After more than three weeks of suspense, Israel finally revealed its game. On October 26, at dawn, the IDF struck the Iranian army on its own territory using “precision missiles” according to Tel Aviv . The targets: military bases, missile production sites and anti-aircraft defense systems. Explosions were heard near Tehran but also in Isfahan further south and in Mashhad in the north, even if no assessment of the destruction has yet been established. “This time, it is a large, strong and significant attack across the entire Iranian territory, carried out by hundreds of fighter planes and in several waves,” reacts Israeli analyst Danny Citrinowicz on the Atlantic Council website.
This Israeli attack is intended to be a response to the Iranian offensive of October 1, during which Tehran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. “Iran will pay the price for its error,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately promised, before playing for time. Three options were on the table: strikes on nuclear sites, strikes on oil sites and strikes on military sites. Israel chose the latter path, the least likely to result in all-out war in the region.
“Simply hitting military targets is also the option favored by the United States and other Western allies, but if nothing important is hit then nothing will change in Iran,” a diplomatic source warned Israeli. Attacking Iranian nuclear sites risked plunging the Middle East into a destructive war, with no guarantee that Tehran’s nuclear program would be stopped. Destruction of oil sites could lead to a global economic crisis, a very bad omen ten days before the American presidential election. International pressure got the better of the Tel Aviv hawks. For now.
Iran warned of attack?
According to initial reports in Iran, the damage is under control. The Iranian media quickly downplayed the scale of the attack, emphasizing the intercepted missiles and the calm reigning in Tehran. These reactions leave room for maneuver for the Iranian regime, which could choose to declare victory and therefore not retaliate against Israel. According to the American media Axios, always well informed about the corridors of Israeli power, the leaders of the Jewish state had also informed the Iranians on Friday that the attack was going to occur and that they should not respond. Regional escalation would then be on pause.
The importance of this Israeli attack should nevertheless not be underestimated: it is the first time since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s that the Iranian state has been attacked by a foreign power on its soil. The security doctrine of the Islamic Republic consists precisely of waging wars against its enemies outside its borders, via its militia networks, without endangering the Iranian population. Like a pact between this authoritarian regime and its inhabitants: despite the dictatorship, you still have security. But this morning of October 26, it was well above the major cities of Iran that the anti-aircraft defense systems were operating at full capacity.
Beyond the symbolic aspect, these Israeli strikes also weakened Iran’s defense systems, now more exposed to massive damage in the event of a military response and regional escalation. “For the first time, Israel admits to having carried out air attacks against Iran and, even if this offensive is calibrated, a new era is opening in relations between Israel and Iran, estimates Danny Citrinowicz. The ‘barrier of Israeli fear of attacking inside Iran no longer exists The power and lethality of the Iranian response will show us whether Tehran’s ‘fear barrier’ of all-out war with Israel still exists. .” As is often the case in the region, the next few hours will be decisive.