Iran Attacks Israel
Some initial thoughts.
Via the AP: Israel says Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles, 99% of which were intercepted.
Booms and air raid sirens sounded across Israel early Sunday after Iran launched hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in an unprecedented revenge mission that pushed the Middle East closer to a regionwide war. A military spokesman said the launches numbered more than 300 but 99% of them were intercepted.
Calling the outcome “a very significant strategic success,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Iran fired 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles. Of those, several ballistic missiles reached Israeli territory, causing minor damage to an air base.
Rescuers said a 7-year-old girl in a Bedouin Arab town was seriously wounded in southern Israel, apparently in a missile strike, though they said police were still investigating the circumstances of her injuries.
Note that the attack was forewarned by Iran (as reported by Axios, among other sources). This is in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Iran’s Syrian consulate which killed several high-ranking Iranian military officials (see the BBC: Why has Iran attacked Israel?).
Some initial thoughts.
- This is a serious event, insofar as it is a clear escalation of the regional conflict and represents the first direct attack of its kind by Iran on Israeli territory.
- However, given the advanced warning and likely clear knowledge by Iranian officials that the attack would likely be dramatic but also toothless, I can’t help but think that the goals here were more about domestic Iranian politics than actual military goals.
- Iran is acting like it has done its thing and will not attack again unless there is a counterattack.
- Still, this is a dangerous game.
- On one level, I understand the Iranian need to retaliate for the attacks on their consulate. But I also have to wonder if this isn’t a major miscalculation insofar as it will strengthen US support for Israel at a moment wherein there was some domestic wavering.
- As a result, I would expect that the odds of action by the US Congres has radically increased.
- See also: Fox News, White House says US support for Israel is ‘ironclad,’ will ‘support their defense’ amid Iran attack.
- It will likely also strengthen Netanyahu’s domestic position.
Side note, nothing like a little silly propaganda by an authoritarian government (via the BBC):
Iran’s state TV repeatedly aired a video of a fire in Chile today, claiming that it was footage of missiles successfully hitting targets in Israel.
The clip, run several times during the live coverage of Iran’s retaliatory attack, shows a motorway in the foreground while a huge fire turns the night sky red.
[…]
But the footage is neither recent nor related to Iran’s retaliatory attack against Israel.
The BBC has found the original version of the clip posted to TikTok in February, showing a fire in Vina del Mar, Chile.
More updates from the BBC here.
I read this more as Iran wasted a large number of drones and missiles, if they even launched as many as they claim.
I think Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice offers the right analysis: Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate was at best reckless and worst an attempt to draw the US into a wider regional war (which would keep Netanyahu in power for now).
The US and Iran are now jointly trying to manage the fallout: Iran launches a massive, but deliberately ineffective attack, as the US pledges unwavering support to Israel’s defense while simultaneously warning Netanyahu to refrain from retaliating.
Given that Iran and its proxies can launch missile attacks that hit things in Israel, this was either just for show domestically, or meant as a merely shot across the bow.
And since everyone has been bracing for a response from Iran for Israel’s attack on their consulate, this deliberately light response may actually reduce tensions. The other shoe dropped, and it was a slipper. Everyone can breathe a little easier.
Compare the restraint Iran showed here, with the lack of restraint Israel has shown in Gaza.
The Israeli attack in Damascus was nothing we would not have done. Imagine Bin Laden hiding in say, a Venezuelan embassy in Haiti. We might have SEAL-teamed it rather than bombing it, but we’re a superpower and Israel is not. (In fact we did violate Pakistani sovereignty at a point where they were a quasi ally.)
Iran’s response was an escalation (state-to-state) and has the net effect of handing Netanyahu the initiative. It was a big strategic error to light up the sky over Jerusalem with ABM explosions and send Jews there into shelters. Could have just hit the Golan, but no, that would have been too smart. Netanyahu can widen the war if he sees an advantage.
And claims that we’d stay out of it would last until Iran threw a missile at a destroyer or a US base in the Gulf, or tried to stop the flow through the Gulf, or some other provocation. At the very least we’d provide intel and continue to shoot down Iranian missiles.
Interesting that Iran issued a threat against any nation allowing overflight to Israeli jets. Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are possibilities. Jordan’s not enough, Iraq as I understand it is half in the bag for Iran as it is, which suggests they’re thinking of Saudi Arabia.* Iran knows who’s on which side going forward.
Israel has F-16s and F-35s which would need to refuel to hit Iran. It seems they have limited ability to refuel mid-air, but they’re due to be receiving KC-46 (US refueling jets). Or the Israeli jets could stop off somewhere en route to refuel. It’s very unlikely Iran could shoot any of them down.
It’s all up to Bibi now. Swell.
*Syria to Turkey? Syria to Iraq?
@Gustopher:
Oh, FFS. Iran is poking a more powerful nation, a nuclear power no less, with a sharp stick, at a point when Israel is not in the mood to take any shit. And if you think Israel is not showing restraint in Gaza, I don’t think you understand just how easily Israel could depopulate Gaza.
@Michael Reynolds: Osama Bin Laden masterminded a terrorist attack that caused the deaths of 2,977 people. The attack also resulted economic damages in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Comparing any Iranian military target to OBL is ludicrous.
A few thoughts on this:
– I was surprised at the scale of the attack. In one of the scenarios I made in a previous comment, I thought targeting airbases was possible, and it looks like Iran primarily went after two airbases, but I was really surprised at the scale. This looks like it could be the large use of ballistic missiles in an attack since the V2 attacks in WW2.
– Considering the scale, I was surprised at the success of missile defenses. Only 7 out of a reported ~110 ballistic missiles got through. It’s a remarkable achievement for ballistic missile defenses. This counters the argument that Iran knew that their attack would not be successful or wanted it to be toothless. Israel’s BMD systems are untested in combat, and no one really knew how these systems would actually perform in combat against such a large attack. Certainly, the Iranians would not know how effective BMD defenses would be in this situation. They would, I’m sure, correctly guess that most of the drones and cruise missiles would get shot down, but not the ballistic missiles. So, I don’t think this was meant to be toothless. I think the Iranians thought that more of the ballistic missiles would get through and hit their targets.
– I think this was a strategic error by Iran. They violated Napoleon’s adage of never interrupting an enemy when they are making a mistake. Iran’s attack has reversed Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation. In fact, it created a coalition in defense of Israel. As far as I’m aware, there has never been another time when the US, UK, and France have actively defended Israel like this before. Added to that was the allied coordination with Iraq, Jordan. This surprised me as well. I expected the usual level of Israeli support – lots of intel sharing, maybe a couple of Patriot batteries. Usually, Israel fights its own fights, but this time was different. Here, we had US and UK fighters over Iraq and Syria shooting down drones and cruise missiles. The French were also involved, but the details on that aren’t yet clear. We had two AEGIS Navy ships off the coast of Israel, which reportedly shot down a few of the ballistic missiles. To me, it was all remarkable in a number of ways – so many countries actively participating on Israel’s side. The high level of solidarity across diplomatic and military domains that allowed this quickly-formed coalition to operate together on short notice, and present a united front is quite a feat. And what a contrast to the recent criticisms and condemnations of Israel.
– In contrast, Iran looks weak and isolated. It conducted the largest attack it’s done since probably the Iran-Iraq war and has basically nothing to show for it. Iran’s goal, in part, was to establish deterrence to stop Israel and probably the US from assassinating its Quds Force senior leadership in Syria and elsewhere. Well, Iran’s capabilities don’t look very good and it’s not clear if it achieved any future deterrent effect at all. Iran’s ballistic missile threat looks very much diminished. As Steven noted, the government lying to its public with fake videos of its “success” is not a sign of strength.
Obviously, things are still playing out, but the Biden administration deserves a lot of credit for how they’ve handled this. And I think it works for them on the domestic political front, too.
Hopefully, this puts pressure on the House to pass the damn funding bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that the Senate passed earlier this year. Ballistic missile defense, jet fuel, and air-to-air missiles are not cheap. Estimates are that just in terms of the expanded ordinance to shoot down Iran’s missiles and drones; the replacement cost for this engagement is around $1.2 billion. Add in all the other stuff, and it’s a lot more. Ukraine is desperate for a resupply of air defense. This bill needs to be allowed to come up for a vote.
@Andy: Agreed all around, especially on the strategic error of it all.
@Gustopher:
It wasn’t a light response at all. Iran probably maxed out or nearly maxed out its missile launch capacity with this strike. What else do you think they could have done?
It’s only a “light” response thanks to the effectiveness of the defensive measures and assistance from allies.
@Kathy:
Perhaps the message is, “We have enough drones/missiles that we can afford to waste 300 of them making a statement.” Israel has very few that can hit Iran. What’s Israel’s escalation? Drop a Jericho II sans warhead on an empty mountain peak in Iran?
More interesting is that Jordan and Saudi Arabia participated in shooting down this attack.
@Andy:
Seriously, wtf is the phucking hold up? House Republicans letting Moscow Marge dictate US foreign policy, good lord.
@JKB:
I noticed and noted this as well.
@DK:
“House Republicans letting Moscow Marge dictate US foreign policy”
I think it’s more Moscow Donald dictating the foreign policy than Moscow Marge.
@JKB: Jordan and Saudi Arabia are Arabian monarchies. Iran is a Persian speaking theocracy that booted out their king. Sunni versus Shia. Jordan and SA are US allies; Iran is not. In Yemen Iran’s proxies are fighting SA’s guys. Iran is a competitor in petrochemicals. I’m not surprised that Jordan and SA knocked down some Iranian devices.
@SenyorDave:
That’s not the comparison. The Iranians killed in Damascus by Israel is the Bin Laden comparison. When we killed OBL in Pakistan – by invading their territory with armed helicopters – the Pakistanis responded with a strongly worded message. That strongly worded message is the comparison to Iran firing 300 pieces of ordnance at Israel.
@Andy:
It’s funny because a couple days ago there was a WaPo or maybe NYT headline that echoed your estimate (With which I agreed) and I was about to write a congratulatory post. And then. . .
Of course it’s absurd to imagine that Iran intended to send the message that it was toothless by demonstrating the impenetrability of Israeli missile defense. As you said, they may have figured they’d lose drones and cruise missiles, but there’s no way they threw away costly ballistic missiles to prove that they were useless against Israel. Aren’t those the missiles Iran is hinting it may put nukes on some day?
The UK? Sure. France? Interesting. Macron is sounding very butch since Ukraine. And Jordan and Iraq carefully refrain from doing anything to stop US planes overhead. It reinforces my belief that the new alignment in the ME is more Israel + Arabs and less Israel + US, and apparently not Israel – Arabs. Gaza is being dismissed by KSA and UAE as a sideshow.
@Michael Reynolds: Nothing like Bin Laden, in fact Iran has been fighting ISIS and other AQ types in Syria for a long time, so the assumption the only reason they have generals and stuff there is to mess with Israel is flawed, to put it mildly.
@Michael Reynolds:
I don’t think Israel could depopulate Gaza any faster and keep the US as an ally. And, we demonstrated how much they want us as an ally by shooting down lots of drones and missiles.
I’m sorry you have wedded your identity to a thug apartheid nation, but people are seeing the state of Israel for what it is — a thug apartheid nation willing to kill over ten thousand children and tens of thousands of others for no long term goal.
@Andy:
Had their proxies in Lebanon launch rocket attacks into populated areas, with a short enough lead time that no one could react until they are dead?
@Gustopher:
Not using surrogates is also a statement of sorts.
@dazedandconfused:
The targets were Quds and IRG and in addition to fighting the terrorists they don’t like, they are terrorists themselves. That’s why Israel hit them. It’s irrelevant whether at that moment they were plotting an attack on Israel.
@Gustopher:
And I’m sorry you remain deliberately clueless about the ME, about foreign policy generally, and about military realities. There are things going on other than your fee-fees.
ETA: Harder for Israel to hit back directly at Iran, whereas, half the IDF is sitting in tanks just south of the Lebanon border, waiting for an excuse.
@Michael Reynolds:
This is Poe’s Law level comedy if you’re one of the people who remembers that our original attempt to assassinate OBL was in response to al-Qaeda attacking our embassies.
@Gustopher:
You are assuming that the Hezb missiles are capable of doing so.
The Israeli ABM systems are almost certainly capable of automated reaction, once autonomous engagement is authorised, to deal with that, below a certain number of incoming shots.
That number being unclear.
Incidentally, if we want to get legalistic about this, the Israeli attack was on a consulate, not an embassy.
Different level of immunity apply.
In reality, a direct BM strike on a country is a whole step up from a third-country strike.
Consider the likely US reactions to an attempted BM strike on Washington, as opposed to one on a US embassy.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I’m not so sure. The US has now clearly said to both Israel and the world “But I won’t do that,” i.e., to support an Israeli attack on Iran.
That’s a constraint on Israel’s options – especially since the US position is out in the open now. No more (or, at least, a lot less) ambiguity in that regard.
Iran’s attack was a strategic failure if you assume that Iran would be interested in attacking/conquering Israel – which it isn’t. Apart from all other considerations, Israel has nukes.
Iran’s main concern is not to be attacked by the US (like Iraq). That possibility has now become more remote.
@Michael Reynolds:
Big words for someone who seemingly can’t remember the outcome of the last time Israel and Hezbollah squared off.
@Michael Reynolds:
Can you cite specific acts of terror attributable to the individuals who were assassinated? If not, than bear in mind that if a state of war does not exist between two nations then assonating citizens of that nation simply because they are citizens of that nation is also terrorism. Israel won’t even own up to it, which should tell us something.
That “terrorism” card’s been getting worn to the nub since Cheney started playing it to frame the acts of Bin Laden as a collective act of all Muslims. Name someone we don’t like who it hasn’t been used on. The labels are sometimes designed to make us stupid.
@dazedandconfused:
The Iranian mullahs hate IS.
And vice versa.
Both also hate Baathists.
And vice versa.
All also hate the monarchists.
And vice versa.
All of whom also hate the Ikhwan.
And vice versa.
All of whom also hate the Wahhabi.
And vice versa.
All of whom also hate the secular nationalists various.
And vice versa.
“My enemy’s enemy is, in reality, very often my enemy as well.”
Multiplied by at least 5.
This was no little thing: this is the first time ever that US, UK, and French, forces have directly intervened to counter attacks on Israel.
That was plainly a pre-agreed integrated response.
And a message: Israel is within the alliance defence perimeter.
And troubling: Iran may now be tempted to retaliate against US/UK/Fr targets.
A further thought:
Iran (and Syria, as a launch site) may be rather fortunate that it does not have nuclear weapons at this point.
If it did, the Israeli response to an incoming ballistic missile strike might have been very different indeed.
It’s hard to get reliable info on Hezbollah, but multiple sources claim they probably have 20,000-30,000 Fatah missiles (range 200-300 km) plus some unknown number of Scuds. IIRC that puts Tel Aviv in range. If they were really going after Israel they could have tapped a bunch of those. That said, I doubt they factored in so much help from the UK, France and even Jordan. Maybe not even the US as we have generally provided intel and not fought Israel’s wars. My SWAG is they thought they launched enough to get some through Israel’s defenses. They had to know the drones and cruise missiles would be intercepted so I am assuming those were just to force use of Israeli resources.
Steve
Does anyone know why the Iranian attack resulted in such minimal damage? Was it just a feint for domestic consumption? Is it a probe for a larger attack to come? Are the Iranian weapons ineffectual? Are the defenses very efficient?
@steve:
The objective may have been nothing more than giving the IDF pause before lobbing stuff into and assassinating Iranians in Syria. While everybody is saying “no damage” those Patriot missiles are expensive, about a million a pop, and so are the more sophisticated air to air missiles. Everybody is on a budget and there appears to have been somewhere between half to a full billion worth of those things expended in this defense. I doubt the bean counters have the same opinion as the press does on the efficacy question.
Was offing a handful of generals worth it? Probably not.
@Slugger:
The timing of Iran’s attack was announced beforehand. The defenders knew almost exactly when the attack was coming.
The attack was launched from Iran and consisted mainly of slow-moving drones and cruise missiles, giving the defenders up to several hours (in the case of the drones) to target these.
In addition to Israel’s own defenses, US missile defense ships (designed to defend against ballistic missiles) were in theater – both in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
Basically, the attack was designed to prevent further escalation, although it is not inconceivable that Iran wanted to do a bit more (but not a lot more) damage than it actually did.
@Andy:
The cost on the Iranian side is a small fraction of that. So from a pure numbers perspective Iran came out the better here.
Based on the experiences in Ukraine Iran had to know the vast majority of drones wouldn’t get anywhere near their targets. They probably counted on more of the other stuff getting near or hitting their targets. If nothing else this cost Isreal more to deal with and gave Iran some interesting information on defenses.
To me it feels like this attack was more aimed at domestic consumption than anything else. An attempt to soothe the nation’s ego as a whole.
@dazedandconfused:
Meaningless for a long time, but especially since the media, the government, and the American people still refuse to call the Jan 6 terrorists, terrorists. When all you’d have to do to correct this error was change all those white Trump supporters to brown people of Middle-Eastern descent.
A complete joke.
@JohnSF: Sorta tangentially off that thought:
The government of Israel has been obsessed with taking out Iran’s re-started nuke program, and it’s at least worth speculating this entire thing has been about creating a condition in which bombing them might be internationally acceptable.
To wit, and speculating:
Israel hit those generals to get this response so they could justify an attack on Iran, and may actually be disappointed it did so little damage. The US, UK, France were hip to this and thus jumped in with both feet to make this strike less damaging and were highly successful. Nevertheless, the door, if not fully swung open, is now at least cracked open a bit for Israel to make such a strike.
@Gustopher:
They’ve been launching rockets for many months, just in low quantities. The problem is that a big attack wouldn’t be the one-off that Iran wants, and there’s all the complicated internal politics of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is a quasi-independent military actor. Israel, Hezbollah, and Lebanon all seem to really want to avoid another 2006. So that’s not really an option.
@DK:
I haven’t been following the inside baseball very closely, but it seems to be entirely about the GoP’s dysfunction, specifically the douchebag faction in the party.
@Michael Cain:
No one really knows the Jericho’s conventional capabilities, if any. But it wouldn’t have to be a mountain. There are also airstrikes, but those areare risky and complicated. Israel can also do limited cruise missile attacks from submarines, which have the advantage of surprise, but the attack scale is small. If Israel does anything, I bet they will kill more Quds people in Syria.
@Michael Reynolds:
I read today that Iran’s strike is very similar in tactics to Russian strikes in Ukraine, only larger. I think there is some truth to that, as they have used combinations of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles simultaneously in the past to attempt to confuse and overwhelm air defenses with limited success. But Israel’s defenses are much more capable than Ukraine’s, especially when actively backed by Western forces shooting down drones and missiles before they even get near Israeli borders.
@Matt:
The costs of the weapons expended would need to be weighed against the cost of whatever the Iranian weapons would have destroyed had they been allowed through, which could have exceeded $1.2 billion, plus any lost lives.
And in this context, the relative cost is not relevant – replacement costs for weapons only start to matter in a full-scale attritional war like Russia-Ukraine. For a one-off engagement like this it just doesn’t matter much.
@JohnSF:
Very astute point. Hadn’t considered that. However, the same works in reverse, does it not? Given that Israel very definitely has nukes, what might be the reaction to them firing a ballistic missile? Or any missile that might have an atomic warhead?
I don’t have an answer to that, but your comment got me thinking.
I realize it’s late and this thread is probably dead, but just a comment: We seem to be in the phase where there are a lot of people expressing confidence about whether this was a face saving feint or a concerted attack. Given that we don’t yet know, I don’t think we will ever know. However, given that one or more of those ballistic missiles could have gotten through, we know that there are movers and shakers in Iran that are willing to risk such an outcome. This differs from what Israeli leadership has been spouting for several years.
@Andy: Even if you use the numbers for what Russia is charging/gouging Russia you’re not going to total the Iranian side up over $1.2b in costs.
The context is severely limited to the tiny slice of what I said. It was a very narrow observation. Anything beyond that is on you and quite frankly readily obvious…
Iran hit and damaged the Nevatim airbase, the home airbase of the hit on the embassy. Nevatim is the biggest airfield of the IDF and home of their F35 wings.
The other note from this strike is.. Israel/US had to light up their entire network due to the volume of incoming. Note that Hezbollah was also firing at the same time. So, now, Iran knows the location of the launchers and the next volley would likely be targeting those.
Iran does have hypersonic missiles.
The key point from the volume of intercepting missiles sent up is absolutely not the cost….. it’s the time to manufacture those weapons. There literally isn’t a time that can be offered answering “when” those missiles could be replaced. Offshoring has removed the ability of US manufacturing to replenish — because it was assumed the US would never again be in an industrial war. Oh well, what can we do — we couldn’t possibly set a production number and require defense contractors onshore that annual capacity because that would decrease profits!