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Iran and Israel - neither ate onions, nor smelled onions

And if the conflict between the two countries has a charge that will continue in time, then if we assume that its current phase has been exhausted by both sides, we can conclude that Iran too , and Israel swung at each other but chose not to strike

Apr 25, 2024 23:00 206

Iran and Israel - neither ate onions, nor smelled onions  - 1
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With the clear caveat that information at this stage is rather scarce and questions still outnumber answers, Israel's reaction to what happened that night, compared to last week's Iranian attack, it seems more symbolic. The following indicators contribute to such an initial conclusion:

Means used as quality: micro-drones (quadcopters). Although it is not clear what model Israel is using, the quadcopters have a limited ability to inflict damage - they are better suited for precision rather than large-scale strikes - and are unmatched in depth and diameter of damage to those caused by standard unmanned aerial vehicles , cruise and ballistic missiles. It has not yet been confirmed, at least by a second source, that the Israeli attack also involved air-to-surface missiles fired by Israel's warplanes, possibly into the airspace of neighboring Iraq;

Means used as quantity: It is also unclear how many quadcopters were activated. According to the Iranian press, it is about "a few", but that corresponds to a few rather than a lot;

Targets of the strike: these are military sites near Tabriz (missile storage depots) and near Isfahan (TAB 8 Air Force Base located near the city). It remains to be further confirmed whether the Israeli strikes also targeted an Iranian air defense radar system in the sector guarding the Natanz nuclear facility;

The starting point: due to the limited flight range of the quadcopter, it must be airborne relatively close to its final destination. This means that the quadcopters started their descent from Iranian territory (in this vein is also the information coming from Tehran, according to which it was more about an "infiltration" into Iran than a strike outside Iran) or at most from the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan or Azerbaijan;

The strike agent: if Israel's attack was limited to quadcopters, as the information about the missiles used has not yet been confirmed, then this means that it may have been carried out by the Mossad and not by the Israel Defense Forces. since quadcopters are a known military sabotage tool in the assortment of the secret service in question. An additional argument in this direction will be that the micro drones were possibly lifted from Iranian territory, for which teams of the intelligence agency in question were used on the ground;

Framework: if the attack was carried out by the Mossad via quadcopters, it would not be something that has not happened before (similar sabotage attacks on Iranian military sites have occurred in the past few years; of course, Tel Aviv never confirms that he is behind such actions).

If this current information is correct, then Israel's response is limited, predictable and within the framework established so far. The most serious element of Israel's response is that Tel Aviv has demonstrated that it can strike Iran from Iran. But this, as mentioned, is also not new. However, we must also make the following stipulation here, namely that we do not know whether these strikes are the end of Israel's response, or whether they are rather an element of Tel Aviv's overall response, which is yet to be developed.

However, if Israel's response was exhausted by this attack alone, it would mean the following things.

For once, Tel Aviv has acknowledged US and Western diplomatic pressure for Israel not to respond to the full extent of its capabilities to last week's Iranian attack. A serious blow to Iran is hardly worth the cost of damaging relations between Israel and the US, given the strained relations between Tel Aviv and Moscow, as well as the growing criticism from the West of the humanitarian cost of Israel's military actions against the Gaza Strip. It is indicative of the latter that at the last meeting of the UN Security Council, only the US vetoed the proposal for Palestine to become a full member of the organization (that is, France, Japan and South Korea supported the draft resolution, while Great Britain abstained).

For the second time, Tel Aviv is well aware that Tehran's aggression of the past few days has changed the public narrative coming from the Middle East, which was largely formed on the basis of the high number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip. After Iran's attack, however, the country in question again took on the role of the aggressor, and this is a narrative that works for Israel internationally, and Tel Aviv hardly wants to waste such public capital with its own and reciprocal military strike.

Third time, Israel may have "traded" the option to hit Iran hard in exchange for concessions from the US. Such, for example, could be the imposition of new sanctions on the military-industrial complex of Tehran, with an emphasis on the programs for unmanned aerial vehicles and the missile program; "green light" for a conventional military operation of the Israel Defense Forces against the Palestinian Rafah; reducing pressure on Israel to cease hostilities with the Gaza Strip or softening the imperative that Tel Aviv must accept the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza after the end of the war, etc.).

Last but not least, if there are no subsequent military reactions from Tel Aviv, then Israel has understood the "restraining elements" in Iran's strikes last week. These "containing elements" were:

That Iran had warned Israel through intermediaries of the impending strike;

That Iran is not using the latest assortments and modifications of its missile arsenal;

That Iran has targeted military, not civilian sites, and those that Tehran says were involved in the assassination of Iranian generals in the country's consulate in Damascus earlier.

In the situation thus created and despite their antagonism, Iran and Israel have a shared interest - not to turn their mediation conflict, often led by the territories of neighboring countries, into a direct war between the two countries. Perhaps this is why Tel Aviv is limiting its military response to a more test and symbolic one for now. And Iran is further mitigating the effect of Israeli infiltration, insofar as this will relieve Tehran of the responsibility to respond in turn (thus, one can explain why, if it subsequently turns out that air-to-surface missiles were also used in the Israeli attack, then Iran does not mention it). In general, both countries behave like "we ate onions, we smelled onions".

And if the conflict between the two countries has a charge that will last forward in time, then if we assume that the current phase of it has been exhausted by both sides, we can conclude that both Iran and Israel swung at each other, but they preferred not to strike, as the dialectic of their rivalry could very easily grow from controllable to unfettered.