{"id":26393,"date":"2024-04-14T16:16:03","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T16:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/14\/strikes-upend-israels-belief-about-irans-willingness-to-fight-it-directly\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T16:16:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T16:16:03","slug":"strikes-upend-israels-belief-about-irans-willingness-to-fight-it-directly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/14\/strikes-upend-israels-belief-about-irans-willingness-to-fight-it-directly\/","title":{"rendered":"Strikes Upend Israel\u2019s Belief About Iran\u2019s Willingness to Fight It Directly"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/12\/multimedia\/14israel-iran-assess-1-werp\/14israel-iran-assess-1-werp-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Strikes Upend Israel\u2019s Belief About Iran\u2019s Willingness to Fight It Directly\" title=\"Strikes Upend Israel\u2019s Belief About Iran\u2019s Willingness to Fight It Directly\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran\u2019s unprecedented strikes on Israel this weekend have shaken Israel\u2019s assumptions about its foe, undermining its long-held calculation that Iran would be best deterred by greater Israeli aggression.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For years, Israeli officials have argued, both in public and in private, that the harder Iran is hit, the warier it will be about fighting back. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/14\/world\/middleeast\/iran-israel-weapons.html\" title=\"\">Iran\u2019s barrage<\/a> of more than 300 drones and missiles on Saturday \u2014 the first direct attack by Iran on Israel \u2014 has overturned that logic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack was a response to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/01\/world\/middleeast\/iran-commanders-killed-syria-israel.html\" title=\"\">Israel\u2019s strike earlier this month<\/a> in Syria that killed seven Iranian military officials there. Analysts said it showed that leaders in Tehran are no longer content with battling Israel through their various proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, but instead are prepared to take on Israel directly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think we miscalculated,\u201d said Sima Shine, a former head of research for the Mossad, Israel\u2019s foreign intelligence agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"> \u201cThe accumulated experience of Israel is that Iran doesn\u2019t have good means to retaliate,\u201d Ms. Shine added. \u201cThere was a strong feeling that they don\u2019t want to be involved in the war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead, Iran has created \u201ca completely new paradigm,\u201d Ms. Shine said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran\u2019s response ultimately caused little damage in Israel, in large part because Iran had telegraphed its intentions well in advance, giving Israel and its allies several days to prepare a strong defense. Iran also released a statement, even before the attack was over, that it had no further plans to strike Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nevertheless, Iran\u2019s strikes turn <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/28\/world\/middleeast\/israel-iran-shadow-war.html\" title=\"\">a yearslong shadow war <\/a> between Israel and Iran into a direct confrontation \u2014 albeit one that could yet be contained, depending on how Israel responds. Iran has demonstrated that it has considerable firepower that can only be rebuffed with intensive support from Israel\u2019s allies, like the United States, underscoring how much damage it could potentially inflict without such protection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran and Israel once had a more ambiguous relationship, with Israel even <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/02\/01\/world\/israeli-says-deal-to-sell-iran-arms-preceded-us-role.html\" title=\"\">selling arms to Iran<\/a> during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. But their ties later frayed after that war ended; Iranian leaders became increasingly critical of Israel\u2019s approach to the Palestinians, and Israel grew wary of Iran\u2019s efforts to build a nuclear program and its increased support for Hezbollah.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For more than a decade, both countries have quietly targeted each other\u2019s interests across the region, while rarely announcing any individual action. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran has supported Hamas and financed and armed other regional militias hostile to Israel, several of which have been engaged in a low-level conflict with Israel since the deadly attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7. Similarly, Israel has regularly targeted those proxies, as well as assassinated Iranian officials, including on Iranian soil, killings for which it avoids taking formal responsibility. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both countries have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/26\/world\/middleeast\/israel-iran-shadow-war.html\" title=\"\">targeted merchant ships with links to their opponents<\/a>, as well as carried out <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/27\/world\/middleeast\/iran-israel-cyber-hack.html\" title=\"\">cyberattacks<\/a> on one another, and Israel has repeatedly <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/07\/15\/us\/politics\/iran-israel-mossad-nuclear.html\" title=\"\">sabotaged<\/a> Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, that war is out in the open. And in large part, it is because of what some analysts see as an Israeli miscalculation on April 1, when Israeli strikes <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/01\/world\/middleeast\/iran-commanders-killed-syria-israel.html\" title=\"\">destroyed part of an Iranian embassy complex<\/a> in Damascus, Syria, one of Iran\u2019s closest allies and proxies, killing the seven Iranian military officials, including three top commanders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack followed repeated suggestions from Israeli leaders that greater pressure on Iran would encourage Tehran to scale back its ambitions across the Middle East. \u201cAn increase in the pressure placed on Iran is critical,\u201d Yoav Gallant, Israel\u2019s defense minister, said in January, \u201cand may prevent regional escalation in additional arenas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead, the Damascus attack led directly to the first Iranian assault on Israeli sovereign territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israel may have misunderstood Iran\u2019s position because of the lack of Iranian response to earlier Israeli assassinations of senior Iranian officials, analysts said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Though Israeli leaders have long feared that Iran will one day build and fire nuclear missiles at Israel, they had grown used to targeting Iranian officials without direct retaliation from Tehran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In one of the most brazen attacks, Israel <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/09\/18\/world\/middleeast\/iran-nuclear-fakhrizadeh-assassination-israel.html\" title=\"\">killed<\/a> Iran\u2019s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in 2020 on Iranian soil. As recently as December, Israel was accused of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/26\/world\/middleeast\/iran-military-official-israel-syria.html\" title=\"\">killing<\/a> a top Iranian general, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in a strike in Syria, where Iranian military officials advise and support the Syrian government. Those and several other assassinations did not prompt retaliatory Iranian strikes on Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran\u2019s decision to respond this time was partly prompted by the fury in some circles of Iranian society at Iran\u2019s previous passivity, according to Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe degree of bottom-up pressure that I saw on the regime over the past 10 days, I\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d said Mr. Vaez, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a research group based in Brussels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran also needed to show proxies like Hezbollah that it could stand up for itself, Mr. Vaez added. \u201cTo demonstrate that Iran is too afraid to retaliate against such a brazen attack on its own diplomatic facility in Damascus would have been very damaging for Iran\u2019s relations and the credibility of the Iranians in the eyes of their regional partners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For some analysts, Israel\u2019s strike on Damascus may yet prove to have been a smaller miscalculation than it first appeared. Iran\u2019s aerial assault has already distracted from Israel\u2019s faltering war against Hamas, and reaffirmed Israel\u2019s ties with Western and Arab allies who had become increasingly critical of Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The fact that Iran gave Israel so long to prepare for the attack could indicate that Tehran remains relatively deterred, seeking to create only the optics of a major response while trying to avoid a significant escalation, said Michael Koplow, an Israel analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, a research group based in New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTo me, the jury is out,\u201d Mr. Koplow said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe question is whether this was intended to be something that would actually damage Israel, or if this was supposed to be something that made it seem as though they were responding in strength, but actually signaled that they weren\u2019t,\u201d Mr. Koplow added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But for others, it was already clear. Aaron David Miller, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based research group, said that Israel had now made two major strategic errors in less than a year: Before Oct. 7, Israeli officials had publicly \u2014 and wrongly \u2014 concluded that Hamas had been deterred from attacking Israel. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then Hamas launched the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2023\/12\/22\/world\/europe\/beeri-massacre.html\" title=\"\">deadliest attack<\/a> in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen it comes to conceptions, Israel is batting 0 for 2,\u201d said Mr. Miller. \u201cThey failed to read Hamas\u2019s capacity and motivation correctly on Oct. 7 and they clearly misjudged how Iran would respond to the April 1 hit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/14\/world\/middleeast\/iran-strikes-israel-analysis.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran\u2019s unprecedented strikes on Israel this weekend have shaken Israel\u2019s assumptions about its foe, undermining its long-held calculation that Iran would be best deterred by greater Israeli aggression. For years, Israeli officials have argued, both in public and in private, that the harder Iran is hit, the warier it will be about fighting back. Iran\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/12\/multimedia\/14israel-iran-assess-1-werp\/14israel-iran-assess-1-werp-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31368,4822,21116,5558,199,31367,31369],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26395,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26393\/revisions\/26395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}