Israel-Iran Conflict
• 3 • 475
April 20, 2024
Israel's attack on Iran was not the fierce response that the US and other western countries had feared. They have been urging Israel to draw a line under the dangerous series of events that started with Israel's assassination of a senior Iranian general in Damascus on 1 April. The fear is that the Middle East is on the brink of an all-out war, with global as well as regional dangers.
The Iranians are playing down the significance of what's happened in Isfahan. Initial reports said there had been no attack. Later, an analyst on state TV said air defences had knocked out drones that had been launched by "infiltrators" Official media outlets have posted jokey photos of miniature drones. Israel was responding to the attack last Saturday from Iran. Despite years of enmity and threats it was the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 that Iran had launched a direct strike from its territory onto Israel's.
From the outset, this crisis has shown how badly Iran and Israel understand each other. Both miscalculated, deepening the crisis. Iran's leaders are opposed to the existence of Israel, and Israel seemed to believe that Iran would not respond with anything stronger than outrage when it killed General Mohammed Reza Zahedi in Damascus. Iran announced it regarded the attack as a strike on its own territory. Israel claimed the premises were not protected by diplomatic conventions as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had turned them into a military post. Iran, and indeed western allies of Israel, did not accept a unilateral reclassification of the building's status - and the government in Tehran hoped Israel would agree to a draw a line after its response. That was another serious miscalculation.
If the attack on Isfahan is not followed up with more attacks, then the immediate tensions will ease. What happened overnight could be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to respond, without alienating Mr Biden any more than he has already. If this is it, another question is whether it will be enough for the former generals in Israel's war cabinet who are believed to want a strong response to, as they see it, restore Israel's capacity to deter its enemies.
Iran has hit Israel in a direct attack, and Israel has responded with its own direct attack. That is a change in what are often referred to in the region as the "rules of the game" governing the long conflict between Iran and Israel. The long clandestine war between the two countries has come out of the shadows. In the process Iran and Israel have shown that for all the obsessive attention they devote to each other, they are not good at reading each other's intentions. In a highly combustible part of the world, that is not encouraging.
Source: BBC
Israel's attack on Iran was not the fierce response that the US and other western countries had feared. They have been urging Israel to draw a line under the dangerous series of events that started with Israel's assassination of a senior Iranian general in Damascus on 1 April. The fear is that the Middle East is on the brink of an all-out war, with global as well as regional dangers.
The Iranians are playing down the significance of what's happened in Isfahan. Initial reports said there had been no attack. Later, an analyst on state TV said air defences had knocked out drones that had been launched by "infiltrators" Official media outlets have posted jokey photos of miniature drones. Israel was responding to the attack last Saturday from Iran. Despite years of enmity and threats it was the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 that Iran had launched a direct strike from its territory onto Israel's.
From the outset, this crisis has shown how badly Iran and Israel understand each other. Both miscalculated, deepening the crisis. Iran's leaders are opposed to the existence of Israel, and Israel seemed to believe that Iran would not respond with anything stronger than outrage when it killed General Mohammed Reza Zahedi in Damascus. Iran announced it regarded the attack as a strike on its own territory. Israel claimed the premises were not protected by diplomatic conventions as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had turned them into a military post. Iran, and indeed western allies of Israel, did not accept a unilateral reclassification of the building's status - and the government in Tehran hoped Israel would agree to a draw a line after its response. That was another serious miscalculation.
If the attack on Isfahan is not followed up with more attacks, then the immediate tensions will ease. What happened overnight could be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to respond, without alienating Mr Biden any more than he has already. If this is it, another question is whether it will be enough for the former generals in Israel's war cabinet who are believed to want a strong response to, as they see it, restore Israel's capacity to deter its enemies.
Iran has hit Israel in a direct attack, and Israel has responded with its own direct attack. That is a change in what are often referred to in the region as the "rules of the game" governing the long conflict between Iran and Israel. The long clandestine war between the two countries has come out of the shadows. In the process Iran and Israel have shown that for all the obsessive attention they devote to each other, they are not good at reading each other's intentions. In a highly combustible part of the world, that is not encouraging.
Source: BBC