NYT national security correspondent David Sanger analyses recent events and sees “A Wider War in the Middle East, From Hamas to Hezbollah and Now Iran.”
The long-feared “wider war” in the Middle East is here.
For the last 360 days, since the images of the slaughter of about 1,200 people in Israel last Oct. 7 flashed around the world, President Biden has warned at every turn against allowing a terrorist attack by Hamas to spread into a conflict with Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah, and ultimately with Iran itself.
Now, after Israel assassinated the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, and began a ground invasion of Lebanon, and after Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel, it has turned into one of the region’s most dangerous moments since the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.
The main questions now are how much the conflict might escalate and whether the United States will get more directly involved.
The past few days may be a turning point. Since Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah on Friday, the Biden administration has been shifting from cautioning against a wider war to trying to manage it. Officials have defended Israel’s right to strike back at Iran, but are advising against direct attacks on its nuclear facilities that could tip the conflict out of control.
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To many Israelis, the escalation was inevitable, another chapter in a struggle for survival that began with the nation’s creation in 1948.
Mr. Netanyahu clearly has America’s blessing to retaliate. At the White House on Tuesday, Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said the Iranian attack had been “defeated and ineffective,” largely because of the coordinated efforts of American and Israeli forces, who had spent months planning how to intercept the incoming missiles. “We have made clear that there will be consequences — severe consequences — for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.
Mr. Sullivan said the White House was consulting extensively with Israel, including with the prime minister’s office, to formulate the appropriate response. He emphasized the degree of communication, leaving unsaid the obvious. Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu barely talked as Israel invaded Gaza and took the fight to Lebanon. But once Iran, a lethal threat to Israel with military powers that Hamas and Hezbollah can only aspire to, directly entered the fray, America’s tone and strategy changed.
Sanger’s colleague, Thomas Friedman, writing just before yesterday’s missile barrage from Iran, termed Israel’s attacks in Lebanon “The First Volleys of a Ballistic Missile War in the Mideast.”
We may be about to enter what could be the most dangerous moment in the history of the modern Middle East: a ballistic missile war between Iran and Israel, which would almost certainly bring in the United States on Israel’s side and could culminate in a full-blown U.S.-Israeli effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
That is the assessment I have gleaned from talking to Israeli intelligence sources, whose analysis is that Iran plans to launch a missile attack against Israel at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, which is 7:30 p.m. in Israel. The attack is planned in two waves 15 minutes apart, and each wave will involve 110 ballistic missiles, the Israelis said.
The Iranian missiles are aimed at three targets. First, the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, near Tel Aviv. Second, the Israeli air base at Nevatim, and third, the Israeli air base at Khatzirim; both bases are in the south of Israel in the Negev Desert. The Israeli officials are particularly concerned about any strike on Mossad headquarters because it is in the densely populated north Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon. It is also not far from the Israeli defense intelligence headquarters, Unit 8200.
This information has been shared with me because the Israelis insist that they do not want a full-scale ballistic war with Iran, and want the United States to try to deter the Iranians by letting them know that if they do launch this missile attack, the United States will not be a bystander, and its response, unlike with the April 13 Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel, will not be purely defensive. In other words, Iran could be risking its entire nuclear program if this missile attack goes ahead.
I have not been able to speak to any senior U.S. officials to gauge their reactions, but will update this blog post as I do.
One might think that Israel is itching for this kind of war with Iran to finally take out its nuclear program and involve the United States. That is not my impression. A war of ballistic missiles could do enormous damage to Israel’s infrastructure unless virtually every missile is intercepted.
At this writing, they in fact were—with considerable assistance from the United States. Whether that was Iran’s intent is not within my ability to ascertain from public sources.
An an afternoon update, Friedman observes,
The attack was executed by the Air Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was not an operation of the regular Iranian army or air force, according to Israeli sources. The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was not informed of the attack until shortly before it began, the sources said, indicating that the Iranian regime is divided over the operation, which will probably add to the fractures in the government.
Israel’s ability to anticipate the Iranian strike and name the precise hour of the attack, and the fact that it was a revolutionary guards operation — not the regular Iranian armed forces under the command of the new president — demonstrates how deeply the Mossad, Israel’s cyber command, Unit 8200, and the Israeli Air Force have penetrated the Iranian regime and coordinated their defensive response. It means no Iranian leader can trust another anymore.
The same is largely true of the Hezbollah leadership, thanks to Israel’s brilliant attacks on their command and control system.
Regardless, Netanyahu would seem to have no choice to follow up with a strike on Iranian targets. Depending on the level of severity of that strike, escalation into all-out conflict seems inevitable. This, despite it being clear none of the major parties involved want it. Certainly, not the United States.
As Sanger notes,
Mr. Biden’s warnings started early, on his visit to Israel less than two weeks after Oct. 7, to show solidarity after one of the most gruesome terrorist attacks of modern times.
That was before Israel obliterated Gaza from above and sent its military in on the ground, against Mr. Biden’s advice in a series of heated conversations with Mr. Netanyahu. It was before Israel booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah that exploded across Lebanon, and before Israel not only killed Mr. Nasrallah but systematically decapitated much of the Hezbollah leadership.
It was before the administration hinted that Israel would join a 21-day cease-fire, only to be defied, again, by Mr. Netanyahu, who then turned around and authorized the strike that killed Mr. Nasrallah.
To Mr. Biden’s critics on the right, this is all the result of American hesitance, his unwillingness to back Israel unconditionally, to nuance every promise of aid with a warning not to make the mistakes the United States made after the Sept. 11 attacks.
To his critics on the left, what has happened in the past 10 days is another example of Mr. Biden’s failure to make use of American leverage, including the threat of withholding American weapons from Israel, after more than 41,000 people have died in Gaza.
Similarly, the Iranian leadership has clearly wanted to remain in the so-called Gray Zone, backing proxies to keep Israel on its back foot but not doing so much damage as to provoke more than token response. For whatever reason, they viewed the brashness of the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah leadership—and, perhaps more importantly, on the IRGC leadership—as to much to take without a major response.
It’s largely up to Netanyahu now. While I’ve never much cared for him, seeing him as a bully and, increasingly, one using the war to preserve his own hide, I don’t think he wants a full-scale war with Iran either. His next move may well decide whether he gets one, at least in the near term.
