OPINION:
A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.
After all of Iran’s bellicosity, after all its threats of further attacks on Israel with hitherto unused weapons, Iran is suddenly quiet. The cause is Israel’s overnight response in the early hours of April 19 in response to Iran’s massive April 13 attack.
Iran was worried even before its April 13 attack. As I have written, it gave three days’ notice of its intent, which gave other nations time to agree on their plan for Israel’s defense.
The Israeli attack was reportedly accomplished with a few of its homegrown Rampage air-to-surface supersonic missiles, perhaps led by drones carrying aluminum chaff to confuse Iranian radar. The attack reportedly blew up radar attached to a Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft system.
On April 13, Iran attacked Israel with about 300 ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones. The attack failed because of Israeli, U.S., U.K., French and possibly Saudi air defenses. Israel’s April 19 attack succeeded despite Iran’s air defenses.
Iran wanted to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defenses, but most of the ballistic and cruise missiles never survived to enter Israeli airspace. The Israeli defenses proved virtually impenetrable. One person, a young Bedouin girl, reportedly was seriously hurt by debris falling from one of the intercepts.
Iran’s April 13 attack changed the battle between Israel and Iran’s proxies to an open war between the two states. The war between them is now susceptible only to deterrence, which will be hard to perform.
Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei is 85 years old and has always been a hard-liner. (There are no “moderates” anywhere near Iran’s government.) A new political group, the Paydari Front, is gaining considerable support from Iran’s military and its clerics. They are reportedly more hard-line and less pragmatic than Mr. Khamenei.
The Paydaris characterize Iran’s old strategy of “strategic patience” as appeasement. Deterrence will grow harder as the Paydaris’ power increases.
The fact that the Israeli attack succeeded while the Iranian attack failed taught Iran several expensive lessons.
Israel demonstrated that its air defense systems succeeded (with other nations’ help) even when Iran tried to overwhelm them. The Iranian air defense is obviously vastly less capable, an exclamation point put on that statement by the destruction of the S-300 radar.
Iran also learned that President Biden’s control of Israeli action is very limited. Mr. Biden had warned Israel not to counter the Iranian attack with military force, and his warning was, fortunately, ignored.
The Israeli strike targeted a military base near Isfahan, which is quite near Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. The third lesson for Iran is that pretty much anything in Iran — its nuclear weapons program, even the ayatollahs themselves — can be targeted and destroyed by Israel. This is certainly the most important lesson because it will, for a while, have a deterrent effect on Iran.
That deterrent stands in stark contrast to Mr. Biden’s inability to deter any aggression anywhere. Mr. Biden has been telling the Houthis to cease their attacks on Red Sea shipping for months, but his calls have gone unnoticed. You will note that after the Israeli attack on Iran, even the Houthis have gone quiet for a while.
For all its effectiveness, Israel’s strike in Iran will only deter it temporarily. Iran’s ayatollahs can’t be deterred indefinitely because they believe — as does the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, their principal terrorist arm — that they have a religious obligation to destroy Israel.
That means the Iran-Israel war will continue indefinitely and change both sides’ strategies and tactics. Neither side wants total war with the other, but one is inevitable.
While Israel rearms its air defenses, the biggest question is if Iran will tell its Hezbollah proxy force in Lebanon to launch another war on Israel. Hezbollah has thousands of missiles that it could fire at Israel and possibly overwhelm its air defenses. Israel will continue to strike at Hezbollah whenever it sees the need to do so.
Iran will, for a while, return to its strategy of hitting Israel with its proxy forces. Israel will not let any of those attacks go unanswered. The severity of the Israeli responses will be calculated, as Iran’s April 13 attack was not to damage the proxies without attacking Iran directly. At least until Iran attacks Israel directly again.
Other Iranian proxy forces — notably Hamas in the Gaza Strip — can be sure of Israeli action in defense of its people. Mr. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are working hard to prevent Israel from finally ridding itself of the Hamas threat by assaulting Hamas’ last refuge in Rafah. Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken won’t succeed in that any more than they deterred Russia from invading Ukraine or Iran from attacking Israel.
Thanks to Mr. Biden and his team, American influence on the world is diminishing, and other powers, including Iran, will fill the vacuum. For Mr. Biden, restoring the capability and credibility of our deterrence should be a top priority. Because it isn’t, we are sleepwalking toward a very big war.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.