Iran attacks Israel: what does it mean and what happens next?

A few hours before Iran launched missiles at Israel, America’s spy satellite saw Iran moving the weapons onto their launching pads. They told Israel (and leaked to the media) that an attack was “imminent.” They were right.

Within hours, several hundred Iranian missiles were flying toward the Jewish State, just as they had in April. The earlier attack caused little damage — most of the missiles were intercepted — and early reports are that the recent attack met the same fate.

Israel’s success shooting down the missiles is crucial, not only because it saved lives but because it does not require Israel to launch a full-scale counter-attack.

Safety from the missiles did not protect all Israelis, though. A small group of terrorists attacked and killed innocent civilians at a café in Jaffa, a suburb just south of Tel Aviv. We don’t know yet whether that attack was coordinated with Iran or its proxies.

The common theme of the local terrorists, Iran’s Islamic Regime, and Iran’s regional proxies, Hamas (in Gaza), Hezbollah (in Lebanon) and the Houthis (in Yemen), is to kill as many Jews as possible and, they hope, ultimately extinguish the Jewish state. “From the river to the sea,” means the Middle East must be Judenfrei. Virtually all other states across the region already are. Many had large Jewish populations for centuries. No more. Where are the Jews of Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus? They were killed, chased out or fled. Their children are living in Israel, and they don’t have romanticized notions of peace with their antisemitic neighbors.

What gives them hope is not only Israel’s enormous economic and technical progress, but the threat Iran poses to the Sunni Arab countries across the region. Facing that threat, they have increasingly looked to Israel as a strong partner. That was the strategic logic behind the Abraham Accords, forged in the Trump administration.

Iran faces these long-term strategic challenges, compounded by a failing economy and the more recent challenge of its proxies’ defeats. Tehran had to do something in response to those recent losses, and it is hardly surprising they launched a missile barrage. They live in a region that respects “the strong horse,” and they had to show the allies they have armed, trained and funded that they do not stand alone.

The missiles fired at Israel make that symbolic statement. Beyond that, what should we make of the latest attack?

First, should Israel consider it a huge attack, the prelude to Iran initiating a major war with Israel? Or should it see it as a constrained attack, designed to show “hey, we’re doing something to respond to the attacks on our proxies”? Right now, the attack looks constrained.

Second, how deadly was the attack? Did Iran manage to kill large numbers of Israeli civilians and soldiers? No. Did they destroy military bases or sections of Israeli cities and towns? Again, no. Israel intercepted most of the missiles and lived through the attack.

That military success gives Israel flexibility in responding to Iran. It can hold off hitting them hard right now and concentrate on fighting against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The fight against Hezbollah is difficult enough without taking on Iran at the same time.

Third, how closely will Israel coordinate with the Biden-Harris administration? Cautiously with the political-diplomatic side of the administration, more extensively with the Pentagon, CIA and NSA.

Why such caution? Because the Israeli government doesn’t trust the information it shares will be kept secret and because it sees considerable daylight between Israel’s essential goals and those of the Biden-Harris administration.

Jerusalem is furious that its plans for the invasion of southern Lebanon, shared with the US, were leaked to the press before the invasion began. If Israel were planning the D-Day Invasion, they figure the White House and State Department would inform the New York Times and Washington Post and tell them the target would be Normandy. Don’t worry about Brittany, Dieppe and Pas de Calais. And, of course, the papers would print it.

Moreover, the Israeli government is none too happy the Biden Administration has been hot-and-cold about Israel’s recent actions — and has expressed those reservations in public. Likewise, it considers the administration’s basic policy toward Iran — inaction and appeasement—an utter failure.

The good news, as far as Israel is concerned, is that the White House offered full-throated support for killing Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The bad news is it has not offered any public support for Israel’s limited military operation in Lebanon, designed to drive the terrorists further north, wipe out the massive stores of weapons on Israel’s border and restore deterrence.

Even worse news is that President Biden and his principal aides keep calling for a “ceasefire now.” Amid the terrorist attacks and missile barrages, the White House is singing, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”

Like so much of the administration’s foreign policy, the tune is badly off-key.

Israel has no intention of signing onto a ceasefire because it would leave Hezbollah in place and well-armed on Israel’s border, able to resume its lethal onslaught whenever it chose. That prospect would leave northern Israel too dangerous to inhabit, as it currently is.

The Israeli government sees a White House that is fundamentally opposed to its strategy. That US stance, the leaks of secret information, and Biden’s weakness on Iran have marginalized the White House’s role in the current conflict.

The fight with Hezbollah would not be happening if the terrorist group had adhered to the deal made after the 2006 war. That deal required Hezbollah to keep its troops north of the Litani River, some eighteen miles north of the Israeli border. Doing so would create a demilitarized zone next to Israel and provide some degree of safety for Israelis living near the border. The United Nations passed resolutions to that effect and promised to monitor the area.

It was all a lie. Hezbollah chose to reoccupy the border region and make it an armed camp. The UN monitors were worthless. They simply watched as Hezbollah militarized the area with shipments from Iran.

The second reason for the current fight is that Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor decided to use those arms in support of Hamas after October 7, 2023. That’s when the Gaza terrorist group attacked and killed Israeli civilians and took Israelis and Americans hostage. Hezbollah could have stood aside. Instead, it chose to enter the war to help Hamas. The Lebanese group began a year-long missile assault on northern Israel, making the area uninhabitable and diverting Israel resources from the war in Gaza.

For a year, Israel responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat strikes. It was waiting to do more until the war in Gaza was largely finished. Now that it is, Israel has turned its sights to the northern enemy, striking Hezbollah’s leadership and its emplacements in southern Lebanon. The Israeli strikes not only killed the organization’s leader, they killed nearly all the other top-ranking officials and demolished the organization’s communications network.

Israel’s goal was not to completely eliminate Hezbollah — an impossibly large task — but to restore the deterrence that had existed before October 2023 and, if possible, drive the organization’s military emplacements further north, above the Litani River. The aim is to make northern Israel inhabitable again and allow the 70-100,000 residents to return home.

Israel probably has a larger goal in Lebanon, as well. If it can weaken Hezbollah sufficiently, then the fragile Lebanese government may be able to regain control of its territory and police the southern region, which borders Israel. The Beirut government is the obvious institution to perform that task, if it has the capability. After the UN’s failure to carry out those duties, no multilateral solution is acceptable to Jerusalem. And, of course, Israel does not want to maintain a long-term presence there.

Tehran could not stand by and do nothing amid this fighting and the stunning blows to its proxies. It had to do something. It looks like the choice made by Ayatollah Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was to launch a missile barrage but stop well short of all-out war. It must have been a difficult choice since it took days to make. They are well aware the regime is on shaky ground at home, burdened by a fragile economy, high inflation and rising public dissatisfaction.

To launch a full-scale war with Israel amid these difficulties would risk the regime itself. They apparently chose not to do that.

That leaves Israel free to concentrate on the war against Hezbollah and choose how hard to hit back at Iran for its missile attack (and possible sponsorship of the terrorists in Jaffa).

The biggest decision of all awaits Jerusalem. Will they try to take out Iran’s nuclear program and how will they do it?