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October 28, 2024 - 7:00am
Over the past year, the current war in the Middle East has been marked by something akin to what ecologists term “shifting baseline syndrome”: while a full-scale regional conflagration has mercifully been avoided, each escalation has entered dangerous new territory. Dramatic events like the trading of direct blows between Iran and Israel, once thought almost unthinkable, are becoming routine. At the same time, each individual strike is carefully calibrated to sidestep the abyss.
Israel’s delayed retaliatory strike on Iran this weekend fits this pattern perfectly. Just as Iran’s missile barrage on Israel limited itself to a handful of precise military targets, so did Israel’s response. It was a significantly more moderate response than Israel’s previously bellicose rhetoric had suggested. Israel’s strikes seem to have focused on Iranian ballistic missile and drone production facilities. As RUSI’s Director of Military Sciences Matthew Savile observed on X, “the strikes look designed to emphasise Israeli conventional superiority and warn Iran of future vulnerability if it tries to retaliate, but they have avoided anything that looks sensitive: no indications of nuclear or senior regime targets hit, nor energy/oil targets.”
Early fears of an oil price spike should Israel hit Iranian oil facilities have now dissipated, no doubt to the Harris campaign’s relief in the US. Indeed, as the Economist’s Anshel Pfeffer notes, a “Major knock-on effect of Israeli strikes on Iran is that Iran won’t be able to supply Russia with new ballistic missiles for many months until it rebuilds its manufacturing capabilities”. This turns a potential headache for the US into an unexpected boon when it comes to the parallel Ukraine conflict, where Iranian missile and drone technology has acted as a major Russian force enhancer.
Following the strikes, the IDF’s spokesman took pains to announce that Israel had “conducted targeted and precise strikes on military targets” and that he could now confirm the Israeli response had concluded that we have concluded the Israeli response to Iran’s attacks against Israel”. Israeli government’s limited response and immediate, tension-defusing messaging aims to show that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is happy to draw a line under the matter — as long as Iran is also willing.
And so far, it seems Iran is more than willing to downplay the strikes, claiming only “slight damage” to military and military-industrial infrastructure. The apparent deaths of at least four Iranian military personnel may create pressure on Iran’s leadership from younger domestic dissenters within the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to respond forcefully.
Despite this, Iran has apparently passed messages to Israel that it has no intention of responding: for now, both regional rivals seem content to flex their potential strength rather than fully deploy it. For once, Netanyahu has erred on the side of caution: when it comes to Iran, if not Lebanon or Gaza, America’s ability to exert a restraining hand on Israel may not be entirely dead.
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SubscribeContext is missing. Firstly, there will be a new US President elected in a few days. Secondly, the Hamas pogrom was probably an attempt to prevent a peace deal between the Israeli and Saudi governments and there is a wider Middle Eastern conflict between Sunni monarchies and Shia republics.
The regime in Tehran may have been told that next time Israel will go for the jugular with regime change the aim. Russia may once again be open to doing a deal over Ukraine with a new US President, which would then concentrate the focus on the Middle East.
If accurate, this seems like positive news.
when it comes to Iran, if not Lebanon or Gaza, America’s ability to exert a restraining hand on Israel may not be entirely dead.
I have little real knowledge of what’s going on between Israel and the US, but I suspect Israel is carrying out its actions exactly as they choose to, not by others who have played their cheap, shallow political games in their own self interests, not for their country but for electoral purposes. Under normal circumstances this would be regarded as betrayal. Still at least Israel understands who her friends are.
Yes. If US and Israeli interests aligned on this issue, at this moment, the Israelis would be foolish to change tack. The Israelis are not foolish.
What will restrain Iran more than anything else is that in the second wave of last Saturday’s attacks, Israel took out the main antiaircraft systems protecting the heartland of Iran (including the three protecting Tehran). The Islamic Republic regime knows that if it attacks Israel again, it stands completely naked and unprotected against the Israeli Air Force. I’m sure that this is what concentrates the minds of the Mollahs first and foremost.
Regarding shifting baselines, what October 7 did more than anything else is to remind Israel that when its neighbors, close and far, say that they want to destroy it, they actually mean it. That is what has concentrated the minds of the Israelis over the last year. All you are seeing in Gaza, in Lebanon and now in Iran, is just a consequence of this shift in mindset.
Something else that has happened over the last year is that while the fiasco of October 7 has sowed doubt, both in the US and in Israel itself, about the Israeli defense apparatus’ capabilities, subsequent events, more particularly in the last half year, have restored confidence that they actually know what they are doing. This is why the calls for restraint, which have proved to have hampered Israel’s war against Hamas (“You can’t go into Rafah! I have studied the maps!” – Kamala Harris, March 2024) have grown feebler lately. In the case of the latest attack on Iran, it is likely that its scale was decided by Israel as being the most appropriate regardless of any pressure by the administration.
Can anyone say anything more stupid than “I have studied the maps”?
“The map is not the territory.”
-Alfred Korzybski
( No doubt someone whom Ms. Harris has never heard of. )
Netanyahu has been the restrained tactician and strategist the entire war. Iran is the one calling, directly and through its puppets, Hamas and Hezbollah, for genocide and extermination. Iran needs to consider that if the American election sees rational leadership return to the Whitehouse that Iran’s war on the west may finally be returned in kind.
The difference is that Gaza and Lebanon have no military to defend them. Israel can send wave after wave of bombers to destroy buildings and kill civilians. It can bully with impunity.
Iran, on the other hand, can fight back.
You forgot to add “innocent” civilians. It would sound more impressive.
In general, I must note that your whining is usually characteristic of very stupid women, for whom the weaker is always innocent. Alas, this is not so. The weakest can be an outright scoundrel precisely because of the inferiority complex of the weak. The weakest are most often spiteful and worthless creatures.
I won’t say innocent civilians, but I will say defenseless. Israel is using some of the most advanced weapons in the world to destroy Gaza, which cannot defend itself.
Let’s do a thought experiment. I am male, 6 feet tall, 170 pounds. My wife is female, 5 feet 2 inches tall, 100 pounds (or maybe a little more, but don’t tell her I said that). Let’s say we got into a heated argument and she slapped me across the face, hard. Does that give me the right to beat the s— out of her?
So murder with disgusting cruelty 1,200 people, most of whom were far-leftists and wanted peace with the Palestinians, is the same as if your wife slapped you across the face?
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Let me remind you that immediately after this, one of the Hamas leaders said: “We will repeat October 7 again, again and again.” It was not a joke, it was real intention.
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Let me end here simply because it is you and those like you who, considering yourselves “humanists”, are doing everything to ensure that this conflict continues indefinitely. This is not antisemitism, it is much worse, it is endless stupidity.
Its impossible to argue with your logic.
These metaphors are always problematic. But if you want to go that way, I’d say that a slap across the face is more similar to the volleys of rockets that Hamas and PIJ periodically sent across Israel, to which Israel responded with moderation. October 7 would be more like your wife cutting off your nose, and then saying that she will keep cutting off your appendages until you bleed to death. As to holding the hostages – I’ll let you work out the metaphor for yourself.
I suspect that in that case you would exert all the force necessary to subdue her.
It does if she is swinging a knife at your throat and vowing to exterminate you. And a group that “cannot defend itself” should not initiate a war against a country that can.
They may not have ‘formal’ military, but they seem to have no shortage of well-armed terror groups.
“For once, Netanyahu has erred on the side of caution: when it comes to Iran, if not Lebanon or Gaza”.
Utter nonsense.
For once?
The defanging of Hamas was one of the most carefully-conducted military operations in recorded history.
The toll of this war on the civilian population of Gaza has been horrific. Israel has forced the entire population from their homes, herding them from the north to the south and then attacking the south. It has destroyed over 60% of its buildings, over 90% of its hospitals, and almost all of its infrastructure, like electricity and sanitation.
In some places in Gaza there is one toilet per thousands of people. Everyone is malnourished. Babies are dying because their mothers can’t provide milk and there is no formula to feed them.
Israel has used its powerful modern military to kill mostly civilians, tens of thousands of them. The casualty figures are hard to verify, but you don’t need exact numbers to know that Israel has committed war crimes.
Does that excuse the horrific terrorism carried out by Hamas on October 7 last year? Of course not. But a civilized country would respond appropriately. Israel has ceased to be a civilized country.
That’s you ceased to be a civilized man. Hypocrisy in its best!
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For years, the UN has rewarded Hamas and the people of Gaza for terror. For years, the UN has pumped Gaza with money and material aid, knowing full well that all these funds will end up in the hands of Hamas and will be spent on raising jihadists.
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The Spanish Prime Minister is screaming like a pig that the Israelis are attacking “peacekeepers” in Lebanon, knowing full well that their main source of income is money from Hezbollah, which buys silence of “peacekeepers”
Didn’t most of the UN money go to build houses, universities, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure (for electricity, water and sewage) and to buy food, clothing and the other necessities of life? It’s not like Gaza is a hotbed of Islamic jihadism like ISIS that wants to build an Islamic caliphate and impose sharia law.
UPDATE: And now I see that Israel has banned the United Nation’s relief agency, ignoring the protests from Israel’s European allies, Canada, Australia and Japan. Even the US says it will reduce arms shipments if aid to Gaza does not increase. Instead, Israel cuts it off. Civilized?
You are talking about one of the most corrupt international organizations and consider yourself as a smart man? Good luck!
The casualty figures are hard to verify, but you don’t need exact numbers to know that Israel has committed war crimes.
Hard to take your comment seriously after this.
Is it?
You’re confident that Israel has committed no war crimes?
War crimes? Give me the definition first.
Crimes are defined in law. My opinion of what they are or should be is neither here nor there. Neither is yours.
You suggested that Carlos cannot be taken seriously because he suggests that war crimes have been committed.
The implication of your statement is not only that no crimes have been committed but that this is so obviously the case that anyone who entertains the notion is “unserious”.
Restricting aid supplies to civilians would be a war crime.
Shutting off the necessities of life (water power etc) would be a war crime.
Bombing hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure would be a war crime
Shooting children would be a war crime.
Targetting journalists would be a war crime.
There is evidence that all of these things have occurred. Now, you may say that, in fact, each was justified or accidental (or fake). But that would be a matter for investigation. The fact is that at a bare minimum, there is prima facie evidence of all of these war crimes occurring many times.
Unfortunately, there is no civilized response to the barbaric actions of Hamas on October 7th.
No, the civilian;hamas ratio of deaths is approximately 1:1 – no other urban war has achieved anywhere near this. also re aid: we were all told that the Gazans were facing starvation because of Israel’s ‘cruel policies’ back in March. It is almost November…….
According to…
The last records of fatalities published by the Health ministry suggested that almost half the 40,000 recorded dead were children. I hope we can agree that they aren’t combatants. SInce that proportion is roughly the same as the proportion of Gaza’s total residents that are children, then that one statistic alone suggests that the killing has been indiscriminate.
If you want to make that statistic consistent with the 1:1 ratio, then you need to assume that the IDF has been dropping 2,000lb bombs all over the strip, levelling or damaging a majority of all the buildings there without harming a single adult civilian. But somehow killing as many kids as combatants.
If you believe that, then I have an aid pier to sell you.
That was months ago, the figures have barely been updated since. Because the health ministry is no longer functional. A territory with a population of 2m with no intact hospitals, an embargo on medicine and a health ministry so eviscerated that it can no longer count the dead.
These do not seem to me like circumstances that would lead me to expect a low rate of civilian casualties.
Other estimates are available. But the only one I’m aware of which supports the 1:1 ratio of Hamas combatants:civilians is from the IDF.
Which is a participant with a vested interest. Just like the “Hamas-controlled” health ministry in Gaza.
Hezbollah and Hamas embeds itself in communities. The Iranian army doesn’t.
Israel takes the line that the West needs/prompts it to tow. To say that Israel does something is to exonerate the real instigators of what’s happening. It is as meaningful as considering the Mafia operatives as active agents independent of their bosses.
Or maybe Israel just wants to survive? Have you thought about that?
The article is spot on, though I am doubtful of the US exerting a restraining influence. Rather, as the article states, it is Israel that conceived the “strikes look designed to emphasise Israeli conventional superiority and warn Iran of future vulnerability if it tries to retaliate, but they have avoided anything that looks sensitive: no indications of nuclear or senior regime targets hit, nor energy/oil targets”.
Israel could destroy Iran in a heartbeat, and both sides know it. This is t*t-for-tat and Israel simply demonstrating they can enter Iran’s airspace at will.