Why Israel settled for a limited attack on Iran
The air attack carried out by Israeli aircraft against Iranian military targets last Saturday constitutes an important turning point in the standoff between the two regional powers but it has left several questions unanswered.
The Israeli attack allowed the Netanyahu government to express satisfaction at having responded to the Iranian ballistic attack earlier this month, thus restoring the equation of regional deterrence and reaping political dividends from the Israeli public opinion.
According to official Israeli statements, the attack on Iran was an operational success. The Israeli raids, carried out by dozens of aircraft including F-35s, managed to hit Iranian military targets (air defenses and ballistic missile manufacturing sites) from a safe distance without having to penetrate the Iranian airspace, thanks to long-range guided missiles.
A former head of the Israeli army’s Operations Division, Yisrael Ziv, described the Israeli attack as “historic” in its scale and scope “insofar as it provided proof that Israel was able to have , for several hours, complete freedom of operation in the skies of the Islamic Republic. » (1)
The Israeli attack “also revealed, according to Israeli analyst David Horovitz, the vulnerability of Iranian anti-aircraft defense systems, which were neutralized by the air force at the start of the strikes and which would probably not be not able to cope with possible more intensive and larger operations in the future. » (2)
The triumphant declarations of the Netanyahu government following the attack on Iran did not satisfy the entire Israeli political class. Indeed, the limited nature of the Israeli attack, whether it was voluntary as Netanyahu claims or whether it was imposed by the American Administration, has come under numerous criticism, including within the government majority.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Saturday that Iran should have “paid a much heavier price” than the damage caused by Israeli strikes overnight from Friday to Saturday, adding that “the decision to not attacking strategic and economic targets in Iran was wrong” (3)
For his part, the leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party, Avigdor Liberman, former defense minister, criticized the Netanyahu government for being “once again satisfied with public relations actions”. Criticism has come even from the ranks of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Likud MK Tally Gotliv said the limited attack represented “a capitulation to (US President Joe) Biden’s administration and an opportunity failed to derail Iran’s nuclear aspirations” (4)
An important but not decisive attack
The triumphant declarations of the Netanyahu government following the attack on Iran do not allow us to lift the veil on certain questions which remained unanswered.
If the Israeli attack actually damaged Iran’s air defenses and ballistic missile sites, why do Israel and its American ally continue to warn Iran against retaliating?
The Israeli analyst, David Horovitz, who claims that the Iranian air defenses have been destroyed is not far from a contradiction since he admits that “Iran is nevertheless quite capable of trying to increase by another not face direct conflict with Israel. There is no evidence to suggest that Saturday morning’s attack strategically undermined the regime’s offensive capabilities. » (5)
Washington, which had pushed the Israeli government in recent weeks to carry out “a targeted and proportional response”, reacted the day after the Israeli attack by affirming that “This should be the end of this direct exchange of fire between Israel and the Iran” and calling on “all influential countries to put pressure on Iran to stop these attacks against Israel.” Worse, the American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, did not hesitate to warn Tehran: “Iran should not make the mistake of responding to Israeli strikes, which should mark the end of this exchange. » (6)
If the Israeli attack was as destructive as the Israeli government claims, how can we explain that the American Administration continues to fear an Iranian response to the point of being obliged to warn Iran?
The new equation of regional deterrence
The warmongers who do not hesitate to call for taking advantage of the situation to attack the Iranian nuclear program, like General Dominique Trinquand, should ask themselves the nagging question: why Israel was content with an attack limited without affecting strategic nuclear and oil sites?
While it is reasonable to believe that Iran’s air defenses suffered a serious blow during last Saturday’s Israeli attack, the fears that continue to be expressed by Israelis and Americans do not allow us to conclude that there has been a change. radical in the equation of regional deterrence between Israel and Iran.
Israeli deterrence is fundamentally based on its air superiority with aircraft capable of firing long-range guided missiles, at safe distances, without having to penetrate Iranian airspace.
On the other hand, and in the absence of a modern and effective air defense system (this is also the weak point of the Iranian army despite the progress made by the Iranian defense industry over the last two decades) , Iranian deterrence is essentially based on its ballistic capabilities in which Iranian engineers have excelled despite the constraints of the international embargo.
It is possible that the Israeli air attack hit ballistic missile production and storage sites, but to think that long-range air raids lasting four hours could destroy a ballistic potential that Iran took two decades to develop. to put in place is simply unrealistic.
Israel has undoubtedly succeeded in restoring the equation of regional deterrence, which Iran has never claimed to question, but it has not radically changed it in its favor.
Iran’s formidable strategic assets
With its back against the wall, Iran could still hurt Israel for the simple reason that there is no air defense system (neither Israeli nor American) capable of intercepting all of Iran’s ballistic missiles and Iran amply demonstrated during his offensive on October 2.
Iran voluntarily toned down the warhead of the missiles it launched at Israel and which managed to hit their military targets by bypassing the Israeli air defense wall. It is not said that he will show the same leniency if his survival were to be at stake.
Everything suggests that Iran will not respond to the Israeli attack, the military impact of which it has not hesitated to minimize, at least not before the American presidential election. The much-feared regional war will not take place immediately.
But this does not mean that the risk of regional conflagration has completely disappeared. Israeli adventurism is too pervasive and too linked not only to its militarist and expansionist geopolitical structure but also to a particularly paranoid political culture.
Netanyahu and his allies on the religious far right have high hopes for the possible return of Donald Trump. The Israelis know that they cannot single-handedly destroy Iran’s nuclear sites buried deep in tunnels deep in the mountains.
Destruction of these sites requires more than long-range guided missiles, penetrating bombs that only U.S. strategic bombers can carry out. This can only be done within the framework of a regional war in which Israel will have succeeded in directly involving the United States, with all that this implies in terms of consequences for world peace.
Indeed, an open war against Iran would not only push the latter to use all its military assets, including its destructive ballistic capacity. If we leave him no choice to defend his skin dearly, he can also turn to other assets of a geopolitical nature which come from his capacity to cause a devastating political earthquake throughout the Middle East region: from the Gulf to the Syria and Lebanon via Iraq.
Note
(1)The Times of Israel, October 27, 2024
(2)The Times of Israel, October 27, 2024
(3)The Times of Israel, October 26, 2024
(4)The Times of Israel, October 26, 2024
(5)The Times of Israel, October 27, 2024