Israel attacks Iran: a 'limited' retaliation

It took 25 days to act, said Arash Azizi in The Atlantic, but last Saturday Israel finally responded to the salvo of missiles fired at it by Iran. The operation – named "Days of Repentance" – involved more than 100 Israeli fighter jets, and targeted air-defence systems, radars, military bases and missile production factories across Iran, including on the outskirts of Tehran.

It was the "most significant attack on Iran by any country since the 1980s", but fell a long way short of the apocalyptic strike some had feared. Israel didn't target Iran's nuclear or energy infrastructure, nor did it assassinate any political or military leaders. According to insiders, Israel even used intermediaries to give Tehran a day's warning, to avoid mass casualties (Iran said four soldiers died in the strikes). Given the limited nature of the attack, Iran has an opportunity to de-escalate the conflict by calling it quits.

What this strike shows, said Yossi Melman in Haaretz, is that, for all his bluster, Israel's PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, is "well aware of the limitation of Israel's power and its dependence on the US". He knew better than to push his luck days before America's election. Still, the attacks were a devastating display of Israel's aerial and intelligence superiority, showing it has the capacity to attack any Iranian site it wishes. The strikes were far from cosmetic, said Arieh Kovler in The Spectator. According to the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Israel targeted all of Iran's rocket-fuel mixers. Destroying them could cripple Iran's missile production "for months or years". That's bad for Tehran, and for Russia, which wants to use some of those missiles in Ukraine.

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The question now is how Iran's humiliated leaders will respond, said The Economist. Israel's attack signals the failure of Tehran's national-security doctrine, which was based on outsourcing the job of fighting Israel to local proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran's options are now limited. To regain a measure of deterrence, it could try to rebuild those militias, but that would mean "doubling down on a failed strategy". It could seek to boost its own military capabilities, but it lacks money. As for racing to create a nuclear bomb, that would invite further Israeli attacks that Iran, following the destruction of several of its air-defence batteries, is in no position to fend off. Another option, of course, would be to "pursue a less ideological foreign policy". But while most Iranians would welcome that, their 85-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, would never countenance it. We'll have to wait to see if his successor is more "pragmatic".