If I had a nickel for every time an "Axis of Resistance" dictatorship allowed a drone army to be smuggled onto its territory to carry out a humiliating attack, I'd have two nickels

Which isn't much but it still proves why dictatorships always lose in the end.

I wrote this eight days ago, after Ukraine’s audacious drone strike against Russian airfields thousands of miles from the front line:

Turns out the Israelis had the same idea.

Israel spent years preparing for the operation against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, a security official tells The Times of Israel, including building a drone base inside Iran and smuggling precision weapons systems and commandos into the country.

The effort hinged on tight joint planning between the IDF and the Mossad intelligence agency.

According to the official, Mossad agents set up a drone base on Iranian soil near Tehran. The drones were activated overnight, striking surface-to-surface missile launchers aimed at Israel.

In addition, vehicles carrying weapons systems were smuggled into Iran.

These systems took out Iran’s air defenses and gave Israeli planes air supremacy and freedom of action over Iran.

The third covert effort was Mossad commandos deploying precision missiles near anti-aircraft sites in central Iran.

Please keep psychotic Twitter accounts with animated-squirrel avatars in your thoughts and prayers this weekend. They’re going through a tough time right now.

And, once again, the point I made last week is proven:

Did this operation really do as much damage as the Ukrainians Israelis say? I dunno. I don’t begrudge the Ukrainians Israelis their own propaganda weapons.

(Plus, these are Russian planes Shah-era jets for which getting parts is a massive pain in the ass, so there’s a good chance they might have just exploded on their own, like a Soviet television set left plugged in overnight.)

But the mere fact that Ukraine Israel was able to pull this off at all, right under the Russians’ Iranians’ noses, is a game changer. The message to Czar Vladimir the Mullahs, that we can strike literally anywhere, couldn’t be more clear.

We’ll get the whole story from the Ukrainian Israeli side soon enough. What I’m chomping at the bit to see is what’s in the Russian Iranian archives someday, when Putin the “Islamic Republic” is gone and McDonald’s has been restored to its rightful place in Red Square Azadi Square.

A few weeks after the Russian invasion, when it became clear that they were in for a much harder time than anticipated, I wrote about how what would appear to be an authoritarian government’s great advantage over liberal democracy - the ability for its leaders to just “get stuff done” instead of having to put up with the horse-trading and lobbying and arguing and mean tweets which make can make things so exhausting and frustrating for a more open society - eventually becomes a disadvantage.

[…]

If the leader can do whatever he wants without any serious resistance, everyone else learns to keep their heads down and not do nor say anything which will make him angry.

Because you really, really wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

As a result, the guy in charge is surrounded by sycophants and yes-men who will nod along and feign enthusiasm for whatever he wants to do, even if they know it’s really risky and/or really, really stupid.

That filters down to the drones (the human kind) and proles, too. I’m not a betting man, but I’d bet my entire hoard of Hawk Tuah meme coins that Russian Iranian intelligence services actually knew, or at least strongly suspected, that something like Operation Spiderweb Operation Rising Lion was in the works.

Good for them. Now, you go and tell the Czar Ayatollah that there are Ukrainian Mossad operatives (and, at the risk of wishcasting, some Russians Iranians brave enough to assist them) thousands of miles away from Ukraine Israel, ready to take out much of the strategic bomber fleet air defences.

Ukraine Israel, by contrast, is an open enough society to learn from its mistakes, see what actually works, and adapt accordingly. Russia Iran is a closed society which keeps doubling down on what it was already doing, and woe is you if you suggest a change of course.

It doesn't matter how much stronger you are in terms of weaponry, if your society and political system punishes anyone who might tell the leader he's wrong.

Well, that was surprisingly easy to write about. Here’s hoping I don’t get lazy and get into the habit of throwing on old reruns, assuming you kids won’t know the difference.