OPINION:
Iran has done something that few believed it would ever do; the regime has attacked Israel directly. In the wake of a harrowing Israeli airstrike against an Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, Iran’s rulers vowed direct retaliation. This was a major change from how the Iranian regime usually conducts itself.
As a Saudi official once said of Iran in 2019, the Islamic Republic is a “paper tiger with steel claws.”
As I have written in my recent book, “The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy,” those steel claws are extended, and they come in the form of Iran’s terrorist proxies spread throughout the region (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and the Houthis in Yemen, to name a few).
Despite preferring the indirect terrorism that has defined Iranian policy toward Israel, Tehran seemed to be changing tactics in the wake of Israel’s strike. Having spent a decade building up its drone capabilities, along with its ballistic and cruise missile arsenals, Iran appeared prepared to hit Israel without the cover that its terrorist proxies provide.
Certainly, Israel’s attack on Iran’s sovereign consulate in Damascus was provocative. But provocative actions have been taken in the past by both Israel and the United States against Iranian targets (such as the Trump administration’s assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander). While Iran hemmed and hawed over Soleimani’s assassination back then, it ultimately did not escalate in the ways it had threatened to do.
But just four years later, under similar circumstances, the Iranians did attack Israel. Over 100 drones were launched and upward of 350 rockets were fired by Iranian forces stationed across the region (in places like Iran, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon). Iran’s military also seized a Portuguese-flagged cargo ship.
Thankfully, the bulk of Iran’s much-ballyhooed strike — which accounted for more than 70 tons of explosives — did not reach its intended civilian targets in Israel.
In fact, the Iranian attack was rather shambolic.
In some cases, it highlighted how disconnected from the rest of the region Iran is. As a Shiite Muslim and ethnically Persian power in a predominantly Sunni Muslim and ethnically Arab region, Iran cannot count its fellow Muslim nations among its allies.
The primary allies of Iran are from outside the region: China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, NATO member Turkey. While the mullahs who rule Iran may have assumed that they could have swayed the opinion of fellow Muslims in the region by striking at Israel, the opinion of most Muslims is divided on Iran.
Multiple Muslim nations took part, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, in defending Israel during the attack. Not only did U.S. and U.K. warships assist in the shooting down of Iranian drones, but ballistic missile defense networks in Saudi Arabia and Jordan knocked out most of the rockets that were fired at Israel.
It had been hoped for among some leaders in Iran that Israel’s counterattack against Hamas in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel would have divorced the Sunni Arab states from Israel.
Publicly, these regimes certainly distanced themselves from Israel to avoid their populations, who are sympathetic to the Palestinian Arabs. Behind the scenes, as evidenced by the assistance that the Saudis and Jordanians rendered to Israel in shooting down the Iranian drones and missiles, the Arab governments are not in favor of watching Iran destabilize the region.
Clearly, Iran miscalculated its level of support or sympathy among its co-religionists.
Despite this obvious good fortune for Israel, no one would say what happened to Israel was a win. Well, no one except President Biden, who was clearly trying to slap some lipstick on a pig when he told his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the fact the Iranian fusillade did not hit any major Israeli population centers counts as a win.
It was not. Deterrence has failed in the Middle East, meaning the players involved there will get more desperate and aggressive to ensure their national security (and protect their national interests relative to each other).
We are witnessing the slow breakdown of the regional order that has persisted since 1945. The Americans, sadly, remain in a declining position. After all, it has since been reported that the Biden administration restrained Israel from retaliating against Iran the way that it had initially planned to.
Since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel, the Biden administration has restrained the Israelis at key points in their war. Americans — notably elites in Washington — have applauded the administration for enforcing a modicum of restraint upon the Israelis.
What they have failed to grasp in Washington is that by restraining Israel, they are actually inviting greater aggression from Israel’s enemies, giving hope to an enemy that should have been broken long ago and signaling to the region that neither Israel nor the United States has the will to enforce a modicum of cost upon a revanchist Iran.
The region is looking to the United States for clear signs of leadership. Washington, however, is sending mixed signals, making America look like the weaker horse. This will have dangerous effects if the goal is to prevent the region from sliding into a regional war that could become a world war in short order.
Next up, Israel is planning to retaliate.
Here, we have what appears to be a step-by-step escalation that mirrors the escalation in the early phases of what we know today as the First World War. The situation will continue to worsen in the region until deterrence is restored. Under current conditions, deterrence will not be restored by Washington sending mixed signals while restraining its Israeli ally.
Instead, Washington should state plainly that Israel has a right to defend itself however Israeli leaders deem necessary.
Then, Washington should work hard to ensure that Saudi and Jordanian cooperation is locked up with Israel. After that, the U.S. can step back from the troubled region, knowing that its partners have the capability and will to contain irredentist Iran.
• Brandon J. Weichert is the author of “The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy” (Republic Book Publishers). He is a national security analyst at The National Interest and serves as an occasional subject matter expert for the Department of the Air Force, as well as several private organizations and educational institutions. His next book, “A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine” (Encounter Books), is due Oct. 22. He can be followed via X @WeTheBrandon.
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