The Iranian ballistic response to Israeli military escalation and the risk of a regional conflagration
After showing extreme restraint in the wake of the assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Hanieh, Iran could not remain idle after the latest Israeli attacks which resulted in the elimination of the Hamas leader. Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah and the deputy commander of operations of the “Revolutionary Guards”, Iranian General Abbas Nilforushan. Iran had to retaliate or risk losing its deterrence and, more importantly, its credit and influence over its allies in the region. Could the chain reactions that could result from a probable Israeli reaction to the Iranian attack lead to a regional conflagration?
The Iranian ballistic response to the latest Israeli attacks was feared. Washington took it upon itself to warn Tehran against any response by alternating threats and signals of openness. In view of the latest developments on the Lebanese scene, Iran was faced with a challenge which directly engaged its national security and which thus presented it with the obligation to intervene. The only two questions that remained unanswered concerned the modalities and scale of the response Direct by means of a ballistic attack or indirect via its numerous regional vectors (Iraq, Syria, Yemen)? Destructive or preventive?
The first signs of a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, even limited for the moment, which appeared on Monday evening, constituted a serious cause for concern and ended up precipitating a direct Iranian response by means of a ballistic attack.
Certainly, the Israeli army claims that its land incursion into southern Lebanon is “limited” and that it does not aim to occupy southern Lebanon or advance beyond the Litani River. But the fact that this invasion coincides with regional and international maneuvers aimed at disarming Hezbollah under the pretext of applying Security Council Resolution 1701 and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south of the country constitutes for Iran a serious alert. This explains why Iran was forced to respond directly to the latest Israeli attacks with a ballistic attack.
An Iranian attack doubly limited
However, anxious to safeguard the diplomatic window half-opened by the Biden Administration, Tehran has chosen to give a limited scale to its ballistic response on two levels:
- Lack of surprise. American sources confirmed that Washington warned the Israeli government several hours in advance of the imminence of an Iranian attack. If we should not underestimate the electronic intelligence capabilities of the American naval air force deployed in the region, it is also very likely that Iran chose to warn the Americans of its intention to attack Israel in order to cushion the military and diplomatic effects of such an attack.
- Preventive attack. Based on the first information available, the Iranian ballistic attack looks like a warning shot rather than a lethal military attack. Certainly, Israeli propaganda emphasizes the performance of its multifaceted air defense system (Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling) which would have succeeded in intercepting 90% of the 180 (or 250 according to other sources) Iranian missiles fired at Israel.
But the fact that the Israeli government imposes strict controls on military information and has ordered Israeli citizens not to film or share images relating to the Iranian attack proves that the percentage of interceptions of Iranian missiles is not t is not as high as Israeli propaganda claims. In this regard, an Iranian source who suggested that around 30% of Iranian missiles would have succeeded in crossing the Israeli air defense wall (around 80 missiles out of 250) seems closer to reality.
But beyond this technical-military question, what leads us to believe that the Iranian attack was of a preventive nature is that the ballistic missiles which managed to bypass Israeli defenses had targeted sensitive military points (such as the air bases sheltering the F-35s having carried out air raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut) but with a relative and calculated lethal effect. The warning is clear. Iran has demonstrated its ability to target major military objectives with guided missiles that Israeli and American air defenses are incapable of completely intercepting.
Iran’s serious warning to its adversaries
Certainly, the Iranian ballistic response was limited by the lack of surprise and by its scale. It nonetheless constituted a strong warning to Israel and its American and British allies. Iran has succeeded in sending a strong signal while restoring, for the moment at least, the equation of regional deterrence that Israel has seriously shaken up in recent days thanks to its undeniable tactical victories recorded on the Lebanese front.
But with this spectacular ballistic attack, Iran also sent, at the same time, a strong warning to the reactionary petromonarchies of the Gulf (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates). The latter have launched in recent days, via their media and their numerous relays on social networks, a denigration campaign against Iran, by distilling the poison of confessionalism and playing on the Sunni versus Shiite division.
Through this insidious campaign, the reactionary regimes of the Gulf seek above all to hide their compromise in the vast project which aims to redraw the map of the Middle East under American-Israeli hegemony.
Worse, reports have recently emerged of the intention of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to strengthen the Lebanese army with the aim of ensuring its deployment in the south of the country at the risk of leading to a dangerous standoff with Hezbollah.
What are the risks of regional conflagration?
The Iranian foreign minister declared the day after the Iranian attack that for his country, the response stopped there unless Israel decided to retaliate in turn. The Israeli government has already made it clear that the Iranian attack will not go unpunished. In turn, the chief of staff of the Iranian army threatened that in the event of a new Israeli attack on its territory, its response would be more substantial.
What are the risks, in these conditions, of a slippage likely to lead to a regional conflagration? Even if it will continue to support its allies in the region as it makes no secret of it, Iran has no interest in a total regional war which would see the United States intervene directly alongside Israel.
If there is a risk of regional conflagration, it will therefore come from Israel. Indeed, intoxicated by the tactical victories recorded recently in Lebanon, the Israeli government, pushed by its extremist wing, sees that it is faced with an unexpected opportunity to put an end to the Iranian nuclear project and, beyond that, to the threat geopolitics that it constitutes in the region.
Israel believes it has nothing to lose as long as it can count on the American umbrella. The Israeli warmongering that threatens regional, and perhaps global, peace is not only linked to the fact that the Israeli government has fallen under the influence of far-right extremist hawks. This warmongering finds its origin and deep historical roots in the Zionist project of “Greater Israel”. The latter will not necessarily take a territorial expression going beyond the borders of Palestine. It would suffice to ensure the political, economic and cultural hegemony of Israel in the region within the framework of the “Abrahamic” normalization process which in all cases provides for the burial of the option of an independent Palestinian state and viable.
It must be recognized that for obvious geopolitical reasons, Iran and its regional allies constitute a serious pitfall that must be overcome by all means. If certain forces within the Empire continue to bet on a possible domestication of Iran through its integration into the regional game (a perspective favored by Russia and China), it seems that Israel does not believe in all to this diplomatic option and prefers that of neutralization, in any case as long as the Mullahs’ regime remains in place. Iran knows this and that is why it will try to send strong signals attesting that it will sell its skin dearly but without compromising the prospect of a diplomatic outcome.
