fordo tells us that Iran has been planning for this day for a very long time.

The US has gotten a bit obsessed with the notion that taking out Fordo in particular constitutes taking out Iran’s nuclear program for some significant period of time — aka, Trump’s claim of obliteration. There are decent reasons:

• Fordo is clearly the most protected, hardened nuclear site, suggesting centrality to the process.

• Fordo is home to Iran’s best centrifuges, leading to the most unnerving Western intelligence judgment (prior to the strike) that, if operational, Fordo could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon within five to six days if Iran chose to do so.

• Iran has always been super-secret about Fordo. The facility was constructed almost two decades ago and only then revealed to the world in 2009. Its size, configuration, and concealment have long fueled suspicions that it was designed specifically to hedge against international pressure and to ensure the long-term survival of its nuclear weapons program.

I used to do this bit in my presentations:

Guy walks up to three people sitting on a park bench, pulls out a pistol and shoots the guy on the right through the head and then immediately double-taps the guy on the left. Meanwhile, the guy in the middle reaches for his own gun. Ask yourself: Is that middle guy crazy or simply responding to events?

Where was Iran’s head two decades ago?

The US had just taken down the Taliban on Iran’s immediate left and Saddam on Iran’s immediate right. Iran — unsurprisingly — sees a lesson in this: If we want to avoid regime-change whenever the US gets around to coming after us, then we need a bomb — the development of which will naturally attract counter-program strikes by some combination of Israel and the US along the way, so we need to emphasize deception and Plans B through Z.

That is solid logic and Iranians are just as clever as Israelis.

Back to now:

This US strike was months in the telegraphing. Hell, some version of us doing it, or Israel doing it, or both of us doing it has been a staple of anticipated regional military crisis scenarios across the breadth of the last two decades. I designed and ran a Wikistrat crowdsourced online simulation of “When Israel Strikes Iran” roughly a decade and a half ago.

So, yeah, this scenario has always been out there as a when and not an if.

So, let’s assume Iran is okay with the West obsessing over Fordo and a couple of other perceived key sites.

Let’s assume the regime duplicated back-up efforts elsewhere, moved already highly enriched uranium stockpiles elsewhere, lined up back-up scientists and technicians and hid them away elsewhere.

Let’s assume, in general, that Iran has spent years upon years with this scenario in mind.

Now, let’s say Iran's nuclear strategy closely aligns with my assumptions. The regime has systematically implemented redundancy measures that extend beyond Fordo and other known sites, leveraging concealment, dispersal, and technological resilience to preserve its nuclear capabilities despite Western targeting.

Evidence of this?

Iran moved approximately 900 pounds of 60% enriched uranium before U.S./Israeli strikes on Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. The material's current location remains unknown.

Satellite imagery showed cargo trucks departing Fordo days before strikes, suggesting rapid relocation to undisclosed sites. Analysts speculate that uranium may be stored at the so-called Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz, a hardened underground complex so deep underground (1,600—plus meters) and so reinforced that it is virtually impervious to the conventional bunker-buster bombs just used on Fordo.

Iran has constructed multiple clandestine facilities beyond the currently monitored sites. meaning the program is compartmentalized across hidden sites, ensuring continuity even if known facilities are destroyed.

Iran has safeguarded nuclear scientists and technical knowledge, basically assembling an entire bench of replacement players if/when the current playing team was wiped out on the field of play.

Put it all together and we could have been fooled by a classic Brer Rabbit drill by Iran: Oh no! Don’t bomb Fordo! If you do, all will be lost and we’ll never be able to reconstitute the program!

So, when push comes to shove and it’s clear that Israel is coming for the program/regime, and that the US is finally going to use its bunker-busters, which — of course — will work because that’s the general consensus on our side, Iran doesn’t even pretend to put up a fight.

Fine, let the bombers through. Don’t even shoot at them. Let the Americans have this “great victory" — this obliteration!

Iran then offers up a totally performative counter-strike, even alerting the Qataris beforehand, and then sheepishly agrees to a cease-fire.

Why?

Why not?

First order of business is ending the Israeli beat-down.

Second order of business is giving ADHD Trump a quick and decisive win.

Third order of business is buying time for the regime to recover — as in, so many spies to execute.

And, meanwhile, while Iran and others push the world’s attention back to the ethnic cleansing that is Gaza, the regime exacts its revenge by going full speed on a nuclear bomb that it triumphantly demonstrates, say, 1 January 2026.

If Iran were to test or demonstrate a crude nuclear bomb within its territory, the most likely location would be a highly secure, military-controlled site with a history of nuclear weapons-related testing and robust infrastructure to contain and conceal such an event.

The leading candidate?

The Parchin military complex, located about 20 kilometers southeast of Tehran.

There are others (Marivan, Pickaxe Mountain), and I would expect the deception effort here would be comprehensive in its duplicity and redundancy.

I would also assume that, if all I project here is true and unfolding, then Israel’s intelligence agencies are tracking everything, meaning, they’ll take the public win for now, keeping Trump happy in his claims, and then they’ll pick their time and place in coming months to reveal Iran’s latest treachery.

Meaning … the race is still on and Iran is supremely incentivized to win this one.

Israel, having set the new standard that says their “mowing the lawn” options now extend to direct attacks on Iranian sites, will be ready all right, but Netanyahu got what he needs for now and so he’s basking in the “total victory” that is the already dubbed 12-Day War.

Hell, I already ordered my commemorative T-shirt online!

Netanyahu is smart enough to know he can only exploit Trump so much before it backfires. So, yeah, let Trump have his celebration and root out his own “spies” and “leakers” trying to deny him his clear and absolute victory. That’ll keep him busy for a while.

And yeah, Israel is basically letting Iran escape with its nuclear program intact, but that alone provides a specific downstream utility and opportunity.

Remember: the eradication of Gaza will create a lot of blowback, as will the subsequent targeting of the West Bank for the same fate. Having a regular bugaboo in the form of Iran’s “resurrected” nuclear program is quite helpful to Israel in this regard. Whenever things get out of control in the Strip or Bank, there’s always the “wider regional war” threat, linked to the Iran nuke threat, to divert global attention and re-bond America to Israel in their strategic partnership.

Dare I say it? This entire show is perfectly built for multiple sequels, so why kill the franchise when it still pays off so well?

To sum up: this is a many-course banquet and there’s no reason to rush events toward desert and coffee. Israel has many miles to go before it achieves Great/Greater status, and, until that journey is complete, Iran remains a useful foil.

Everybody always thinks that timing is the main issue, when, in practice, sequencing is the bigger deal. Knowing when to strike is easy; contextualizing that choice within a larger/longer sequence … that’s the hard part.

I see Israel living with the sequencing for now.

And I see the same from Iran.

Meanwhile, the US gets played in a fashion that we can also live with.

I know, I know. This is one of those movie endings when you want everything tied off and it turns out nothing is tied off whatsoever.

That’s the Middle East, for you.

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