Rights and Accountability 28 October 2024
The wreckage of an Iranian ballistic missile in the Naqab desert near the Dead Sea on 3 October.
UPIFour Iranian soldiers were killed in Israeli air strikes on military sites in Iran early Saturday.
The attack came almost a month after a barrage of ballistic missiles fired by Tehran hit at least three military and intelligence installations in Israel.
The Iranian ballistic missile attack on 1 October was itself a much-anticipated reprisal for the assassinations of resistance leaders Hasan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, the latter while a guest of the state in Tehran.
Iran initially said on Saturday that the Israeli attack caused “limited damage” and claimed its air defense systems intercepted many of the missiles.
On Sunday, remarks by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were more circumspect. He said that the attack “should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated.”
He added that security for the Iranian people would be ensured by the strength of the state in all sectors. Officials will determine “what needs to be done and do whatever is in the best interests of this country and nation” following the Israeli strikes.
Khamenei’s comments fit the pattern of caution and careful deliberation exercised by Iran since the current exchange with Israel began in April, when Israel bombed Tehran’s embassy in Damascus. Several Iranian officials were killed in that attack, including a top commander in the elite revolutionary guards.
Israel claims “precise strikes”
On Saturday, the Israeli military claimed to have launched “precise strikes” on military sites in the hours-long attack. It claimed to have specifically targeted “drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries,” according to The Times of Israel.
Reuters reported that satellite imagery showed that Israel hit buildings “used for mixing solid fuel for ballistic missiles,” citing two American researchers.
Decker Eveleth, an analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank funded by the United States government to provide research for the US military, said that the strikes may have “significantly hampered Iran’s ability to mass produce missiles.”
Israeli and US government sources have also told friendly outlets that the Israeli attack “crippled” Iran’s missile program, as Axios put it.
But this is almost certainly spin.
Iran possesses an arsenal of thousands of ballistic missiles – it fired some 200 at Israel on 1 October alone – and has recently expanded production.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, estimated in 2017 that Iran had “a large and increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile program” and possessed “the largest number of ballistic missiles of any country in the Middle East.”
According to a 2006 map produced by the same organization, available from the website of the CIA, Iran maintained production and testing facilities all over its vast territory.
That network of sites is undoubtedly much larger almost two decades later and, according to Iran, includes underground factories.
It is inconceivable that a single Israeli strike could “cripple” a program of this scale. Nor is Israel likely to have destroyed anything Iran cannot replace.
Given the constant threat of an American or Israeli attack, Iran would be unlikely to concentrate its missile production assets in a few vulnerable and well-known locations.
Little strategic significance
In other words, the Israeli attack is unlikely to have had much strategic significance, despite what is being presented in the English-language media.
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, said that the strikes damaged a location that was used to test weapons as part of Iran’s now defunct nuclear weapons development program, according to Reuters.
The New York Times, citing unnamed Iranian officials and Israeli defense officials, also reported that “Israel struck air defenses around critical Iranian energy sites.”
“Air-defense systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries” were destroyed in the attack, as well as “systems guarding a large gas field and a major port in southern Iran.”
Those “critical energy and economic hubs are now vulnerable to future attacks if the cycle of retaliation between Iran and Israel continues,” according to the Times.
But that assumes that Iran, which has access to sophisticated Russian air defense technology, will not quickly replace any destroyed systems.
Moreover, what ultimately protects Iran’s oil facilities is not air defense missiles but deterrence.
If Israel or the United States were to strike Iran’s refineries, Iran would be able to devastate Israel’s far fewer oil facilities and those along the Persian Gulf, plunging the world into a massive economic crisis.
That is why Gulf states lobbied Washington to prevent Israel from directly attacking Iranian oil facilities. Washington apparently complied, extracting “assurances” from Tel Aviv that it would not do so.
Israel also hit several military sites in southern and central Syria during its attack on Iran on Saturday, Syrian state media reported.
The Israeli military claimed that it had achieved all its goals and that dozens of aircraft had participated in the “complex” attack, which The Times of Israel described as unprecedented “in terms of its scale, duration and Israel’s immediate acknowledgment of responsibility.”
As observed by The New York Times, the “carefully calibrated” attack early Saturday was the first time that Israel “publicly acknowledged conducting a military operation inside Iran.”
Iran emphasizes Gaza and Lebanon ceasefire
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that Tehran was “entitled and obligated” to defend itself but said that it “recognizes its responsibilities towards regional peace and security.”
The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said that it reserved the right to respond to Israel’s attack but “emphasized on the need for a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon to prevent the massacre of innocent people there,” Iranian state-affiliated media outlets reported.
The Iranian military said its air defense systems foiled attacks on three different locations near Tehran:
Both Israel and Iran indicated they would hold back from further escalation that could blow up into a catastrophic regional or even global war – at least for now.Mohammad Marandi, an analyst and professor at Tehran University, said that Iran would retaliate against the “insignificant” Israeli strike:
“Every escalation carried out by the [Israeli] regime and every act of aggression … by the regime will have to be responded to in order to create deterrence,” he told Sky News on Saturday.“The regime is not doing well on the border with Lebanon and that is why the regime is now changing its objectives in Lebanon,” Marandi said.
“They’re stuck at the border, they’ve been given heavy casualties, especially in the last few days, and so it looks obvious that the regime is weak and vulnerable.”
Marandi observed that Israel has long waged attacks on Iran, including the murder of scientists in the country. But the current exchange began when Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus in April.
After Iran responded to that strike with a salvo of missiles fired toward Israel, the latter – it is widely assumed, since Israel has not confirmed or denied responsibility – assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during an official visit to Tehran in July.
“These are not Iranian escalations, these are merely Iranian responses to Israeli regime aggression,” Marandi said.
“Iran is prepared to do this again and again because Iran easily outguns the regime,” he added. “So it’s up to the regime: do they want to devastate everything and destroy everything? We’ll see.”
Some Israeli politicians, including those in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, said the attack was not aggressive enough. Opposition leader Yair Golan said it dealt a blow “without dragging us into an inevitable war of attrition.”
Israel’s official narrative is that the operation was a success while Iran has downplayed the impact, suggesting a climb-down from the ladder of escalation – or at least a reluctance to climb higher. Both states demonstrated their ability to breach defense systems and strike deep in one another’s territory.
António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said on Saturday that he was “deeply alarmed” and called for diplomacy, adding that “all acts of escalation are condemnable and must stop.”
US President Joe Biden said that he hoped the Israeli strikes were “the end.” But there is great risk of further escalation so long as Washington continues to prolong Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Scaled-back attack?
Israeli leaders had warned of a much more damaging attack than what appears to have taken place on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said that “any enemy that tries to harm the state of Israel will pay a heavy price.”
Earlier this month, Gallant said that “our strike will be powerful, precise and above all – surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
On 30 September, the day before Iran’s missile attack, Netanyahu implied that Israel would target the government in Tehran in retaliation for any Iranian strike in response to the killing of Nasrallah and other founding leaders of Hizballah in Lebanon.
Netanyahu said that “there is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
He added that “when Iran is finally free, and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think, everything will be different.”
American intelligence assessments anticipated a much more severe Israeli response than what occurred on Saturday.
Highly classified Pentagon documents outlining Israel’s preparations to attack Iran indicated that Israel would strike a more devastating blow than what actually occurred in terms of the sensitivity and quantity of targets.
The two documents may have been leaked for the very purpose of undercutting a more severe Israeli attack that would further entangle the US military in an increasingly dangerous regional conflagration.
The Iranian military said that Israel used US-controlled Iraqi airspace to carry out its attack on Saturday, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported on Saturday.
“The country’s air defense units were able to prevent Israeli warplanes from entering Iran’s airspace,” Tasnim added, citing the military.
Both Jordanian and Saudi officials claimed that their airspace was not used for the Israeli attack. Riyadh condemned the strikes on its former regional rival as a violation of Iran’s sovereignty “and a violation of international laws and norms.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations accused the US of complicity in the Israeli attack.
In the week or so before the Israeli strikes, Washington sent its most advanced anti-missile defense system to Israel along with 100 troops to operate the battery.
US officials deny American involvement in the Israeli attack on Saturday.
Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, however, thanked the US for its “overt and covert” cooperation in the strikes.
Ali Abunimah contributed research and analysis regarding Iran’s ballistic missile program and air defense systems.
