Last night started out very calm. There was really nothing going on. Just another night that seemed to be winding down. That is, until about 9:30 PM.

This past Saturday, Iran had carried out its response to the Israeli attack on their embassy in Damascus. Many drones and missiles were utilized in what looked like a massive attack on the Israeli homeland. Indeed it was, the first of its kind by Iran.

So, as one would expect, Israel vowed a strong response to the Iranian response. However, Israeli allies seemed to be getting cold feet, with the US in particular wanting Israel to take the Iranian response as a victory, showing yet again that Joe Biden doesn’t know how anything works.

Since Saturday, there have been many conflicting reports about how Israel would respond, if they actually would. I am not going to entertain any of these reports, given that it has become evident that all of it is just noise and should not be taken seriously. The important thing is that the reports were there.

To sum it up, Israel was going to respond, but nobody knew when or where. The last report that everyone saw was that it looked like they would wait until after Passover. Okay, sounds feasible, they hadn’t done anything so far. May as well wait some more.

Then things started happening last night. Explosions were reported being heard near the Iranian city of Isfahan, and then in Iraq and Syria. At first, I was skeptical, that this could easily be a false alarm. After all, it was very quiet and then things just started happening.

My skepticism broke when Iran started clearing their airspace. Clearing airspace doesn’t just happen for no reason. There must be something going on that made this action necessary. They then started closing their airports.

Then Marco Rubio started tweeting about how Israel didn’t need Jordanian airspace in order for their weapons to reach Iran. Alright, now you had one of the top Senators on the Intelligence Committee talking about it. Surely something of significance had happened.

On top of it all, there were reports that Iranian air defense had been activated across several cities. What they were shooting at was unknown at the time.

This is where the strange things started happening. Pro-Iranian news accounts and analyzers started saying that nothing was really happening at all. That all of this wasn’t really a strike. I thought that was odd. After all, if there was no strike, then why was the airspace closed?

As the night went on and more people were able to gather information, it turned out that there were no missile impacts. According to the Iranian government, what had happened was a drone attack launched from inside Iran.

Understand, when they say drone attack, they don’t mean UAVs like the ones they use. They meant little discount drones that would be used for fun. Somehow there were enough of them to warrant an airspace closure and AD activation.

As for who had sent them, Iran has claimed it to be sent by terrorist groups from inside the country itself, not Israel. Hence why we didn’t see the billion missiles they promised to send if Israel struck.

Stranger still, you had the US who said that Israel was indeed responsible for the attack. Stranger then that, Israel had denied that they sent the drones at all. So we have this situation where Israel and Iran are saying that Israel didn’t do it, but the US said that Israel did it.

At least, that is the narrative so far. It is always subject to change because for some reason everyone on both sides seem to be really incompetent at intelligence gathering.

The biggest argument I have seen circulating around is that this was the Israeli response, they did a small, laughable drone incursion just to save face and let Iran have an off ramp to de-escalation. I think that is stupid.

For one, say that this was all just one big show meant to allow Israel to save face. What if the Iranians didn’t see it that way? What if they had thought that an actual large-scale attack was incoming and launched the missiles? That seems like a really large risk for no reward.

Second, what the heck is the US doing, making all of these inflammatory statements while this is going on? Funny enough, most of the chatter came from the Americans, not the Israelis. You had one of the top Senate Intel Committee people live tweeting it. The last time he did that was prior to the Iranian response.

Third, show or not, airspace was closed. I was certain that Iran was about to launch their missiles. Planes were being turned around mid-flight and Tehran’s airport was shut down.

Imagine had the Iranians took the US seriously and were under the impression that they were in the beginning stages of the Israeli response? Thankfully for everyone, Iran waited to see what was happening instead of listening to the reckless US government.

My Thoughts

I personally do not think that this was the response the Israelis had in mind. If it was, I will not be able to take them seriously ever again. I wouldn’t have claimed responsibility for this attack either, it was so laughably bad.

If it was indeed Israel that did this, the only way they can come back from it is if they intended it to be a probing mission to see where Iranian air defense was. That is the only way I can wrap my head around that scenario.

As of right now though, I am inclined to believe it was some sort of Iranian terror group inside their borders. No way would a state as advanced as Israel use cheap dollar store drones in this fashion. If I sound baffled, it is because I am.

Conclusion

I’m not going to lie, this was the oddest event of the conflicts in the Middle East that I have ever seen to date. I would not be surprised if we have more of these “false alarms” in the future. This just reiterates an important point: don’t take everything you see at face value. Weird games are being played here. We may never know what happened last night.