Iran’s Retaliation Against Israel Marked a New Dawn in Middle East Geopolitics

Washington D.C – There has been a flurry of analysis debating the merits and rationale of Iran’s April 14 decision to unprecedentedly hit back with a parade of missiles and drones directly attacking Israeli territory. The common denominator of these analyzes is that this attack was nothing more than a pre-arranged “play” and that Iran was not serious about entering into an all-out confrontation with Israel.

In order to assess the validity of this prevailing interpretation, it is important that we place this unprecedented Iranian response in its historical and geostrategic contexts. And doing so requires raising a few questions whose answers would eventually help resolve the central issue at hand: whether Iran’s military operation did not achieve any strategic or tactical goal.

Is it in Iran’s interest at this historical juncture to launch a direct war against Israel? Or did the Islamic Republic merely wish to launch a tactical attack with the aim of deterring Israel and sending it a clear message that it would not hesitate to escalate the intensity of its military operations in the event of any further Israeli attack on Iranian territory or Iranian interests in the region? And, ultimately, is it really in America’s interest at this point to see the conflict expand and eventually become a large-scale regional war?

In addressing these issues, it is important to understand that Iran will not seek an all-out war with Israel as long as it does not have nuclear weapons. This is not because Iran cannot defeat Israel, but rather because Tehran knows full well that should Israel at this point lose a conventional war against its arch-enemy, Iran, it will certainly use a so-called tactical nuclear strike as a last resort to restore the deterrence it has dramatically lost in recent months.

In its humiliating failure to defeat Hamas, Israel’s once-feared and “invincible army” has indiscriminately targeted unarmed civilians – including women and children – in Gaza, wreaking untold havoc in the Palestinian enclave since October 7. Desperate to save face, Israel refuses to admit that despite the right-wing Israeli government’s initial promise that the IDF would crush Hamas’s resistance in a matter of months – even weeks in some wildly optimistic or condescending estimates – its brutal Gaza campaign has produced no meaningful tactical or military victory in six months.

As it watches a desperate IDF operate immorally and recklessly in Gaza, Iran knows that entering into direct confrontation at this point would open its population to the horrifying possibility of a nuclear attack. Therefore, from an Iranian strategic point of view, the best way to deal with the April 1 Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria was to carry out a limited retaliation against military targets while emphasizing keenness to avoid further military escalation.

Why the US does not want war with Iran

Contrary to popular belief, America cannot afford a direct military confrontation with Iran at this point. This is partly because an all-out military escalation in the Middle East does not serve American interests, especially since America is currently engaged in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and is still strategically overwhelmingly focused on containing China’s assertiveness in Southeast Asia.

In other words, Washington has no interest or intention of widening the scope of the Middle East conflict in a way that might force it to increase its military presence in the region at the expense of its two most important strategic goals at the moment: keeping an increasingly assertive Russia militarily on its toes by prolonging the war in Ukraine and containing China’s hegemonic ambitions in Southeast Asia. That is why, since the Iranian retaliation against Israel on April 13, U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed that America does not want an escalation and will not support Israel in any strike against Iran.

Signs of this strategy of forced American restraint in the face of formidable competition from China and Russia first emerged in the second term of former President Barack Obama. The so-called American military and diplomatic “pivot” towards Asia was based on a strategic assessment that China took advantage of the United States’ entanglement in laborious and draining, in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While America labored for over two decades to get some meaningful results from what turned out to be miscalculated and pointless (albeit unspeakably devastating) wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, China worked tirelessly on expanding its military capabilities and accelerating its economic growth in order to eventually become a peer competitor to the US and shatter America’s long-running hegemony in the South China Sea.

Having achieved these goals while a rudderless and savior-complex-ridden U.S. was preoccupied with regime change in faraway lands, China has built up the strategic or geopolitical confidence to defy (or stand up to) the U.S. and the military might to deter the American military-industrial complex from trying anything reckless in the South China Sea. For example, Beijing no longer hesitates to express its dissatisfaction with U.S. support for Taiwan, which China considers an integral part of its territory.

For much of the past several decades, many observers have viewed the Taiwan issue as the yardstick by which the United States measures the depth of its influence in the Southeast Asian region and the card it uses to contain China’s assertiveness and limit its geostrategic ambitions in the region. However, there is a growing fear among the American political and military elite that the question of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan has become a matter of when rather than if.

Admiral Philip Davidson, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, assessed during his March 2021 testimony before Congress that the balance of military power in the region has shifted in China’s favor. If the current, prevailing trend continues, he warned, it is only a matter of time before the U.S. loses the required balance of diplomatic influence and military power to successfully or adequately deter Beijing in the South China Sea. .

Perhaps this gloomy assessment of America’s waning preeminence in this crucial region is what has prompted the Biden administration to increase U.S. military presence in the Philippines and raise the level of preparedness of America’s other military bases in Japan, Australia, and Guam to counter a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.

And so, with China’s growing defiance constantly putting Washington on high alert about the changing status quo in the Indo-Pacific, there is no appetite among U.S. military planners to drag America into another long and costly Middle East war. In this sense, perhaps the August 2021 sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan marked the beginning of a new era in American strategic calculations.

The operating principle here, albeit unspoken, is to let Israel and other regional American allies know that Washington will go at great lengths to avoid being dragged back into the Middle East’s geopolitical cauldron unless a direct intervention – as was the case in early February when the US hit Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria – is necessary to protect American troops still stationed in some parts of the region.

US public opinion turns against Israel

On the other hand, the American administration is aware that the current context in which the exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran occurred does not provide the appropriate ground to mobilize popular support if it ever decides to enter alongside Israel in a potential confrontation with Iran.

Among ordinary Americans, meanwhile, the prevailing sentiment is to avoid using taxpayer money to fund another costly war that will not visibly benefit Americans. Still reeling from the revelations that the U.S. military and political elite spent trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan only to fail at nation-building and democratization in those countries, while leaving behind horrific devastation and thousands of lost American lives, the American public does not seem remotely interested in another misguided military adventure in the Middle East.

Most importantly, there is an unprecedented shift in American public opinion as the vast majority of Americans has begun to express their outrage at Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people. According to a Gallup opinion poll conducted in March, 55 percent of Americans reject Israel’s justification of its war on Gaza and condemn the IDF’s war crimes in Palestinian territories. This is a fundamental shift in the American street’s view of Israel’s devastating war against civilians in the Gaza Strip. For comparison, a Gallup poll in November 2023 found that 50 percent of Americans supported Israel’s “self-defense” war on Gaza, while 45 percent expressed their rejection of the war.

In the same context, another recent poll by Quinnipiac University showed that 52 percent of Americans reject the US administration’s continued provision of military support to Israel. According to yet another poll, conducted by Pew Research this month, Israel’s overall favorability and acceptance ratings have fallen dramatically in the U.S., especially among Americans under the age of 30. According to this survey, one-third of Americans in this age group expressed their absolute solidarity with the Palestinians, while only 14 percent expressed support for Israel.

Also, 60 percent of Americans in this age group said they view the Palestinians favorably, while only 46 percent said the same of Israel. Hence, in the unlikely scenario that the American administration decides to go to war against Iran in support of Israel, it would be met with strong opposition from the American street, with unprecedented demonstrations taking place in various American cities.

In addition, it is highly unlikely that President Biden will plunge his country into another devastating war, considering that the presidential elections are just around the corner and he is trying to win a second term and improve his approval ratings, which have remained low throughout his presidency.

No wonder, then, that Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus prompted the U.S. administration to reach out to the Iranian leadership through a number of regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq. Rather than warning Tehran against any attempt at retaliation, Washington’s deterrence efforts focused on urging the Iranian leadership to exercise restraint in its retaliation and to refrain from taking any action that could lead to a full-scale conflict.

In other words, recognizing tacitly that Iran had the right to respond to Israel’s provocative attack on its consulate in Damascus, the U.S. government sought only to prevent the war from spiraling out of control by persuading Tehran to avoid escalation. Therefore, spectacular as it may have appeared, Teharan’s April 13 retaliation was a highly coordinated and calibrated response aimed at avoiding escalation while conveying to Israel that Iran now has the resolve and capabilities to strike back directly on Israeli territory whenever Israel targets its interests.

In addition, Iran was careful to strike back at Israel while remaining within the confines of international law, particularly Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which guarantees member states self-defense in the event of armed attack. Indeed, what distinguishes Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria from past attacks against top-Iranian officials or highly sensitive Iranian interests abroad is that the consulate is considered part of Iranian territory.

For this reason, Iran could not remain passive or silent in the face of such a provocative attack on one of the symbols of its sovereignty. Nevertheless, Tehran made sure to communicate to the UN Security Council its rationale for “limited” and “legitimate” retaliation to Israel’s attack on its consulate. The goal of such a move, of course, was to deny Western countries the opportunity to use Tehran’s retaliation as yet another pretext to accuse it of violating international law and then use the Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Iran’s military operations in the Middle East.

And while Iran succeeded on this front, one could argue that even if the three Western permanent members of the Security Council had tried to misrepresent Iran’s retaliation and seek swift condemnation from the Council, they would certainly have been opposed by China and Russia, who now see themselves as the voices of the Global South in the ongoing struggle to shatter Western global dominance.

A tactical military strike achieves a significant strategic goals

The fact that the Iranian military strike was limited, did not cause any human or material losses, and did ultimately not significantly damage any strategic Israeli targets has led some to underestimate its value and significance. But, again, this was only possible because Iran simply targeted the military facilities that Israel had used to carry out its attacks on the Iranian consulate in Syria. It is therefore counterintuitive to measure the degree of success of Iran’s strike by the material or human losses it caused.

In fact, Iran’s goal was not to target civilian facilities or residential communities, but rather to send a message that it is capable of striking deep into Israel and reaching its military facilities if Israel goes too far in provoking it or carrying out an attack on Iranian territory. If the amount of human or material losses were the measure that should be relied upon to determine whether a country has achieved the military and strategic goals it seeks through a military operation, it would be possible to say that Israel has achieved a clear military victory by massacring more than 34,000 civilians and wounding more than 80,000 Palestinians.

Yet reality tells us otherwise. Israel has not achieved any of the military goals it set at the beginning of the war (the release of prisoners and the elimination of the Hamas movement). Rather, it is in the midst of an unprecedented strategic and psychological defeat that has exposed its weaknesses and the limits of its army.

If Iran had intended to wage a wider war against Israel, its attack would not have been limited to a few military targets, nor would it have been limited in scope and time. In this scenario, it would have launched large-scale military strikes against Israel’s most strategic military, economic and civilian installations. However, the main objective of Iran was to launch a purely tactical strike.

In this sense, it can be said that through this strike, Iran has achieved strategic goals that cannot be underestimated. Tehran effectively sent a clear message to Tel Aviv: Iranian patience has run out and the rules of engagement have changed, and therefore, any Israeli attack on Iran will be met with an attack on Israeli territory.

The strike also allowed Iran to lay new foundations for the existing mutual deterrence equation between Israel and Iran, which is based on Iran’s ability to strike the Israeli depths whenever it wants. This change in the rules of engagement between Iran and Israel is a new setback for the latter, especially since it comes in the midst of the genocidal war waged by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people and its abject failure to eliminate the Hamas movement.

If Hamas’s October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent inability to achieve a decisive military victory in Gaza has demolished the long-running myth of Israeli invincibility, the Iranian attack on Israel proved once again that without the unstinting military and logistical support it receives from the US, UK, Germany and France, Israel wouldn’t be able to defend itself in a full-scale war against a better equipped, armed and larger country like Iran. The fact that Israel’s western allies had to intercept more than half of Iran’s ballistic missiles and drones before they reached Israeli airspace provided an invaluable glimpse into Israel’s inability to defend itself in the event of a major conflagration against Iran.

From a purely geostrategic perspective, it can be argued that this limited Iranian military operation secured a significant strategic victory. In the past, Israel was accustomed to taking the initiative in the wars it waged against Arab countries, and had the upper hand in those wars by conducting lightning strikes that enabled it to achieve sweeping military victories, allowing it to expand its control over all Palestinian and other Arab lands. The June 1967 war is the best evidence of the lightning and sweeping victories that Israel once achieved over Arab countries.

But the equation changed from October 7 to April 17, because Israel no longer has the initiative to determine the place and time of its military actions. In fact, it has lost the initiative. Its territory has become the theater of war. This is a significant paradigm shift that does not serve Israel’s interests and exposes its dependence on its Western patrons for military superiority. Iran’s attack is also a significant setback for Israel and its American backers, who over the past 50 years have sought to strengthen Israel’s military edge over its neighbors and ensure that no other country in the region can challenge the status quo.

More importantly, Iran has succeeded in achieving a second strategic goal: forcing Israel and its patrons to reveal the technology and locations of their defensive systems. Given that war of attrition is at the core of Iran’s military doctrine – unlike Israel, which prefers lightning strikes – it could be argued that by using weapons known to its adversaries – and by no means its most advanced and lethal weapons – Iran was able to force Israel to reveal its most important defensive cards, such as the Iron Dome and other defensive systems it relies on to protect its territory. Moreover, despite the fact that Israel, the United States of America, Great Britain and France knew in advance of Iran’s intention to take military action against Israel, the ballistic missiles that Iran used against Israeli military bases hit their targets.

Beyond the conflicting information about the losses these missiles may have inflicted on Israeli military installations, the fact remains that the Iranian attack demonstrated the limitations of Israeli defense systems in protecting its territory from Iranian attacks. In addition, the Iranian attack may have achieved a collateral but important psychological victory on the Israeli side. For the first time in decades, alarmed Israelis sat in their bomb shelters as they desperately witnessed with their own eyes a massive show of force by a sovereign Middle Eastern country with the military capability to strike Israeli territory at will.

Washington has run short of options to deter Iran

The firmness Iran showcased in its retaliation spoke to the failure of the US policy of economic sanctions, especially after 2019, when the Trump administration repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement and adopted the so-called “maximum pressure” policy aimed at weakening Ira through economic exhaustion and coercion.

The US administration is running out of effective options to “punish” Iran for its military attack on Israel, having exhausted all means of twisting Iran’s arm and having tried all means of economic and diplomatic pressure. Expanding sanctions on Chinese companies and banks that facilitate the purchase of Iranian oil is currently the only option available to the US administration. However, according to experts, this option could create two major problems for the American administration.

First, choosing to impose sanctions on these Chinese companies and banks will put the US on a collision course with China. Beijing will certainly see in such an American move an opportunity to once again convey to the US and the entire international community that China is now a great power that will not capitulate to American terms and diktats.

Second, such a decision would result in the removal of more than 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from world markets. This would lead to a significant increase in oil prices and, consequently, higher prices and inflation in the United States and the rest of the world. The Biden administration cannot afford such a development, especially as President Biden is seven months away from the presidential elections and is well aware that any deterioration in the purchasing power of American citizens could cause him to lose a second presidential term.

Last but not least, this shift in the rules of engagement between Iran and Israel is a major geostrategic setback for the US. It undermines one of the foundations of the military and security alliance Washington has built with the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This alliance was built on the basis of America providing military and security protection to these countries in exchange for their support of the US agenda and strategic goals in the region.

These countries’ normalization of relations with Israel was at the core of the previous American administration’s policy of building a military-security alliance around Israel. Since President Biden came to power, he has placed the issue of normalizing Saudi Arabia with Israel at the center of his foreign policy in the Middle East.

To achieve this goal, he has assured Riyadh of his country’s continued commitment to providing Saudi Arabia with military and security protection. Notably, the U.S. administration has signaled its readiness to sign a military alliance with Saudi Arabia similar to those it has with Japan and South Korea. Under this agreement, the two countries would pledge to support each other militarily if they were attacked militarily in the Middle East or on Saudi territory. In a sense, the United States has sought to guarantee to the Saudis that it would not hesitate to come to the defense of its Gulf ally in the event of an Iranian attack.

However, in the face of Iran’s growing assertiveness and America’s reluctance to engage in a direct war against Iran on Israel’s side, those Arab countries that have long counted on American protection against Iranian threats may now be rethinking their long-held strategic certainties and questioning the viability of their policy of relying on American military protection. Indeed, as they watched the U.S. back away from direct confrontation with Iran, these Arab countries may have thought: How can we really count on the U.S. promise to protect us militarily in the event of an Iranian attack when it has just fumbled and failed to do the same for Israel, its strongest ally in the region?

Samir Bennis is the co-founder and publisher of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.