Why Israel will respond to Iran’s attacks
- Israel is not just fighting a war against Hamas: its numerous enemies, starting with Iran, are attacking it militarily and politically. The analysis of Francesco D'Arrigo, director of the Italian Institute of Strategic Studies “Niccolò Machiavelli”
After the night of bombings and extreme tension on Saturday 13 April, the West has understood that the theocratic Iranian regime is not only a danger for its people, which it oppresses with violence, and for the Middle East but for the entire world.
The hawks of the regime of Ayatollah Seyyed ʿAlī Ḥoseynī Khāmeneī, supreme leader of Iran and the highest national exponent of the Shiite clergy, after the killing of two senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in an Israeli attack on a facility diplomacy in Damascus, have become increasingly aggressive as the regime falters.
The Iranian attack on Israel, carried out with approximately 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 ballistic missiles (in addition to 20% which did not reach their targets due to various malfunctions), represented a turning point and a complete deviation from its recent doctrine military, focused on avoiding direct conflict with the adversary and using proxy militias to do Tehran's dirty work.
Iran, despite its imperialist and regional domination aims, cannot afford a direct conflict with any of its neighbors, with whom it has a long history of defeats. The last time it tried was the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, the only outcome of which was the death of thousands of young Iranian soldiers. However, the theocratic Iranian regime wants to destroy and erase the State of Israel from the map. For this purpose, it uses the proceeds of its hydrocarbon exports to finance terrorist organizations which it uses as proxies, to produce missiles, weapons and drones with which it also supplies Russia's arsenals, while forcefully threatening other countries, especially the United States and Great Britain who have no interest in damaging it. Indeed, many continue to do business there, as demonstrated by the enormous oil exports and the recent, inexplicable and highly contested financing granted to the Iranian regime by the Biden Administration, despite the dangers of its nuclear program, which has worried the world since 2002.
As we were able to follow live, last Saturday's Iranian attack on Israel, unleashed with over 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones launched from military bases located in Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, was largely repelled.
Was that powerful war action, launched in retaliation for the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, just a response to save face for the regime, after yet another setback with the killing of General Qassam Soleimani? Or does it represent the first blow of a dramatic escalation that could transform Israel's conflict against Hamas into a broader regional war?
There is probably a strategy behind it deriving from a (rational?) calculation of the new Iranian military leadership, aimed at guaranteeing the survival of the regime and strengthening it, both internally and at a regional level, in an attempt to regain that hegemonic role threatened by the Abraham Accords. We are certainly faced with an unprecedented event, because it is the first time that Iran has directly attacked Israel. But also due to the characteristics of the assault, which in terms of targets to be hit, number of missiles and drones launched against the cities, follows the methods used by Russia in its bombings against Ukrainian civilians.
The Iranian regime's retaliation, publicized for several days, first of all demonstrated what should have been clear to the entire West since October 7:
- Israel is not just fighting a war against Hamas. His numerous enemies are attacking him militarily and politically, with the coordination and financing of the Iranian regime;
- the strategic error of those governments who have decided to suspend the supply of weapons and other military equipment to Israel, which represents the eastern defense frontier of Western democracies and is facing multiple threats supported and coordinated by the Iranian regime and by those States and organizations that finance global jihadism.
Lift the arms embargo on Israel
Not supporting one's outnumbered ally at a time when it is being brutally attacked represents a serious underestimation of the serious threat that Iran poses to Europe's strategic interests.
The demonstration of these errors of strategic evaluation is given by the fact that at the moment in which a rain of missiles and drones launched from Iran arrived above the Israeli cities – in addition to being protected by its formidable Iron Dome defense system – Israel was defended also by the armed forces of the United States, England, France, Jordan and other Arab states, who contributed to neutralizing the myriad of deadly devices launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
Those who believe that that Iranian bombing was done for demonstration purposes, or even for show, so as not to cause real damage, have no idea of the destructive potential of that attack. The only scenographic effect was that caused by the Iron Dome when it comes into operation to shoot down the missiles above the cities and only the timely assistance of the United States and the United Kingdom and the cooperation (unexpected for many) of Jordan and Saudi Arabia have avoided another massacre of civilians, Jews.
Downplaying the danger of yet another missile attack against civilian populations and supporting the thesis that frames the jihadist war against the Israeli minority enclave in the Middle East in a history of Jewish oppression and even "genocide" of the Palestinians is part of the infowarfare strategy and of the narrative that has become the centerpiece of the liberal West's increasingly unbalanced political strand. Yet another disinformation campaign, as crucial to Israel's enemies as the kinetic warfare waged by Hamas terrorists, intended to fuel anti-Semitism and erode the Western support Israel needs to win and survive.
The theory that supports the thesis of the Iranian attack being a mere show of force, because it was announced for days and unleashed with drones and long-range missiles, flying hours before hitting their targets (i.e., the opposite of the brutal surprise attack of Hamas on 7 October), was only a moderate response to avenge Israel's killing of senior IRGC officials in Damascus, does not seem consistent with the strategy whereby Iran has always indirectly struck Israel through one of its proxy.
Rather, it can be assumed that the attack was also intended to test the capabilities of Iron Dome to plan future missile assaults, to be launched directly and simultaneously at Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas and other Iraqi and Syrian militias to overwhelm the air defense systems of Israel. Israel's integrated air defense system, the most advanced in the world, supported by modern fighters and warships with advanced air support from Israel's allies, neutralized almost all Iranian missiles and the largest swarm of kamikaze drones in history .
The Israeli air defense is very effective and aimed at shooting down missiles aimed at population centers as a priority. Nonetheless, some medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), crucial for any future Iranian nuclear attack, managed to hit an Israeli air base in the southern part of the country. Multiple intelligence sources confirm that Iran has little time left to be able to produce nuclear weapons, and one need only look at the range of the missiles used on Saturday 13 April to understand that any Iranian nuclear attack would be destructive, not just for Israel, but for everyone those countries included in that MRBM range. The nightmare of an Iran equipped with a nuclear arsenal should represent a dossier of global security policy on a par with that of Russia, not only for its hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East but also for those in Europe who continue to consider it a reliable commercial and political partner .
After having transformed the Palestinian people into the expendable shield of Hamas's diabolical plan to attack Israel, once Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government contested at home and abroad were considered weakened and isolated by his Western allies, Iran tried really, nothing but a drama! But it failed, thanks to Israeli technology, Arab/American support and certainly the weakness of the Iranian military device.
Israel's opportunity to mend ties with the West and relaunch the Abraham Accords
How Israel responds to Iran at this point is perhaps the most important decision of this war – and the event that will most affect geostrategic assets in the region for decades.
Now everyone is appealing for Israel's moderation, but its reaction is very likely.
But there is no doubt that a direct attack on Iran is already in the IDF's plans, because no government could afford not to react in the face of a deadly missile bombardment like the one unleashed against the Israeli people, which would have razed any other country not equipped with the Iron Dome system.
However, the Israeli war government should take advantage of the sudden change in the Middle Eastern strategic environment, represented by the novelty that emerged on the night of Iranian bombings with the open support for Israel by Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Even if their official motivation is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", the active support in the defense of the Israeli skies obtained on Saturday 13 April reveals more concrete and reassuring friendships than those that Israel has received from many of its alleged European allies after the Hamas attack. Israel may still be surrounded on three sides by Iranian proxies, but Iran is also realizing that its ferocious repression against its own population and policy of aggression against Israel deeply concerns other neighboring states who are creating a new system of alliances that sees Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and the American allies in the Gulf create a common front, which also make Iran partially surrounded by adversaries.
A Middle Eastern strategic context that is changing, despite the strong protests and contradictions that have emerged in the West, precisely because of the war in Gaza and the tensions that Iranian assertiveness is creating throughout the region. In fact, Israel is not the only one to have suffered violence and attacks from the Iranian regime. A few weeks ago, Iran attacked Pakistani territory with ballistic missiles. Pakistan is a state equipped with nuclear weapons and this demonstrates a clear and worrying change in Iranian military doctrine, or at least some upheavals in its decision-making process.
The probability that in the short term, an Iranian MRBM capable of hitting Israeli territory or that of another country within its range of action could be armed with a nuclear warhead, transforms the sites where uranium is enriched into one of the objectives that Israel it could strike, even with cyber attacks, in its response to last Saturday's attack. Another possible target is certainly the production factories of Shahed drones and ballistic missiles. Hitting these possible targets would represent "a favor" to Ukraine, and a clear message to Russia which uses them and is aligned with Iran, as well as preventing the EU and US from claiming that the response is a reckless action.
These scenarios should induce the West and above all a clouded EU to resume pressure for the control of the Iranian nuclear program and reactivate strong restrictive measures and sanctions against the strategic sectors of the economy of the Āyatollāhs, who in addition to being the major financiers of terrorism jihadist matrix, continue to supply Russia with weapons and drones for its war against Ukraine.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/israele-risposta-attacchi-iran/ on Wed, 17 Apr 2024 06:13:11 +0000.