Iran crosses red lines to create a new equation in conflict
With its first-ever direct military attack on Israel, Iran crossed old red lines and created a precedent in its decades-long shadow war with the Jewish state. Iran “decided to create a new equation,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Major General Hossein Salami, said in an interview with state-run television. “From now on, if Israel attacks Iranian interests, figures and citizens anywhere, we will retaliate from Iran.”
The attack was unprecedented in scope, involving more than 300 drones and missiles combined, but analysts said it was also carefully choreographed – giving Israel and its allies time to prepare, and providing the Israeli government a possible off-ramp amid fears of a widening war. The assault was designed with the knowledge that Israel’s “multi-layer systems would prevent most of the weapons from reaching a target”, said Sima Shine, head of the Iran programme at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
“That outcome made space for Netanyahu and senior leaders to strike a more measured tone than they could if one of the missiles had taken out an apartment building or barracks,” she said.
Since the war in Gaza began last October, Iranian proxies from Lebanon to Yemen have launched attacks against Israeli and US military installations, but Tehran has consistently signalled it has no desire for a head-on conflict. However, after an Israeli airstrike on a diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, killed two Iranian generals this month, the country felt compelled to respond from its own territory, according to analysts and Iranian officials.
“We showed restraint for six months, considering the conditions of the region and considering that we are not seeking to expand the scope of tension,” Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters on Sunday.
“It seems that the Israeli regime received the wrong signal from Iran’s restraint.”
After a January attack by an Iran-aligned militant group in Iraq killed three US service members in Jordan, Iran dispatched emissaries to Iraq and Lebanon to cool tensions and deliver guidance that attacks on US bases and interests in the region should stop. The attacks subsided and the informal truce has held.
But over the past few months, Israel has stepped up its strikes on Iranian interests across the region. The attack in Damascus was especially provocative because of its target – a diplomatic compound, traditionally exempted from hostilities – and because it killed two senior generals in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
There was a sense that “Iran’s passivity had encouraged Israel to push the envelope too far”, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. Mr Vaez said Iran’s rulers were under increasing pressure to respond to Israel directly.
“You would even see commentators on state TV criticising Iran’s strategy of restraint,” he said. These pressures are new, he said, and speak to the growing strength of ultra-hardline elements within Iran.
In the two weeks since the Damascus strike, Iranian leaders publicly and repeatedly said its forces would respond. The country’s supreme leader vowed Israel would “regret” its actions.
US and Israeli officials began to warn over the past several days that an attack was imminent. Iran announced on social media that the barrage had been unleashed while the drones and missiles were still airborne.
General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s joint chief of staff, said the operation was “completely successful”, in an interview with state-run media. Gen Bagheri said the strikes destroyed an “intelligence centre and air base”. Israel said 99pc of the drones and missiles had been intercepted and there had been only minor damage to a base in the south.
Analysts said the attack was probably designed to look spectacular – a viral video showed projectiles being intercepted by Israel’s air-defence system over the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem – while keeping death and destruction to a minimum.
“Iran didn’t inflict maximum damage,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme in London.
Iran took time to plan and orchestrate the response, Ms Vakil said, an effort that Tehran hoped would demonstrate a wide range of capabilities across the region. (© Washington Post)