Iran rushed to downplay the impact of Israel\u2019s strikes on its territory this weekend, suggesting that it has taken an off-ramp to avoid a wider war, but the attack set a precedent the Islamic Republic has tried to avoid since its inception 40 years ago. <\/p>\n
The adversaries had spent decades avoiding direct confrontation, instead choosing to exchange punches in a shadow war. Israel used clandestine operations to assassinate key Iranian figures and execute cyberattacks on vital facilities as Iran continued activating its Arab proxy militias to attack the Jewish state. <\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s attack marked the first time Israel has acknowledged striking Iran, bringing the shadow war into the open and crossing a threshold that has led some in the Islamic Republic to question the country\u2019s deterrence capabilities. <\/p>\n
In April, after Iran attacked Israel in retaliation for what it said was an Israeli attack on its diplomatic building in the Syrian capital Damascus, US officials said Israel responded by attacking Iran just days later. Israel didn\u2019t publicly acknowledge that attack. <\/p>\n
The latest attack, however, was different. Israel openly said it conducted \u201cprecise strikes\u201d on military targets in Iran. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael now has broader aerial freedom of operation in Iran,\u201d Israel\u2019s military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, touting achievements in the attack. <\/p>\n
Shortly after the assault, Iran\u2019s state media published images showing everyday life continuing as usual in its cities. Schools continued operating and Tehran\u2019s streets were shown gridlocked with traffic. Hardline commentators mocked the attack on television and social media memes poked fun at the limited nature of the Israeli response. <\/p>\n
In his first comments after the attack, Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opted to give a measured response, saying the strikes should \u201cneither be exaggerated nor downplayed.\u201d <\/p>\n
But that initial wave of dismissal eventually dissipated, and an internal debate emerged over whether Iran should deliver a harsh response to prevent Israeli strikes from becoming normalized against a regime focused on its own survival. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe sense is that if they do not respond they will normalize the idea that Israel can strike Tehran without getting a response,\u201d Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC said, adding that there is a \u201cfear if they don\u2019t do something now Israel will start treating Iran as they did with Syria which means every once in a while, (Israelis will) strike.\u201d <\/p>\n
Iranian officials say some military sites sustained \u201cminor damage\u201d that was \u201cswiftly repaired.\u201d Five people were killed, including four army personnel, the Iranian government said. <\/p>\n
Experts however say that the damage was more significant than Tehran has acknowledged. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis (attack) was much more damaging than Iranian officials have led on, Iran\u2019s air defenses and some of the radars that are crucial to identifying incoming missiles, it seems that those were destroyed in the first wave,\u201d Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. <\/p>\n
Tehran spent years building regional proxies designed to serve as a security umbrella and the first line of defense against Israel. These militias, stationed at Israel\u2019s borders, also acted as a deterrent, discouraging Israel from directly striking Iran. The idea was that if Israel were to strike Iran, Tehran would retaliate by unleashing its militias against Israel. <\/p>\n
The longstanding balance of power prevented a regional war \u2013 until Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. That prompted a fierce Israeli onslaught that has destroyed the enclave and killed more than 42,000 Palestinians. The expansion of that conflict to southern Lebanon led to Israel\u2019s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran\u2019s most formidable proxy, and decimated the organization\u2019s commanding hierarchy. <\/p>\n
The degrading of Iran\u2019s strongest allied militias, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the weekend strikes on Iran, have fueled another internal debate in Iran: whether regional proxies are an effective deterrence. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certainly voices within the political establishment who question the efficacy of the \u2018forward defense\u2019 doctrine, or the notion that Iran\u2019s regional alliance network can provide a security umbrella. If that is changing, one natural aspect of the debate is what could take place to restore deterrence,\u201d Mohammad Ali Shabani, the editor of Amwaj.media, a London-based news site focusing on Iran, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. <\/p>\n
Since the Trump administration abandoned the nuclear agreement with Tehran in 2018, to put curbs on its nuclear program, the Islamic Republic has been gradually ramping up enrichment of uranium, a key ingredient of a nuclear bomb if purified to a high level. Its stockpiles have reached 60% purity, a short step away from weapons-grade, which is 90%. <\/p>\n
Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that they have no intention of weaponizing the country\u2019s nuclear program, while simultaneously using its potential as leverage in negotiations with the West. <\/p>\n
As Israel continues disintegrating Iran\u2019s deterrence capability, the minority voices in the Islamic Republic favoring the weaponization of its nuclear program are becoming stronger, Parsi said. \u201cThe trajectory and momentum are with those who are saying if Iran actually had a nuclear deterrence this would not be happening.\u201d <\/p>\n
Experts cast doubt over Iran\u2019s ability to quickly build a nuclear weapon even if it can purify uranium to weapons grade. The process to build and test an atomic bomb may take years, leaving Iran vulnerable to Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities. <\/p>\n
The nuclear bomb option is \u201cmuch more public now\u201d and has become \u201cnormalized in conversation,\u201d but Israel has been able to derail Iran\u2019s nuclear program in the past and may be able to do it again, Grajewski said. <\/p>\n
Parsi said if the Israelis were to strike Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, regardless of whether the Iranians can get a bomb quickly or not, Tehran will seek to build a nuclear weapon. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven the more hawkish American presidents have not favored taking military strikes because the most likely outcome is that, at some point, that will make Iran turn nuclear,\u201d Parsi said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Iran rushed to downplay the impact of Israel\u2019s strikes on its territory this weekend, suggesting that it has taken an off-ramp to avoid a wider war, but the attack set a precedent the Islamic Republic has tried to avoid since its inception 40 years ago. The adversaries had spent decades avoiding direct confrontation, instead choosing <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}