Edward Luttwak
Having been attacked by almost 200 ballistic missiles — launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and each the size of a tanker truck — Israel must now decide how to respond. Whatever happens, one thing is obvious: the Jewish State’s reaction won’t equal Iran’s attack.
That is true both in terms of scale, which was vast and could have killed 20,000 Israelis, were it not for the advanced Arrow interceptors, and in its very meagre results. A Gazan Palestinian died in the West Bank, and debris from intercepted missiles caused widespread but only superficial damage to civilian houses and airforce bases. Certainly, Israel will not dispatch its pilots all the way to Iran without destroying targets that materially weaken the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities.
Not that Israel can act alone in choosing its targets. For while the US fully accepts that Netanyahu must respond for the sake of deterrence, the Biden Administration is equally reluctant to give the IDF carte blanche. For one thing, the White House doesn’t want Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Even now, those officials who run Biden’s foreign policy cling to their dream of reconciliation with Tehran, believing that all would now be well if only Trump had stuck by the nuclear agreement negotiated by Obama, their former boss.
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