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News in the Middle East changes rapidly. At one moment, unprecedented missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel made headlines. The headline then returns to the fighting and suffering in Gaza.
But policymakers, analysts and military leaders are still watching intently over the extraordinary shootout that occurred just days ago between the two old adversaries. Perhaps a small technical failure did not lead to a catastrophic international conflict.
It is worth considering how close they came to the limit and how deep the abyss lay before them. This is the first time Iran and Israel have attacked directly.
Some analysts say Iran’s attack is the largest combined missile and drone attack in history, and larger than Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Indeed, this was the first external artillery attack on Israel since Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles in 1991.
Most of the more than 300 Iranian drones and missiles were shot down or failed en route. But from my office in Jerusalem, I watched the night sky lit up by Israeli air defense forces trying to shoot down ballistic missiles flying overhead. A failure of one of her GPS guidance systems would result in a missile landing in an urban area, incurring huge civilian costs.
“I don’t think people realize how close we were that weekend,” one senior Western security official told me. “It could have been a completely different story.”
But some Western countries believe positive results can be drawn from the April 13 attack and Israel’s limited retaliation last week. They said that predicting the Iranian attack was a major intelligence success, that Israel’s defense was an outstanding example of allied military cooperation, and that both Iran and Israel learned how to descend the escalating ladder. claims.
Let’s do some espionage first. We are told that the US learned of Iran’s plans on Wednesday morning before the attack on Saturday evening. And, crucially, they discovered the scale of Iran’s ambitions.
A senior Western official said, “We had a feeling that Iran’s response would reach the upper limit of expectations.” “It was a bit of a shock. But it helped galvanize the international response.”
Video caption, watch: BBC Verify investigates footage of Iranian attack on Israel
Importantly, this helped the United States persuade Gulf states, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to join in defending Israel. After learning the scale of Iran’s plan, they feared the risk of escalating a regional war if Israel had no choice but to retaliate harshly. So a combination of superior intelligence gathering and civilian communications by Iran (which the US denies took place) gave Israel and its allies time to prepare.
The role of Jordan and Saudi Arabia is not yet fully clear. Jordan admitted that it shot down the Iranian drone in self-defense to protect its sovereignty. Jordan is also understood to have granted Israeli warplanes some access to its airspace. Saudi Arabia is believed to have been providing information to the United States and keeping an eye on the threat posed by Iran-backed militants in Yemen.
The important point is that it worked. The militaries of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have shown that they can act together in collective air defense.
“This was a very successful tactical operation,” a security official said. “Intelligence directed it, we had the entire region, and we worked together. No other group of nations in the world can do this.” This is the beginning of a new regional alliance against Iran. Some argue that it could be.
But for others, it’s the typical security and military perspective, one that celebrates technological successes and misses the larger political picture. More pessimistic analysts say that if Iran wanted to inflict significant damage on Israel, it could withhold advance warning, expand its targets and launch a second wave of attacks, or even force Hezbollah to attack Lebanon. He claims that he could have ordered a large-scale attack from Japan.
Emir Hokayem, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said the operation showed how dependent Israel was on its allies for its defense. He also questioned whether Israel would have enough air defense missiles for a more violent conflict.
“As we saw with the war in Ukraine and Russia, it’s all about how good you have in stock,” he says.
image captionBallistic missile debris discovered near Arad in southern Israel on Friday
Hokayem also rejected the idea that the crisis marks the beginning of a new regional military alliance.
“We are not yet on the cusp of a new era,” he said. “Arab states have cooperated primarily because they want to avoid regional conflicts and prove to their Western allies that they are good partners. It’s also a problem. They don’t want things flying or exploding in the country’s skies. ”
The optimists’ second argument is that Iran and Israel have learned from this experience. They claim that for the first time, both countries have accurately communicated their intentions. They realized they could de-escalate without losing face. Both sides feared re-establishing mutual deterrence.
Iran may have attacked Israel, but it warned allies of its intentions and suggested early on that it was a one-off. Israel demonstrated that modest retaliation is possible by targeting Iran’s air defenses in central Iran and demonstrating greater capability with small strikes, meaning it can strike where and when Iran wants.
We’ve heard that Iran may even have been tipped off about Israeli retaliation. Indeed, Iran signaled from a very early stage that it had no intention of responding to an Israeli counterattack.
Both sides will undoubtedly be learning military lessons. “This attack likely helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of Israel’s air defense systems,” the Institute for the Study of War said. Israel and the United States will also gain a deeper understanding of Iran’s tactical strategy.
The counterargument is that both Iran and Israel have broken taboos, making direct attack the easier option.
In an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, Afshon Ostwal of the Foreign Policy Institute said the scale of Iran’s attacks shows it is no longer convinced by a policy of restraint.
“The idea that Iran intentionally launched a weak attack does not withstand rigorous scrutiny,” he wrote. “Iran wanted to deal an impressive blow against Israel.”
Video caption, watch: BBC Verify investigates footage of Israeli attack on Iran
Hokayem challenges the ideas that Iran and Israel have learned to understand each other. He cited Israel’s failure to recognize the consequences of its decision to kill several elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders at the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
“These two countries don’t talk to each other. Instead, they only signal through military postures and third parties. These things can escalate very quickly. Misreading the other side’s intentions. “Risk appetite is a feature rather than a bug” in a relationship. ”
There is also skepticism about whether deterrence has been re-established on either side. “Both countries have violated the traditional rules of the game at limited cost. The balance of deterrence between the two countries is precarious,” said Amos Harel, a defense analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Perhaps the important lesson learned by many in this crisis was how close the region came to all-out war.
“It was a really big relief,” one Western diplomat told me. “It could have played out much differently.”
