7 responses to “US Preparing for Iranian Retaliatory Strike”

1. 

   Slugger

   April 6, 2024 at 11:00 am

   I hope that the likelihood of a retaliatory attack following the attack on Damascus was wargamed long before the attack by Israel with US input. I say “hope” because I am not confident that it happened. Once I had good confidence in Israeli military intelligence and planning, but the October 2023 Hamas attacks show that Israel was asleep, or maybe Netanyahu was cynically allowing it to happen to consolidate his power. In any event, the US is in the position of someone who has a relative who is irresponsible and a spendthrift. At some point it stops being worthwhile to support them. Was the Damascus attack undertaken with our knowledge and with good plans for the inevitable countermove by Iran? If not then we must let the region know that we’re going to keep out of this mess.
   I have long thought that the US should work toward better relations with Iran.

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2. 

   Michael Reynolds

   April 6, 2024 at 11:19 am

   Netanyahu does seem to be looking for a götterdämmerung. We should not play that game, but if the Ayatollahs overplay their hand, our hand may be forced. So, I’d bet that the Iranians are too smart to attack the US in an escalatory, or even proportional way – I don’t think they’ll be blowing up US embassy buildings, more likely missile attacks against US forces in Syria. They will certainly hit Israel in some way. We should of course deplore that, but nothing more.

   I can understand @Gustopher’s desire to say, screw you guys, we’re going home. But someone needs to keep the magic black juice flowing through the Red Sea and the Gulf, for our allies Japan and South Korea, our European allies, our friends in Taiwan and India. There is no other navy ready to step up, and we don’t want to see a PLAN that’s that capable. No one wants to see Chinese warships in the Gulf, or even in the Mediterranean.

   Then there’s the strong likelihood that if we pull back the Saudis will feel the need to become a nuclear power since they’d no longer have the US as a counterweight to Iran. Which would ensure that Iran assembled bombs. (And then, Turkey would start.) The country Saudi Arabia would have to turn to in the case of US retrenchment, would be Israel. As bad as things are, a Sunni/Jewish alliance against Iran, with all parties nuking-up, would not be an improvement. And of course the Palestinians would be forgotten. The Saudis have bigger fish to fry. Note the absence of Arab governments giving a fuck about Gaza.

   So, we’re stuck because un-sticking would make the prospect of a nuclear war in the ME, with attendant global economic collapse, more likely. At least that’s how I war-game it.

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3. 

   Gustopher

   April 6, 2024 at 11:29 am

   A direct strike on Israel by Iran is one of the worst-case scenarios that the Biden administration is bracing for, as it would guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East. Such a strike could lead to the Israel-Hamas war broadening into a wider, regional conflict – something Biden has long sought to avoid.

   Only Iranians have agency, apparently.

   Perhaps Israel should be factoring the very likely response in when they bomb someone’s consulate. Was killing those particular people, at that time and in that place worth a response that will “guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East”?

   This back and forth has been going on for years, and both sides have agency. I don’t think we gain enough from our relationship with Israel to tie ourselves so closely with their actions.

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4. 

   Moosebreath

   April 6, 2024 at 11:36 am

   “Israel’s targeting of Quds Force leadership is perfectly reasonable and, indeed, presumably expected.”

   Not really. By all accounts, Iran has been trying to avoid having its proxies (especially Hezbollah) take actions to escalate the Gaza situation. So it appears that Netanyahu, having failed to create a more active war against Hezbollah, decided to raise the stakes by attacking Iran more directly.

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5. 

   wr

   April 6, 2024 at 1:27 pm

   @Gustopher: “Was killing those particular people, at that time and in that place worth a response that will “guarantee rapid escalation of an already tumultuous situation in the Middle East”?”

   I think the answer is “yes, as long as a widening war will keep Netanyahu in power and out of jail for a little longer.”

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6. 

   Andy

   April 6, 2024 at 3:29 pm

   Unless all these senior Iranian personnel, along with reps from Hezbollah and various militant groups, were getting together for their weekly bridge game, the timing of the attack was likely driven by having so many people on Israel’s hit list collected in one place at one time, with intelligence showing they would be there (Iranian counter-intelligence is not having a good week).

   Once Israel has this information, the decision then becomes whether to strike or not to strike. IOW, the conspiracy theory about Israel purposely timing the attack for this particular moment fundamentally misunderstands how these things work. To me, this was almost certainly a target of opportunity that could be acted on or not, and unsurprisingly Israel acted.

   As for retaliation, Iran, despite the very long-standing bloviation by right-wing nutjobs about the crazy Mullahs, has always been a very cold, calculating player. They did take the time to warn the US including to stay out of their way, but unfortunately weren’t specific. I think it’s extremely unlikely that Iran will attack US assets and will actually seek to avoid the appearance of doing so.

   So the question becomes – what they might target. They have a long history of attacking Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide via proxies, but this one will most likely have a clear Iranian return address. Israel has already taken measures, like evacuating embassies and facilities deemed vulnerable, and there is nothing equivalent to the Iranian situation in Syria for Israel, where Israeli assets operate in a weak state in the midst of a civil war that can be attacked with impunity. Sending missiles to strike Israeli consulates in third countries does not seem like a realistic option because it will piss off those third countries.

   So that leaves Israel itself. A limited strike, perhaps against the base where the fighter aircraft that attacked the meeting are stationed, similar to Iran’s retaliation against the US for Soleimani, is the most obvious possibility. Iran probably won’t be as careful to avoid killing Israelis as they were killing Americans. Of course, Israel has very capable air and ballistic missile defenses, and that is such an obvious target that Israel will likely be prepared. And there is always a very big danger when launching ballistic missiles at a country with a nuclear ballistic missile strike capability. So that’s a big risk for Israel in a number of ways.

   Something safer in terms of not starting a bigger conflict, that is logistically easier and more likely to succeed, and also provides a political message of solidarity against the “occupation,” would be attacking Israeli military installations in the Golan. It’s adjacent to Syria, a permissive country to operate in and over; it’s further from Israeli air defense, making an attack more likely to succeed; from a force escalation standpoint, it’s much safer to have missiles impacting there where there isn’t much of truly strategic value rather than overflying the heart of Israeli territory and hitting Israel’s most important airbase. That’s my best guess at this point, but it’s a low-confidence guess.

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7. 

   dazedandconfused

   April 6, 2024 at 5:42 pm

   The Quds are in Syria to fight ISIS too. They are, in this matter, our allies.