The news of the day is that Iran has fired (they say) 300 missiles and drones at Israel. The world is on tenterhooks waiting to see whether and how Israel will respond. A few observations.
To my eye President Biden has seized the worst of his possible courses of action. After telling the Iranians not to attack Israel which they went ahead and did anyway he apparently is telling the Israelis a) we stand by them and b) don’t retaliate against Iran. It combines futility with the impression of weakness. Better by far just to maintain a low profile. I recognize that such a course is counter-intuitive for a politician.
Any notion that the Gulf States will come to Iran’s aid should Israel counter-attack is far-fetched in my opinion. The Iranians are only slightly less popular than the Israelis.
The thought patterns behind both the Israeli and Iranian courses of action elude me. Did the Iranians really think they could supply and support Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks against Israel without Israel attacking them? Did the Israelis really think the Iranians would not react to the Israeli attack on their consulate in Syria? I suspect that the irony of their responding to an attack on a diplomatic office with a massive retaliation is lost on them.
Did the Israelis really think the Iranians would not respond to the attack on its Syrian office and the deaths of several high-ranking officers? What are both sides thinking now?
And what would the effect of an attack like Iran’s against Israel be on American military bases and cities? Would we fare as well as the Israelis have?
Update
The estimates of the costs of Israel’s defense last night are around $1-$1.3 billion while the cost of Iran’s attack are estimated at a fraction of that. Should Israel counter-attack, I suspect that tells us something about the nature of that counter-attack.
On the positive side it will be a lot easier for the Biden Administration to justify giving Israel defensive weapons to aid in its missile defense that offensive weapons to use against Hamas.
A few thoughts on this:
– I was surprised at the scale of the attack. This looks like it could be the large use of ballistic missiles in an attack since the V2 attacks in WW2.
– Considering the scale, I was surprised at the success of missile defenses. Only 7 out of a reported ~110 ballistic missiles got through. It’s a remarkable achievement for ballistic missile defenses.
– I think this was a strategic error by Iran. They violated Napoleon’s adage of never interrupting an enemy when they are making a mistake. Iran’s attack has reversed Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation.
– I disagree with you about Biden’s handling of this. I think he did exactly what he needed to do. Biden saying Iran should not attack is just what any President would say. Saying that Israel shouldn’t attack Iran is actually what is in the US interests. We don’t want more escalation or a wider war, one that would inevitably drag us in. I don’t see futility or weakness at all. Quite the opposite. As far as I’m aware, there has never been another time when the US has defended Israel in such an active manner before. Added to that was the allied coordination with Iraq, Jordan, Uk, and France which also used their military forces to defend Israel. In terms of the efforts at military and diplomatic coordination to allow all these military forces to work together, it’s not easy to do in a relatively short span. And this frankly surprised me as well. I expected the usual level of Israeli support – lots of intel sharing, maybe a couple of Patriot batteries. But here we had fighters over Iraq shooting down drones and cruise missiles. We had two BMD-capable ships off the coast of Israel, which reportedly shot down a few of the ballistic missiles. To me the remarkable display of solidarity was a sign of strength and not weakness.
– In contrast, Iran looks weak and isolated. It conducted the largest attack it’s done since probably the Iran-Iraq war and has basically nothing to show for it. Iran’s goal, in part, was to establish deterrence to stop Israel and probably the US from assassinating its Quds Force senior leadership in Syria and elsewhere. Well, Iran’s capabilities don’t look very good and it’s not clear if it achieved any future deterrent effect at all. Iran is currently lying to its own public via state-controlled media, touting the success of the attack by rolling videos of other historic attacks.
Without a difference of opinion there would be no horseraces. We’ll see.
The observation I’ve heard that I found interesting was that Israel would have air superiority over Iranian territory. I don’t know if that’s true or false or whether it can be determined based on this incident. If true matters might escalate in a truly horrible way.
I agree with you that it was a strategic error by Iran. I repeat my implied question: was Israel’s attack on the Iranian base/office in Syria a strategic error?
“The observation I’ve heard that I found interesting was that Israel would have air superiority over Iranian territory.”
Not without protected bases in or near Iran. The two countries are far enough apart that their air forces cannot do much. The Israelis could conduct some raids but not sustained air operations over Iran. It’s just too far. Plus, there is the problem of several countries’ airspace in between. You can sneak through for a raid, but you’d need some kind of diplomatic clearance for any kind of sustained effort.
“I repeat my implied question: was Israel’s attack on the Iranian base/office in Syria a strategic error?”
It’s too early to tell for sure, but at this point, I’d say no.
I have heard a number of people try to blame this on Biden and his supposed mishandling. AFAICT Israel killed the guy in Lebanon without giving us much if any warning and they certainly didnt ask our opinion. It was a given that Iran would attack. We have troops in the area so it was very appropriate to say we had nothing to do with the attack and advise Iran to not attack. They did but AFAICT they didnt unleash Hezbollah which has thousands of missiles. I think we correctly asked israel not to directly attack Iran as we dont benefit from that. It’s not really clear to me that Israel would for that matter and not sure how Israel would cope with attacks as its far away as Andy pointed out and they have at least S-300s. IIRC Russia agreed to set Iran S 400s but they have been using them in Ukraine.
Steve
I don’t blame it on Biden. I just think his responses have been weak.
Consider an example: Biden says “don’t” to the Iranians. They do. Now he’s said “don’t” to the Israelis. Does that make him/us look strong and effective? Or just irrelevant?
Didnt you recently say you judge by actions? Israel and Iran will both do what they want. Telling to not do it is the right thing even if you know it unlikely to work. It is what we should prefer. However, based upon actions, then the effort was outstanding. It looks like the US, UK, France and even Jordan helped shoot down Iran missiles/drones. Almost none made it through. I doubt that happened without some pretty serious rapid coordination and I would expect the US to be heavily involved, probably in a leading role.
Steve