I just watched the analysis of the situation by Andrey Piontkovski who used to be a Soviet mathematician (a hundred papers on applied mathematics) and who is now a political analyst and lives in Washington, DC. This was in a discussion with Mark Feygin who used to be Piontkovski’s lawyer.
Here is what he thinks of the situation:
He has no doubts whatsoever that Israel is going to attack Iran. He said that Biden’s decision to send the USS Gerald Ford carrier force came after he had been pounded by both Republicans and Democrats for giving $6 billion to Iran (the US ended up financing the attack on Israel), and that dispatching the carrier group is one of the most significant development in the crisis. It would stop Hezbollah from attacking from the north. Whether the US would directly participate in the attack on Iran he does not know, but it would definitely help. Biden is embarrassed and wants to atone.
It has now crystallized that we have two fascist regimes fighting two democracies. Iran through Hamas is attacking Israel while Russia is bombing Ukraine. He also mentioned that there has been an explosion of anti-Semitism in the Russian pro-Putin media the magnitude of which he has not encountered in years.
He has been shocked by the failure of Israeli intelligence, the reasons for the fiasco wil be determined after the war, but that now Bibi should go for an emergency unity government just like Churchill did with Atlee in 1940.
Piontkovski believes that Israel should get off the fence and give more support to Ukraine, now that we have a clear case of totalitarian regimes vs democracies. He compared what Hamas was doing to the Israeli civilians to what Russian soldiers had done in Buche . He even believes that there should be a military agreement between Ukraine and Israel
He understands the horrible predicament the Israeli government is now facing with having to save the lives of the hostages on the one hand and destroying Hamas on the other.
Hamas’ atrocities have finally exposed to the liberal West who they are.
His time-line predictions for the war are as follows:
1st week - cleaning up the area around Gaza and trying to save the hostages
2nd and 3rd week - destroying Hamas
4th week - destroying the Iranian threat once and for all. He said Israel could do it alone but preferably with US help.
