In a bid to avoid a broader war in the Middle East, the United States and other world leaders are urging Israel to see victory in its unprecedented military confrontation with Iran over the weekend. It is unclear whether Israel will follow that script, but Iran appears to be doing so, and its government claims to have succeeded.
After years of a proxy battle, Iran launched an attack from its own territory against Israel for the first time, sending waves of land-attack cruise missiles, more than 100 ballistic missiles and a battery of “killer drones.”
Israel, in turn, mounted a formidable defense and emerged almost unscathed, intercepting or shooting down almost all the munitions with its air defense system and the help of American and British fighter jets, as well as Jordan. Saudi Arabia is believed to have allowed Israel's allies to use its airspace.
The Biden administration praised Israel's “spectacular defeat” of the Iranian attack.
“This was an incredible success, truly demonstrating Israel's military superiority and, equally important, its diplomatic superiority, that it has friends in the region and around the world who are willing to help it,” the Security Council spokesman said. White House Homeland Security. John Kirby.
He highlighted the military support coalition of several countries that came together to help defend Israel despite widespread anger and international isolation over Israel's conduct in the six-month war in Gaza.
The coalition is fragile. Countries like Jordan, which acknowledged shooting down a series of what it called “flying objects” that invaded its airspace, want to continue to enjoy the favor of Israel and its main sponsor, the United States, but they also cannot risk Israel's wrath. Iran.
Furthermore, American officials do not want an Israeli response now to further increase bloodshed in the region.
The war in Gaza has already claimed thousands of Palestinian lives and cost the Biden administration political capital here and abroad.
President Biden and his national security team receive updates on Iran's attack on Israel.
(Adam Schultz/The White House/Associated Press)
In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, President Biden again offered “strong” support for Israel's defense, but warned that US forces will not be part of any offensive action that Israel may launch against Iran, according to administration officials. familiar with the conversation.
“No one wants to climb the ladder,” said a senior administration official, briefing reporters Sunday on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions. “Israel needs to think carefully about what it will do next.”
Some Israeli public figures are also urging caution, amid cries for urgent revenge from right-wing members of Netanyahu's government.
Israel could take advantage of an improved military and diplomatic posture to find “a more creative and sophisticated way to respond, perhaps at a later stage and in line with previous covert actions it took against Iran, which will better serve its national interests,” he said. Nimrod Goren. , senior fellow on Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
In Israel, Netanyahu's war cabinet declared on Sunday that Israel would respond to Iran “in the manner and at the time that suits us,” as its member Benny Gantz put it. And it will be a surprise, he said.
Iran's attack was anything but a surprise.
Emergency services work on a building destroyed by an airstrike on April 1 in Damascus, Syria.
(Omar Sanadiki / Associated Press)
Since the April 1 killing of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and six other officers in an airstrike on a diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria (an attack blamed on Israel), Iran has consistently vowed revenge. In the days before this weekend's nighttime attack, Iran had informed some countries in the region that it was planning an attack, and the first drones were launched hours before they reached Israeli airspace, giving American spy satellites and Westerners enough time to detect and track incoming artillery.
Several countries that have cordial relations with Iran, such as Turkey and Lebanon, urged a “de-escalation” by both Israel and Iran.
Iran said on Sunday it had completed its retaliation for the April 1 incident. According to officials there, the attack was an impressive display of military might that was also calibrated so as not to tip the region into all-out war. Iran's supporters also noted that Israel needed the active help of no less than five nations to stop the attack and could not do it alone.
They take pride in the fact that the attack crossed what has been a kind of red line for the last 40 years of hostility between Israel and Tehran: direct fire from Iranian soil to Israeli soil.
Iran had long relied on factions in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen to carry out attacks against Israel.
Critics, on the other hand, said that the fact that almost all the munitions were shot down (or never made it out of Iranian airspace) demonstrated the inferiority of Iran's arsenal and that, in any case, the whole affair was a farce. that left Iran looking like the screaming lion.
Some analysts said Iran had to know its hundreds of missiles were going to be intercepted and was being careful not to cause too much damage to moderate the Israeli response. Iran also does not want a broader war, one that would be unpleasant for the United States.
But the administration official who briefed reporters on Sunday cast doubt on that estimate. Iran “clearly intended to inflict significant damage and deaths,” the official said. Israel reported some damage to an air force base and the injury of a Bedouin child.
Throwing much of its best material at Israel with so little physical impact could be an embarrassing setback for Iran.
On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kananí described the attack as “necessary, proportional and directed at military targets” to establish a “deterrence capability,” according to Tehran news agency reports. Kanani added that Iran “is not seeking to increase tensions in the region.”
At the same time, Iran has warned that if any country helped Israel in a counteroffensive, there would be consequences.
On Sunday, an unnamed military source was quoted in Iran's state news criticizing Jordan for its “movements during the punitive strikes” and saying that backing Israel would make it “the next target.”
That same day, Jordan's Foreign Ministry called the Iranian ambassador and reprimanded him for “getting involved in Jordan's internal affairs” and for “casting doubt on Jordan's positions” on Israel, Jordan's foreign minister said. , Ayman Safadi, in an interview with Al-Mamlaka. TELEVISION.
“Iran's problem is with Israel and not with Jordan,” he said. “Neither Iran nor anyone else can surpass what Jordan is doing, what it offers and what it has historically provided for the good of Palestine.”
Jordan called the shootdowns a military intervention aimed at preserving national sovereignty and the security of the country's citizens. Safadi said Jordan would have done the same if Israel had fired the missiles toward Iran.
Complicating matters for the Jordanian government, the weekend's events only increased the anger of many citizens who oppose diplomatic relations with Israel because of its conduct in the war in Gaza. Many Jordanians have Palestinian roots and online activists have been mocking what they see as their government's willingness to defend Israelis while letting Palestinians die.
Now the world waits to see if Israel will be content with having repelled Iran's attack… or if it will respond militarily.
Jonathan Spyer, research director at the US-based Middle East Forum, suggested that Israel might be prompted to act because it cannot allow Iran, or the region, to view retaliatory attacks on Israeli territory as a new normal.
Israel will not want to “take victory,” as the United States and others urge, he said. “From the Israeli perspective, a 'victory' is not blocking the coup, but what is done after the coup.”
Wilkinson reported from Washington and Bulos from Beirut.
