Though they have tried to deny it, the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran is now in direct confrontation with Israel. Iran has said it doesn’t want a full on conflict involving ground forces. But, through proxies and two major aerial bombardments by ballistic missiles in six months, Iran and Israel are at war.
Israel is now fighting on five fronts. The G7 allies, led by America, have urged restraint, and warned against Israel’s air force striking some half dozen major nuclear sites in Iran, which would only make things worse. President Biden, hedging his bets, has ordered a second aircraft carrier group to the region.
Monday’s strike by ballistic missiles was significantly different and more sophisticated than the blanket air attack on April 13th. In April Iran launched a mixed arsenal of rockets, drones and cruise missiles, which moved slowly and could be tracked for up to two hours before reaching the target zone. “A lot of its was old stock,” an American analyst observed.
In this week’s bombardment, flight times of the missiles were 12 minutes or less. This proved a severe test for Israel’s renowned air defence apparatus — which consists of Iron Dome for close defence, and the intermediate and long range David’s Sling mechanism and the Arrow 2 and 3 anti-missile missiles. Like Russia and China, Iran is experimenting with hypersonic missiles, some with a prospective speed of 5,000 kilometers an hour. This allows little or no time for defensive radars to track.
A number of the missiles did get through the Israeli air defences on Monday, and this is the most ominous takeaway from the raid. Some were targeted on the main air bases, most notably the Nevatim base outside Beersheba in the Negev desert, home to the F-35 stealth fighter force. So far, the Israeli forces haven’t published their battle damage assessments of the strikes.
Amongst other targets was a group of tanks guarding the Netzarim corridor, which bisects occupied Gaza just south of Gaza City. The message from the attack by some 182 missiles is clear — more mass attacks by missiles are likely to hit even more targets.
Israel now has to manage fighting and confrontation on the Lebanon border, in the guerrilla war with the rump of the Hamas fighting force in Gaza, in the West Bank — an increasingly bloody and unpredictable occupation — with the Houthis of Yemen, posing an increasing threat with long range missiles launched directly at central Israel. This week saw a serious terrorist attack in Jaffa, in which seven people died just minutes before the Iranian missile strike.
The Israeli air force is likely to aim at major missile launch sites
Now Iran and Israel are engaged in an aerial campaign of tit for tat. In April Israel struck back with a precise air strike against radar and air defence facilities round Isfahan, one of the main centres of Iran’s nuclear programme. Though President Biden has warned that Iran’s nuclear sites should be off the target list for Israel’s response to the Monday missile bombardment, he knows that Israel is bound to aim at targets of major military significance. The Israeli air force is likely to aim at major missile launch sites. It is also feared that they could target sensitive commercial areas — like the oil terminal at Bandar Abbas on the Gulf.
This is likely to provoke reaction from Iran’s two principal odd-couple allies, Russia and China — the major client for Iran’s oil, and usually at heavily discounted prices. Russia and Iran are linked through the vigorous trade in weaponry — particularly drones like the Iranian Shahed 136, and rockets like the Fath 360, on which it is becoming increasingly reliant in Ukraine. Russia is also the integral partner in Iran’s space and satellite programmes. Both are looking at the weaponisation of space, with offensive satellites. Russia is believed to want to cancel the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons in space, and has threatened to deploy a nuclear weapon in space orbit.
A bigger threat, perhaps, is to the navigation systems like GPS — to which both Moscow and Beijing have said that they want to build a rival system. These systems are key to missile guidance — and they are now becoming target areas.
Meanwhile Israel has to manage its three-front war in and around its own territory. This means it has to organise and sustain three very different occupation campaigns — in Gaza, the fractious West Bank, and now Lebanon, where even minimal occupation of a southern buffer zone will be hotly contested by Hezbollah.
The picture will change dramatically if Israel’s air forces hit a nuclear or vital military base in the promised counter strike for Monday’s attacks. All bets for a peaceful solution to the present cluster of Middle East crisis would be off.
