The weeks that followed the pager mass terrorism across Lebanon, and the soon-followed assassination of Hezbollah’s top leadership, have Israel drunk on tactical successes. With that came a reinvigorated confidence in the IDF’s ability after a year of strategic fiascos in Gaza.
However, the ecstasy was cut short by Iran’s most coordinated ballistic missile attack against Israel in history.
The attack came in retaliation to Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and the killing of Hezbollah’s three-decade leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district.
The developments have raised the hot Middle Eastern temperature to a near boiling point, with the potential of an all-out regional war materialising.
The shaking hands of Benjamin Netanyahu as he gripped a stack of paper vowing counter-retaliation against Iran, in the aftermath of the attack, may have indicated Iranian success. This is despite Tel-Aviv and Washington downplaying its effect.
To speak of an Israeli imminent strike on Iranian soil is to overlook decades-long US-Israeli agreements, or understanding, that Israel cannot simply ignore the wishes of its patron and strike the heart of Iran in fear of triggering a wider conflict.
In his memoirs, Israel’s former premier Ehud Barak noted that the Bush administration in 2008 opposed any Israeli actions against Iran’s nuclear programme.
Bush confronted Barak and then-PM Ehud Olmert upon knowing that Israel wanted to buy heavy munitions from the US for that purpose.
The same dynamic continued with the Obama administration, despite Netanyahu’s intense efforts to pressure Obama to give Israel a leeway against Iran, preferably with US direct backing.
As a middle ground, Israel settled — rather reluctantly — for relatively limited surgical hits on Iranian assets across the Middle East and on Iranian soil, to subvert Tehran’s regional influence and nuclear ambitions.
Israel's missile miscalculation
To David Ignatius in the Washington Post, the recent developments in Lebanon have given Israel the chance to regain its ‘escalation dominance’ over Iran and its proxies.
With that in mind, Israeli officials are pondering whether it is now a time that may not come again to deliver the long-desired blow to Iran. The assumption is that Iran’s economy is in tatters and Hezbollah’s capabilities are reduced, and the consequences may be tolerable.
Importantly, President Biden has called — and reportedly deliberated with Israel — for a proportional response to Iran’s missile attack. The US may not want Israel to target Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities, in fear of severe Iranian response and the impact of that on the world economy.
Nonetheless, the mere discussion with the US of striking Iran has given Netanyahu the leeway to do what he always wanted. This is thus far the closest to an American green light to attack Iran directly.
Israel’s technological superiority over Iran enables the Israeli army to strike on Iranian soil, say by using the US-made state-of-the-art F-35 fighters. However, US and European logistical support, be it by providing fuel tankers and diplomatic backing, will be required.
Israel is also counting on Iran’s allegedly inferior air defence capabilities and antiquated air force, the legacy of the Shah era.
Reportedly, however, Iran acquired Russia’s S-400 air defence and Murmansk-BN electronic warfare systems. None have been tested with F-35s, and the effectiveness is yet to be seen.
It has also been speculated that Netanyahu counts on the fact that after a year of Israeli casualties in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli society may have grown more far-right and become less sensitive to frequent human losses and, therefore, will tolerate casualties in a possible engagement with Iran. Thus far, the Israeli internal front remained relatively insulated from Israel’s regional military ventures.
That said, absent from the discussion is whether this is an opportunity for Iran as well to cripple Israel, and if Tehran can.
The Iranians were clear, “If you [Israel] retaliate to our retaliation, we will strike you even harder”, this time not only on military targets - which they made sure everyone knew was the intended purpose of the attack — but also on essential Israeli infrastructure. This is the most determined, apparently most real, Iranian threat since October 7 2023.
The boldness has a logic behind it.
By striking Israel, Iran has demonstrated it had made a conscious decision to be ready for war, defying previous speculations on Iran’s inability or undesirability to engage in a direct conflict with Israel and, behind it, the United States.
One that may jeopardise its regional aspirations and the viability of its nuclear programme. Both are strategic goals and are viewed in existential terms.
Iran, therefore, sent a message to Israel and the US, that it put an end to its so-called ‘strategic patience’ and ushered in a new era to deal with Tel-Aviv heads on, without relying completely on its proxies.
Yet, as a show of diplomacy, possibly a way back, it publicly relayed repeatedly that Tehran remains invested in avoiding further escalation.
Why the change of heart then?
Iran has learned the lessons from the Gaza and Lebanon wars. By gauging the Israeli army’s performance on these fronts, Iranian officials can now see vulnerabilities in the Israeli army that Iran can exploit to especially outmanoeuvre Israel’s technological edge.
This was somewhat clear when Iranian missiles overwhelmed and bypassed much of Israel’s three-tier air defences, thanks, potentially, to years of gauging how those systems — certainly the Iron Dome — responded to Hamas and Hezbollah’s rockets.
Another lesson is that the Israeli technological superiority will be rendered far less consequential should an all-out war erupts, that is when the Israeli army is lured into a ground confrontation. Hezbollah and Hamas have proven that once the Israeli airforce has been ousted from the battlefield, the ground forces perform poorly and end up in an asymmetrical warfare of attrition.
As such, Tehran counts an exhausted Israeli army to deliver a strong blow to Tel-Aviv’s military capabilities. And this does not end with ground engagements.
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Embedded, arguably, in the Iranian strategic thinking is the concept of undermining Israel without having to decisively defeat the Israeli army. They consider shaking the Israeli social and political order. And, once again, they look at the political rift that Hamas and Hezbollah have caused among sections in Israeli society and draw lessons from that.
Another long-winded strategy in that regard is weakening Israel’s economy, not only by destabilising Israel from within but also by disrupting Israeli commercial routes.
The Houthis in Yemen have successfully closed off the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to international shipping heading to Israel’s Eilat Seaport, leading to its bankruptcy. Israel tried to compensate by increasing land trade through Jordan to the Arabian Gulf. ‘The Axis of Resistance’ readapted and threatened to disrupt those land commercial lines in Jordan.
Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghadi has also expressed a desire to extend the commercial blockade on Israel to the Mediterranean. This could as an initial step materialise through Hezbollah who allegedly tried to target Haifa’s port, as well as the gas platforms in the sea.
Should Israel attack Iran’s oil facilities, or for that matter, cause significant damage to Iranian infrastructure, Tehran will probably close off the strait of Hormuz as well, causing serious disruptions to oil exports and to the world economy.
What works to Iran’s advantage vis-a-vis Israel is the latter’s geographical mass, and by extension, strategic depth. Israel, in contrast, lacks strategic depth, a fact that Ben-Gurion saw a solution for via an offensive and preventive approach reliant on colonial expansion and conquest.
This practically means that if Israel strikes Iran, no matter how hard, Tehran can fall back on the absorbability of its strategic depth to regain strength and hit back. Nonetheless, an Iranian massive barrage of ballistic missiles, say six or seven hundred, can be far more devastating to Israel.
Now, imagine a routinised exchange of missiles and attacks between Israel and Iran, with Iranians hitting Israel with frequent waves of missiles for days or weeks.
Can Israel absorb?
Doubtful.
Dr Emad Moussa is a Palestinian-British researcher and writer specialising in the political psychology of intergroup and conflict dynamics, focusing on MENA with a special interest in Israel/Palestine. He has a background in human rights and journalism, and is currently a frequent contributor to multiple academic and media outlets, in addition to being a consultant for a US-based think tank.
Follow him on Twitter: @emadmoussa
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.