But it is significant that several of the missiles actually made it into Israeli airspace before being shot down with support from the US and Britain. Despite Iran choosing military targets (hence calibrated to avoid civilian casualties), Tel Aviv may now consider it necessary to retaliate to regain supremacy of its military capabilities that it has hitherto enjoyed. Benjamin Netanyahu‘s ominous threat of Tehran having to ‘pay a heavy price’ bears this out.
Escalation has been on the cards since Israel’s Gaza offensive in response to the outrage of Oct 7 last year. While the whole of Israeli society stood united in grief and rage against the brutality of the Hamas attacks, a section of the Israeli establishment had begun to advocate taking the gloves off. The enormity of Israeli response – resulting in the death of more than 50,000 Palestinians and the complete destruction of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza – bore testimony to the determination to physically eliminate any actor or force that poses any kind of serious threat to the country.
When the network of Iran-backed militias – the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ – in the larger neighbourhood, in particular Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, began to launch attacks on Israel and Israeli targets in solidarity with Palestinians, the risk of escalation of conflict at the regional level began to grow. While the rhetoric coming out of Tehran was pretty strong, it also didn’t want to get militarily entangled in a regional war.
The Israeli defence community’s insistence on dismantling the strike capability of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ as a measure of deterrence nearly backfired when, in April, the Iranian consular building in Damascus was destroyed by Israel with a high functionary of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Brig Gen Mohammed Zahedi, along with six others being killed. While Israel and Iran have been waging a shadow war through the militias, the Damascus attack constituted crossing a red line. This prompted a measured escalation from Tehran – launching a volley of slow-moving cruise and ballistic missiles and drones (almost all of which were shot down before they entered Israeli airspace). Even though Iran said it sought to end the matter there, Tel Aviv retaliated in a week’s time with its own missile attack near Esfahan – but calculated to avoid any escalation.
In April, both Israel and Iran stepped back from the brink. But something snapped in Israel. Having been directly attacked by any country for the first time since 1973, Israel’s defence policy (relying on deterrence) lay in tatters. Once it became clear that Iran’s military capabilities exceeded Israeli apprehensions, a segment of Israeli defence establishment advocated even more strongly a forward policy against Iran and the combatant components of the ‘Axis of Resistance’, taking the conflict into enemy territory.However, the US, Israel’s most important ally and principal arms-supplier, has been trying to restrain Tel Aviv, and Netanyahu cannot simply ignore it. So, Israel has now embarked on a policy of brinkmanship, intensifying its operations in Gaza, taking out functionaries associated with IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas, neutralising its most implacable enemies – like Hassan Nasrallah and much of Hezbollah’s command structure, Ismail Haniyeh and others belonging to Hamas, and lately launching a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.If in so doing, Israel could draw Iran into a full-fledged conflict, Tel Aviv is confident that Washington won’t stand aloof – definitely not in an election year. With the US (and its allies) behind it, Israel fancies its chances of prevailing against Iran and its allies as being markedly better than otherwise.
Tehran is, of course, fully cognisant that Israel is trying to pick a fight, and just like Tel Aviv, it has been rethinking its defence strategy upon Israel’s successful penetration of Iran’s defence in April. The hardline element in Iran’s establishment, including IRGC, the operative force behind the ‘Axis of Resistance’, are alarmed at the pace at which Israel is whittling down Iran’s allies. But newly elected president Masoud Pezeshkian is strongly advocating restraint, because conflict would destabilise the sanctions-ridden Iranian economy and wreck his declared aim of ‘normalising’ Iran’s relations with the world.
An upheaval may even endanger regime security of the Islamic establishment triggering a domestic upheaval, along the fault lines left in the wake of the 2022-23 ‘hijab protests’, in the event of outbreak of conflict. Iran, thus, proved wary of avenging the deaths of IRGC commanders and Haniyeh.
However, if Tehran was to stay totally stoic in the face of Israel’s brinkmanship, it fears losing leverage in both Beirut and among its allied militias in the wider neighbourhood. Also, Netanyahu’s assurance to the people of Iran that Israel would come to ‘liberate’ them rankled. So, Tehran responded with a calibrated strike in April – declaring its intent beforehand to minimise casualties, and not causing much destruction, while demonstrating its capability of penetrating Israel’s missile defence system. At least 20 missiles made past the ‘Iron Dome’ defence system. Immediately thereafter, foreign minister Araghchi announced that Iran considers its response concluded – unless Israel chooses to respond again.
The US has reportedly conveyed to Tehran on Oct 1 that it may not be able to moderate Israel’s response as it did earlier in April. It is now entirely up to Tel Aviv as to what its response would be. From the sounds of it, raring for a ‘defensive war’, Israel might take Iranian missile attack as a casus belli, and give Tehran another push – such as by attacking some or all of Iran’s widely dispersed nuclear installations.
In such an event, pragmatists in Tehran are likely to lose the argument. Being supposedly only weeks away from attaining nuclear weapons capability, and months away from attaining delivery capability, hardliners in Iran may accelerate nuclear development, potentially changing the nature and magnitude of the risk of this conflict. Brinkmanship on both sides has left the region confronting grave uncertainties.
