Iran and Israel are exchanging punch and counter-punch as the wider world waits to see if there is to be another round of hostilities between the two in the immediate future. Yet, the punches and counterpunches are deceptive, because some are primarily theatre, while others are designed to strike home in deadly earnest.
Take the volleys of Iranian missiles fired at Israel on Saturday night in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike killing two senior generals in the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April. On the face of it, this looks like a direct attack on Israel that was thwarted by sophisticated Israeli air defences aided by US, UK and French airpower.
There is no doubt that this was a serious air offensive consisting of 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and over 100 surface-to-surface missiles launched against Israel over a five-hour period. “But there is a strange angle here,” writes Alon Pinkas in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “When the country [Iran] notifies the United States that its attack will be limited in scope, when it divulges what it is planning a week in advance, it is as if it knew that 99 per cent of its missiles would be intercepted.”
Iran wanted to show that it was not afraid to make a direct military attack on Israel in response to the killings in Damascus, but it did not want to cause civilian casualties that would automatically trigger Israeli retaliation, possibly supported by US military might. The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said Iran gave the region 72 hours warning, while targets appear to have been military bases away from populated areas. The very fact that most of the projectiles fired by Iran were slow moving, propellor-driven drones, easy to detect and destroy, suggests that its air attack was largely symbolic.
Unsurprising, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a quick statement claiming a famous victory: “We intercepted. We blocked. Together we will win.” US President Joe Biden and British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said the same thing, arguing that, since Iran had failed in its attack, then there was no justification for Israeli retaliation.
Iran says that its military action is now over and it clearly does not want a full-scale military conflict with Israel. A strong precedent for its punch-pulling retaliation against Israel for the deaths of its generals in Damascus occurred four years earlier in January 2020 when the US assassinated General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps activities outside Iran, who was killed at Baghdad International Airport by a US drone.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised direct Iranian military retaliation against the US. On 8 January, Iran fired missiles at two US bases, al-Asad in western Iraq and in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Prior to firing the missiles, it warned the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities who promptly informed the US, whose forces consequently suffered no fatalities.
Yet, for all the theatre, the danger of an escalating regional conflict stemming from the Gaza war is real and increasing by the day. Iran wishes to conclude its brief direct confrontation with Israel, but keep its credibility as the leader of the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the US in the Middle East. To do this effectively, it must seek other means of harassing them short of all-out war. Inevitably, brinkmanship and sabre-rattling on the part of both Israel and Iran will become more risky as each side seeks to make its threats credible without carrying them out.
Biden and his administration have long been aware that Netanyahu would like to lure the US into a war against Iran in which the Americans would do the heavy lifting. This approach long predates the Gaza war, but would today be doubly convenient for Netanyahu, because it would divert attention from the horrors of Gaza and the fact that the Israeli Defence Forces’ military superiority there is not translating into political gains. Alon Pinkas says there is a strong suspicion “in Washington that Netanyahu would want the Americans to be dragged into a war with Iran. That way, the 7 October debacle would miraculously become a strategic triumph for which he could claim credit.”
President Biden is seeking to avoid this scenario, saying that the US will not join Israel in an attack on Iran. This makes it less likely that Israel will seriously respond to Iran’s missile attack because it will not want to fight Iran without full-scale US backing. Most of the drones and missiles fired at Israel last Saturday were intercepted by US and allied air power, according to Israeli press reports. In other words, Israel could not fight an actual war against the Palestinians in Gaza or a potential regional war against Iran without the support of the US.
Yet, Netanyahu may believe that he got Biden’s approve and backing for the Israeli offensive in Gaza, and, if he plays his cards right, he might inveigle the US and its allies into a war against Iran.
The danger of an escalating Middle East conflict grows by the day
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15.04.2024
Iran and Israel are exchanging punch and counter-punch as the wider world waits to see if there is to be another round of hostilities between the two in the immediate future. Yet, the punches and counterpunches are deceptive, because some are primarily theatre, while others are designed to strike home in deadly earnest.
Take the volleys of Iranian missiles fired at Israel on Saturday night in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike killing two senior generals in the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April. On the face of it, this looks like a direct attack on Israel that was thwarted by sophisticated Israeli air defences aided by US, UK and French airpower.
There is no doubt that this was a serious air offensive consisting of 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and over 100 surface-to-surface missiles launched against Israel over a five-hour period. “But there is a strange angle here,” writes Alon Pinkas in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “When the country [Iran] notifies the United States that its attack will be limited in scope, when it divulges what it is planning a week in advance, it is as if it knew that 99 per cent of its missiles would be intercepted.”
Iran wanted to show that it was not afraid to........
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