To begin, let’s remind ourselves that no matter what one thinks of the Israeli operation in Gaza, and no matter what one decides about the wisdom, just now, of attacking an Iranian consular facility in Syria to wipe out a number of senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, there’s a much broader context to the developing conflict between Iran and Israel, within which the anti-semitic religious zealots of Iran are entirely and egregiously in the wrong. For many years now, Iran has been fighting a vicious proxy war against Israel, using its clients in Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as other militias in Syria, to make life as unbearable for the citizens of the Jewish State as possible. Support for Hamas in the South is merely another part of what Iran has been up to for as long as the Islamic Republic has existed as such: exerting deadly, continuous pressure with the long-term goal of eradicating Israel altogether. That’s the objective, and they’ve been quite open about it.
Indeed, almost everything Iran does in the region winds up, one way or another, with this or that Iranian proxy attempting to murder Israelis. Even the Houthis in Yemen, sponsored mainly as a way of sapping the strength of Gulf rival Saudi Arabia, are tasked with firing missiles into Israel whenever the opportunity arises, as they have been over the past few months, in between attempts to interdict shipping in the vital Red Sea corridor that connects the Suez Canal to the Gulf of Aden. Hezbollah, armed by the Iranians with tens of thousands of rockets shipped in overland through Syria – hence Iran’s deep involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the extensive presence of the IRGC throughout the region – has been firing so much ordinance into Northern Israel over the past six months that whole regions have had to be evacuated. This is all being coordinated by Iran via its IRGC officer corps, and the Israelis would tell you, quite rightly, that what we identified as an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus also pulled double duty as an IRGC regional headquarters. That’s why the decision was taken to strike those senior IRGC commanders when the opportunity arose; this wasn’t an attack out of the blue, for no reason, and was arguably a fully justifiable move in an ongoing, recently intensifying, battle for national survival. We must never lose sight of that simple truth: Iran wants Israel to vanish, and the fanatics it fosters in groups like Hamas and Hezbollah do no more than echo Iranian dogma when they chant “from the river to the sea”. If you’re interested, I wrote a piece some time ago on the history of Iran’s relentless regional efforts to promote destabilization and destruction everywhere Western and Israeli interests were at stake, which perhaps serves as a useful backgrounder:
Something else we need to keep straight: this latest Iranian missile attack was far and away more escalatory than anything Israel has done thus far in pushing back against Iranian aggression, and was a truly, shockingly massive strike the like of which would already have been met by a monumentally destructive retaliatory response from any other sovereign nation with the means to defend itself. If that many cruise and ballistic missiles had been launched at America, irrespective of whether the attack was successful, practically every target of military and strategic significance within Iran would already be a smoking hole full of mangled corpses. There wouldn’t be a power plant, a government building, an airfield, a port facility, or any other item of vital infrastructure, left untouched. The lights would be out, the gas lines would be severed, the water mains would be torn up, the roads would be cratered, and the bridges would be dropped, all over the country, and that would just be for starters. There is absolutely no doubt about that, and nobody on our side of the fence would argue the Americans weren’t right to act decisively in their own defence, even as various forms of calamitous ripple effects reverberated throughout the globe.
Thus the issue here, unlike in the discussion of the interminable conflict with the Palestinians, isn’t about who’s right, who’s wrong, who provoked the other first, and whose actions have been most damnable. When it comes to this long twilight struggle with Iran, there’s really not much to debate. Iran is the aggressor. Moreover, none of Iran’s antipathy for the Jewish state can be laid at the doorstep of the Netanyahu regime and its questionable annexation policies on the West Bank, or any of the present Israeli regime’s other sins; Iran would be conducting its tireless, years-long campaign to eradicate Israel no matter who was in power in the Jewish State, and what policies were being pursued. There is no greater opponent to regional peace, and an eventual two state solution with the Palestinians, than Iran, and the proxy armies of Iran’s creation. There’s no moral ambiguity. This is no place to be looking for multiple hues of grey.
The issue is what, at this fraught moment, with Israel already straining its resources in the war in the South, and the risk that engaging in major conflict with Iran at this juncture could set the whole Middle East ablaze, and set in motion a chain of events that could find Israel overwhelmed, America drawn into battle, and all the world at risk of being sucked into a wider war, is the best thing for Israel to do right now, for its own and all of our sakes. From where I sit, right now, I’m concluding that Israel’s best move is to avoid a wider war involving the Islamic Republic, if at all possible. No good can come of it, not for Israel, not as things stand. There is a longer term problem of the most dire importance to be dealt with, yes. But now is not the time. When, then? Beats me. Not now.
Perhaps you can sense from my tone that for the past couple of days, I’ve been wondering whether the whole frigging world was about to start rolling down the steep slope toward general mayhem and destruction. It’s almost exactly 24 hours since writing my last petrified post in anticipation of Iran’s predicted attack on Israel. A lot’s happened. The Iranians have now delivered their missile strike, and it really was a whopper – a combined assault of 320 odd ballistic and cruise missiles (the latter attacks conducted at least partially or perhaps wholly by drones), a five-hour-long barrage that could have been expected to inflict grievous damage upon almost any other foe. Yet, as noted in my last column, Israel presents a uniquely different, much harder sort of target. Its exquisitely sophisticated, deeply-layered missile defences, augmented by the Americans, have, as hoped, blunted the assault. I’ve read reports that additional assistance was provided by both the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian air forces, whose American-supplied fighters intercepted drones transiting those Kingdoms’ territories on their way to Israeli targets (contributing to an encouragingly unified regional rebuke to Iran’s rogue behaviour). Overall, given the size of the strike, the damage inflicted was minimal, almost negligible. It was, actually, an exceedingly impressive display of defensive capabilities of a sort possessed by no other nation, and this, remember, after beating back a similarly massive preliminary assault launched just yesterday by Hezbollah, using far less dangerous weapons which nevertheless taxed the available air defence resources, both human and material.
Everybody should now heave a heavy sigh of relief, not just because the attack failed, but because the Iranians have stated expressly, through official channels, that this can now be quite enough of that:
Ignore the inflammatory rhetorical embroidery and the regulation slap at the Great Satan. Here’s the important bit: The matter can be deemed concluded.
Avid Needlefish aficionados will recall my gratified surprise, years ago, when Iran last felt obliged to respond to an assassination of its high-ranking military personnel, back in January 2020, following Trump’s decision to deliver a dose of Hellfire missile therapy to General Qassam Soleimani, the IRGC commander of the always dangerously shit-disturbing Quds Force. They retaliated with a missile strike on a US Air Force Base in Iraq, causing some damage and injuries, but nothing that demanded any sort of massive counter-response, after which they delivered clear signals that as far as they were concerned they’d made their point, and the affair could be declared at an end. Here’s the post:
You had to hand it to them. The Iranians in charge might have been miserable Islamo-fascist bastards, and the sworn enemies of everything that’s anything even close to being good and decent in this world, but they sure knew how to save face while jumping off the escalation ladder.
Yesterday, hoping as usual to at last run down that herd of unicorns I’ve been tracking for lo these many years, I wrote that it would be nice if this time it could play out in similar fashion:
Once again, I find myself advocating what I suppose isn’t possible, wishing that if an Iranian attack is neutralized, the Israelis leave it at that for now, refrain from bombing any more consulates, and hope that Iran decides it’s made it’s point, perhaps itself feeling relieved that it was able to do so without blowing up the whole theatre of operations.
That’s probably not going to happen. Hey, a guy can hope.
Well, it hasn’t exactly been a replay, but in one vital way the bad guys just delivered on their half of the improbable scenario, unequivocally, and in public, saying that as far as we’re concerned, we’ve made our point. Stand down, forgo the bombing of any more consulates, and we can both declare victory and go home, what do you say? Yes, it’s significantly different from what happened four years ago, since the Iranian assault on Israel, as I see it anyway, could hardly be characterized as a relatively proportionate response to an unusually provocative attack, meant as much to satisfy the domestic audience as punish the enemy, designed from the outset to avoid ratcheting things up to a whole new level. On the contrary. This time around, the Iranians really seemed close to unhinged and unconcerned about consequences. Their actions were utterly reckless, disproportionate, and unforgivable; but now, nevertheless, they’re proposing a way out, maybe because they’re a little shocked at how badly their attack failed, and quite a bit more than a little frightened, now, about what sort of cascading mess they might just have set in motion, but still, they’ve gone public with what amounts to a cease-fire proposal.
By the by, in the way of such things, there are those who’ve drawn the opposite conclusion, and contend that Iran’s strike was exactly the sort of measured, largely symbolic response meant to maximize the visuals while minimizing damage, just like in 2020. This is from CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/14/middleeast/iran-israel-attack-drones-analysis-intl/index.html
I have a really hard time seeing it that way.
You know what, though? Even if I’m right, it doesn’t matter. Right now, despite the magnitude of what I’m insisting the Iranians just did, and how much it rankles when a guy takes a shot at your head, misses, and then hastily proposes a truce, under the circumstances a mutual climb-down still sounds like a pretty good deal.
In fact, all things considered, I’d say the Iranian overture hands Israel a golden opportunity. But will Bibi take it? From his public statements to this point, it would seem not; he’s vowed a retaliatory response to any Iranian attack, and he may feel that he can’t back down now, and may even sense that the Israeli public would turn on him if he did. The power of emotional imperatives to drive policy at a moment like this shouldn’t be underestimated, and it isn’t like the Israeli P.M. is going to be hearing much in the way of advice to be cautious and temperate. He’s surrounded by hawks, hard men with utter confidence in certain fixed and unwavering ideas, guys who remind me a lot of one of America’s many like-minded policy-making disaster mavens, supreme asshole John Bolton, who tonight was, of course, urging Israel to now give it back to Iran with both barrels:
Sure, John, that’s just gotta be right. War is always the best choice, and if you’re already in a war, then Hell, only a wider war will do. Let’s bomb Tehran! Let’s rope in Hezbollah and set Southern Lebanon on fire too, I mean how many rockets can those implacable jihadists possibly have anyway, for sure Iron Dome will beat them all back, and then maybe Israel can launch another one of those invariably painless and successful invasions! Let’s just get it all over with! No time like the present!
God, I hate that man.
There will be voices screaming the same sort of invective into both of Bibi’s ringing ears today, and he may not even hear them over the internal ravings of his own reactionary id, urging him to do even worse, but Biden will be doing his best to impose restraint, and if fortune has finally decided to smile upon all of us for a brief moment, Netanyahu will seize this rare chance to avoid a potentially disastrous geopolitical trap. He can argue that no immediate response seems necessary to ensure national security. Israel’s defences held, magnificently. They practically made a mockery of Iran’s much-ballyhooed missile forces; to many, it will seem to have been all but proved this evening that the Iranians can huff, and they can puff, but they’ll never blow down the Third Temple, no matter how many missiles they chuck. Bibi can hold a press conference tomorrow and crow about Israel’s technological prowess, vowing to continue his unfettered pursuit of Israel’s interests no matter what that requires, feeble Iranian threats of retaliation be damned, and then we can all get back to managing the mess in Gaza, relieved of the prospect of a general regional war spiralling wildly out of control. This won’t please everybody, especially in the heat of the moment, but he can spin it so it doesn’t sound weak and indecisive – everybody calm down, as you can all see, we’re perfectly safe, and for the moment we have other fish to fry first, but rest assured, we won’t sit still if they try it again – something like that. Meanwhile, all Western nations could help stabilize the situation, and bolster Netanyahu’s position, by doing everything possible, going forward, to put the economic and diplomatic screws to Iran. The promise of meaningful sustained pressure against the Islamic state, involving sanctions, embargoes, and economic and diplomatic boycotts, could help stay Netanyahu’s sword hand at this critical juncture.
Or, being Netanyahu, he could scoff at such long-term solutions and do something violent and momentarily satisfying, just because it feels good. I suppose we should be grateful if he doesn’t start rattling Israel’s nukes.
Look, I’m not saying that what I’m calling a golden opportunity isn’t likewise a bitter pill that lets an extremely nasty transgressor off the hook. I’m not even saying that John Bolton, much as I despise the man, doesn’t have a point, at least in the abstract, and I’m certainly not saying that Iran doesn’t deserve, richly, to have its malicious ass chopped into ground chuck for what it’s done today, and indeed what it’s been doing for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, right now, this can’t just be about what’s right, or what feels right. It has to be about what’s possible, what’s sensible in the moment, what comes out on top in the cost-benefit analysis, and all the other generally unsatisfying calculations and compromises that go into the often amoral practice of realpolitik. Iran ought to get what’s coming to it, sure enough. It’s deeply frustrating, infuriating, if they don’t. This massive assault on Israel may have failed, but that wasn’t the plan, and it sure would feel righteous to blow the living bejesus out of as many Iranian targets as possible by way of payback. The horrible problem, as always, is what then? And who gets out alive?
It’s never a happy answer, but sometimes the best option is to do nothing, at least nothing militarily. I understand perfectly, I really do: a return to the already painful status quo after today, as if Iran didn’t just try to murder thousands of Israeli civilians to avenge the loss of a few officers of a military unit that we in the West have classified as a terrorist organization, each of them tasked with the conduct of a dirty ongoing war of eradication and civilian annihilation, feels intolerable. Hell, it is intolerable. Slightly less so, though, than blowing the whole place up seeking revenge, or even justice. If Iran really does mean to call a halt now, and there are no further attacks, then for now, best to just leave it at that. If they’re stupid enough to try it again, then, well, we’ll all be forced to the next level, and I’d even have to conclude, should Iran rain another few hundred missiles down on Israel any time soon, that the United States ought finally to get involved, at which point nothing that comes next bears thinking about.
So let’s not go there if we don’t have to. For the love of God, Bibi, just this once, act like you’ve got some sense. This time, take the goddam off-ramp. As I write this, there are folks getting up this morning all across your country, adults and little kids, crawling out of their shelters, relieved to have made it through to the new day, who don’t have to die before getting a chance to wake to another one tomorrow.
Because yes, you fended off 320+ missiles and drones today. There are, sadly, thousands more where they came from, and as your generals will tell you, your interceptors may be excellent, but they will run out.
the needlefish 