Israel’s promise to respond to Iran’s missile attack has diplomats looking for every possible way to avoid a full-scale regional war.
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AFP spoke to five experts about Iran’s calculations, Israel’s options and fears of escalation.
Why did Iran order a missile attack?
It is considered that The Islamic Republic has suffered a series of humiliations from Israel in the last year that have derailed its strategy of building allies in the Middle East.
An Iran-backed alliance known as the “resistance axis” includes the Palestinian group Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other armed Shiite groups in Iraq and Syria.
Israel has been carrying out an offensive in Gaza since October last year, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack. The group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran in July.
In Lebanon, exploding beepers and airstrikes have seriously weakened Hezbollah, whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last week in an Israeli missile attack in Beirut, along with an Iranian general.
Following an Israeli attack on Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus in April, Tehran responded for the first time firing 300 missiles and drones against the Jewish State, which were almost entirely intercepted.
All air defense systems have a saturation point, and Iran appears to have deliberately stayed below the saturation point of Israeli air defense.
Tuesday’s attack included another 200 missiles, also with little military impact. They were largely “symbolic” shots, notes American military intelligence specialist K. Campbell, with a long history of work on Iran.
“All air defense systems have a saturation point, and Iran appears to have deliberately stayed below the saturation point of Israeli air defense,” Campbell told AFP.
“I don’t think Iran wants a major regional war,” said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
How might Israel react?
James Demmin-De Lise, a political analyst and author of a book on Israel and anti-Semitism, believes Israel will try to press its advantage.
“Iran is now totally weakened, as its allies have been decimated,” said the analyst, who predicts a “pretty dramatic power shift” and says Israel is probably eyeing regime change in Tehran.
A senior European diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were real fears of an “extension of the conflict.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s team “is a little euphoric, thinking ‘we have Nasrallah, we are going to change the Middle East'”said the source.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday advocated a more focused military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But Israel is already fighting on two fronts: Gaza, where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, and southern Lebanon, where troops launched a ground operation against Hezbollah on Monday.
Would he risk provoking a third war?
“Israel has had many successes in the last two weeks, which I would not want to jeopardize,” said Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He maintains that Israel would have to choose between “two instincts: secure a victory or double down on a strategy that has been working.”
What exits are there?
The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday on the Middle East, but the international body is seen as ineffective and divided.
Although the only foreign country with the potential to influence Israel is the United States, President Joe Biden’s government has proven to have limited influence.
The day after Nasrallah’s assassination, Biden reiterated US support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and any other Iranian-backed terrorist group.”
President Biden will most likely step in to negotiate, but I doubt he will have much influence.
But he has been unsuccessful in pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza or in his stance against an Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon.
“President Biden will most likely step in to negotiate, but I doubt he will have much influence,” said Israeli political analyst Jordan Barkin.
The United States also does not have direct relations with Iran, so any diplomatic move to defuse tensions would require the participation of Europe or the Middle East.
“Everything will depend on the Israeli reaction and the advice and efforts of the American government, which at this moment has no interest in getting involved in a regional war,” said Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab World and Mediterranean (CERMAM), based in Geneva.
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