Tehran has just exposed how impotent it really is

Iran must now fear it lacks the military power needed to realise its malign intentions

Having threatened to exact a terrible vengeance on Israel, all that Iran appears to have achieved by launching its drone and missile attack is to reveal the true extent of the Islamic Republic’s military impotence.

Only one of the estimated 300 drones and missiles the Iranians fired at Israel succeeded in reaching their targets, with the Israel Defense Forces reporting that it had just “lightly hit” the Nevatim air force base in southern Israel’s Negev desert. As for the rest, the majority were destroyed long before they got anywhere near Israeli territory, intercepted by anti-missile systems deployed by an impressive coalition of allies – including the US and UK – that sprang to Israel’s defence in its hour of need.

No one should be surprised that Iran’s much-anticipated attempt to launch a direct attack on Israel – the first time the Islamic Republic has directly confronted Israel since its 1979 revolution – failed to have any meaningful impact.

Russia’s inability to achieve its war aims in Ukraine is, in part, due to the ineffectiveness of the Iranian drones that Tehran has supplied to Moscow in significant quantities, but that have proved no match for the Ukrainians’ superior air defences, much of which is provided by the West.

It was the same story with Saturday night’s drone and ballistic missile attack on Israel. A combination of Israel’s defence systems and interceptions carried out by the US, UK, Jordanian and French militaries meant that nearly all of the 110 ballistic missiles, 30 cruise missiles and 170 drones fired by Iran did not reach their targets, which were predominantly Israeli air and early warning bases.

Thus, far from fulfilling the pledge made by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the end of Ramadan last week that Israel must be “punished”, all the drone and missile bombardment has achieved is to expose the fundamental weakness of Iran’s military threat.

More than that, the Iranians have demonstrated to the rest of the world their true status as a hostile state that not only sponsors a global network of Islamist terror groups but is intent on waging war against the West and its allies.

Until now, Iran has successfully managed to cover its tracks by avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel, preferring instead to rely on a deadly network of terror groups, such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, to do its dirty work.

This has enabled Iran to maintain a cloak of deniability about its true intentions, one that has persuaded naive leaders in the West to engage with the Iranians in the belief that compromise was possible. It was this mindset that persuaded former US president Barack Obama – with the tacit support of David Cameron’s government – to negotiate the flawed nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, which made no meaningful provision for curbing Tehran’s terrorist activities.

Now the mask has slipped, and Iran’s attack on Israel has revealed the Islamic Republic’s true intent for all to see, a watershed moment that is likely to have a profound impact on how the world’s major democracies view the ayatollahs in future.

Iran will no longer be regarded merely as a challenge for Western policymakers, but as a tangible threat to Western security that must be tackled head-on, whether it concerns thwarting its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons or dismantling its terrorist infrastructure, both in the Middle East and the wider world.

Tehran is, after all, a central player in the developing alliance of autocratic regimes, which includes Russia, China and North Korea, that is inimical to the values of Western democracy.

From now on Iran should no longer be given the benefit of the doubt when it tries to conceal its real malign activities, as has been the case with its protestations over the missile attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, which Tehran has used as a casus belli for its failed assault on Israel.

Far from being engaged in diplomatic activity, the consulate served as a command and control centre used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to supervise its nexus of terrorist activities throughout the region. This is why no Iranian diplomats were reported killed in the attack, which has been widely attributed to the Israelis. Those who died were high-ranking members of the IRGC’S elite Quds Force, a unit that reports directly to Khamenei.

The unit was established by the ayatollahs for the purpose of exporting Iran’s Islamic revolution throughout the Muslim world.

To this day, a banner depicting Qasem Soleimani, the Quds Force chief assassinated in a drone strike undertaken by the Trump administration in 2020, adorns the security fence guarding the diplomatic compound.

By finally finding the courage to attack Israel directly, Iran’s bluff has at last been called to the extent that, rather than constantly giving Tehran the benefit of the doubt, Western leaders should accept that they are now at war with Iran, and act accordingly.

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