Israel’s defences would trump Iran’s in any air war, but at a high cost
Iranian commander says Tehran could review its nuclear doctrine; EU leaders back new sanctions
Ageing air defences have left Iran vulnerable to an Israeli attack if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides to ignore global pressure not to retaliate directly for the unprecedented drone and missile salvoes of Saturday night.
Setting aside the diplomatic and strategic costs that are likely to be the strongest deterrent to any counterstrike, experts say Israel would have little trouble hitting targets inside Iran, which has an obsolete air force and indigenous air defence systems based on ageing Russian models.
Iran’s barrage demonstrated both the strength of its airborne armoury and Israel’s formidable defence systems, which ensured that the hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones caused only minimal damage.
Iran is a “superpower in tactical ballistic missiles and UAVs”, Zvika Haimovich, a former Israeli air defence chief, said.
Its air defences are another matter, built largely around Russian S-200 and S-300 antiaircraft missile systems or a range of locally produced equivalents such as the Bavar373, Khordad, Raad, Sayyad and Talash as well as old American and Russian warplanes, some of which date from the 1970s era of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Similar systems gave been deployed in Syria since 2015, giving Israeli pilots years of experience in dealing with them.
“Our air force and coalition air forces flew in this environment. They know how to deal effectively with this system,” Haimovich said.
“I will give them the respect, but that will not be the main challenge dealing with Iran.”
Sidharth Kausha, a research fellow at the Royal United Strategic Institute in London, said the main challenge for Israel may not be evading Iran’s surface-to-air missiles, but being able to successfully strike military bases in western and southern Iran which require the use of penetrating bombs.
Kausha said Israeli aircraft, such as the stealth F-35 jets, which could evade Iran’s air defence networks, typically carry smaller ordnance.
But against deeply buried targets larger munitions may be needed, which would mean they may have to be carried externally on aircraft such as the F-16 making these more detectable to radars.
For safety, pilots might be more likely to launch them from further away.
“The Iranian air defence network is certainly not impenetrable to these aircraft, but this raises the risk of losses and the Iranian capacity to, at least in theory, intercept some incoming standoff munitions increases,” he said.
Whether Israel is willing to risk a direct strike would partly depend on how confident it is that it can thwart further attacks by Iran, which described the weekend salvoes as reprisals for a lethal Israeli strike on its generals in Syria.
Further escalation could see Iran opting for more powerful weapons from an arsenal which analysts say includes more than 3,500 missiles and thousands of drones.
Israel’s multilayer air defence is built around the highaltitude Arrow systems successfully used over the weekend, the mid-range David’s Sling and the short-range Iron Dome which has fended off thousands of rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon.
But these do not come cheap.Though Israeli officials have given no details, according to calculations by analysts, the price of Iran’s attack probably amounted to $80m (R1.5bn) to $100m (R1.9bn) but cost Israel and its allies around $1bn (R19bn) to repel.
The problems being experienced by Ukraine in securing replacement ordnance has underlined the long-term impact on air defences subject to continuous attack from Iran or its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has an arsenal of thousands of missiles of its own.
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass an aid package to replenish Israel’s air defences.
Brigadier-General Doron Gavish, head of Israel’s air defence task force, said Israel had been working overtime to rebuild its stockpiles in preparation for another possible attack from Iran or its proxies.
Were the Israelis to face Iran alone in a future flare-up, they could use Iron Dome and David’s Sling as more thrifty fallbacks: Any missiles that might be missed by Arrow could be tackled by the loweraltitude systems.
“Without getting into the numbers, you could say that again, together with allies, mainly with the US, but also from other countries, we feel we have the needed supply,” he told reporters at an Iron Dome battery in southern Israel.
Amos Yadlin, a retired Israeli air force general and chief of military intelligence, predicted Israel would not sit back and rely on its defences to repel attacks without responding to eliminate the threat.
“Iran is not the only side that knows how to attack,” Yadlin, who runs the Mind Israel strategic consultancy, said.
“Israel has very significant offensive options. There will not be a situation where Israel just defends itself while Iran strikes.”
Iran could review its “nuclear doctrine” following Israeli threats, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said yesterday, raising concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme which it has always said was for peaceful purposes.
“The threats of the Zionist regime [Israel] against Iran’s nuclear facilities make it possible to review our nuclear doctrine and deviate from our previous considerations,” Ahmad Haghtalab, the Guards commander in charge of nuclear security, was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last say on Tehran’s nuclear programme, which the West suspects has military purposes.
In 2021, Iran’s then intelligence minister said Western pressure could push Tehran to seek nuclear weapons, the development of which Khamenei banned in a fatwa, or religious decree, in the early 2000s.
“Building and stockpiling nuclear bombs is wrong and using it is haram [religiously forbidden] ... Though we have nuclear technology, Iran has firmly avoided it,” Khamenei reiterated in 2019.
Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“If the Zionist regime wants to take action against our nuclear centres and facilities, we will surely and categorically reciprocate with advanced missiles against their own nuclear sites,” Haghtalab said.
EU leaders decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The summit in Brussels was the first meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders since Saturday’s attack.
EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel’s security and called on all sides to prevent more tensions.
“We feel it’s very important to do everything to isolate Iran,” summit chair Charles Michel said, adding the new sanctions against the Islamic Republic would target companies involved in the production of drones and missiles.
Italy spoke separately ahead of G7 talks in favour of sanctions against arms suppliers linked to the attack against Israel, as well as those behind attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
EU foreign ministers are due to continue the sanctions work on Monday.
Germany, France and several EU states are looking at expanding a scheme that seeks to curb the supply of Iranian drones to Russia to include the provision of missiles and cover deliveries to Iranian proxies in the Middle East.
Belgium backed introducing sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Analysts say Iran is unlikely to face more severe economic punishment because of worries about boosting oil prices and angering top buyer China.
Meanwhile, finance leaders from the Group of Seven also condemned Iran’s attack.
In a joint statement, the G7 ministers and central bank governors said they would “ensure close co-ordination of any future measure to diminish Iran’s ability to acquire, produce or transfer weapons to support destabilising regional activities”.