Israel’s attack on Iran: What next?

Israeli airstrikes hit Iranian targets while sparing nuclear and oil facilities.

Israel has launched a retaliatory attack on Iran on the night 25/26th October.

According to Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the attacks on Iran have been launched in retaliation to the continued Iranian actions against the state of Israel.

The attacks as per the spokesperson’s matter of fact tone, were precise and directed against the military targets.

The damage assessment statements are yet awaited, but what appears on the face value, is an Israeli response against the military targets.

What appears plausible is the limited success of the US administration to dissuade the Israel from targeting the nuclear and oil installations of Israel which could have had a devastating impact on regional and global economy besides removing the last vestiges of restraint on Iran to attain nuclear capability.

The Israeli attacks may be coming in waves and may be followed by more attacks few days later in isolation or accompanied by cyber attacks.

The Western analysts and observers are ascribing Israel’s putative restraint to its amenability to US advice of keeping the war limited to the military targets.

The objective was not to provoke Iran to cross the nuclear Rubicon later and also not to confront the world with an enervating energy crisis.

This is the first time that Israel has launched large scale military attacks against Iran.

The Israeli attacks are a realisation of a long-held ambition of Netanyahu, to attack Iran which had attained an urgency, due to Netanyahu’s unpopularity in the wake of Gaza War.

Israel had provoked Iran through attack on its embassy in Damascus in April and then by assassinating Hamas leader Ismael Haniya in Tehran in July. 2024.

Confronted with Iranian proxies in the region like Hamas and Palestinian Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, Fatimeyoun Brigade & Zainabiyoun Division in Syria, Kataib Hizbollah, Asaib Ahl ul Haq, Harkat Hizbollah al Nujaba and Kataib Sayyad ul Shuhada, in Iraq the Israeli state feels threatened by Iranian strategy of bleeding Israel by thousand cuts, retaining an element of plausible deniability.

The Israeli attack is an attempt to re-establish dissuasive deterrence that appeared to have received a reputational dent in the October 1 attack by Iran against Israel.

The political aim of the Israeli attacks is to reassure its population about Israel’s ability to retaliate in response to Iranian attacks and to shore up the sagging popularity of PM Netanyahu, while the military aim is to inflict the maximum damage on Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian military installations, especially the missile battery sites.

It is the first time that Israel has taken on the complete Iranian led Axis of Resistance simultaneusly by confronting Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and Iranian proxies in Syria.

Iran and its proxies are engaged in an “Asymmetric War” against Israel relying on unconventional warfare. In Asymmetric Warfare the belligerent with unconventional approach wins most of the confrontations.

According to the famous “Theory of Strategic Interaction” by Ivan Arreguin Toft, the confrontation between the strong and the weak actors, regardless of the weapons and technology, will yield a victory for the weak if the weak employs the dissimilar strategic approach and a victory for the strong, when the weak employs the same strategic approach as the strong.

Now the strategic approach of the weak is generally indirect whereas the approach of the strong protagonist in a conflict equation is generally direct.

The analysis of 200 years of human conflict by Ivan Arreguin Toft yields the conclusion that the weak always won when they used indirect or asymmetric war approach.

The notion of “instrumental rationality” introduced by Clausewitz also points towards a similar outcome of strategic interaction between the dissimilar strategic approaches.

By “instrumental rationality” Clausewitz meant the use of operational means as instruments to influence an “animate object” i.e rival’s will.

Brafman and Beckstrom also explain the concept of Asymmetric Warfare in “Starfish and Spider,” according to which the conventional force is like a spider with a central nervous system and predictable responses, whereas a belligerent using unconventional tactics is like a starfish with decentralised structure, where any tentacle cut from the body can regenerate and start acting independently, based on its ideological and operational orientation.

The Israelis here are the proverbial spider using the direct approach against a decentralized and regenerative starfish i.e Hamas & Hezbollah that despite occasional setbacks, experienced in the shape of assassinations and technologically enabled communication devices (pager) attacks continues to wage war against Israel.

The long term outcome of the violent interaction between Israel and Iranian Axis of Resistance points towards an Israeli defeat as per Arreguin’s “Theory of Strategic Interaction.”

It is in above context that the present conflict panning out between Iran and Israel has to be viewed. Israel has attacked Iran placating domestic sentiment and exploiting the window of opportunity, arising out of an election induced policy paralysis at Washington.

As a sop to American sensibilities the Israelis have steered clear of nuclear and oil installations in this first wave of attacks. It may well be that Israel is biding its time for a follow up blow after possible ascension to power by Trump.

Now coming back to the notion of instrumental rationality of Clausewitz, according to which the visceral response of the “Iranian will” would determine the trajectory of the conflict.

The possible escalation domination of the escalation ladder by both adversaries might follow the horizontal model as against the Herman Kahn’s linear model where one step leads to another in response to the adversary’s counter steps.

In horizontal escalation dominance model the diplomacy, sanctions, trade wars, and alliance pressures are used as non-linear strands of escalation ladder. The present Iran Israel war is also likely to follow that model.

In simple words Iran will absorb the strikes without any visceral response and weigh all options on the menu in Asymmetric Domain, leveraging their proxy war strengths.

A retaliatory missile attack would only be launched after weighing the cost benefit equation of the retaliation. In the cost benefit equation Iran does not need to escalate in the linear escalation ladder model, rather a horizontal escalation model employing indirect strategy would redound to its maximum advantage.

The conventional conflict employing direct strategy is not in the interest of Iran for two reasons. One is its debilitated conventional capacity as a consequence of sanctions and the other is its nuclear capability vis a vis Israel.

There are rumours being bruited about the attainment of the bomb grade uranium enrichment capability by Iran, implying its nearness to an operationalized nuclear capability.

There however is no evidence of such a capability so far, and even if the desired enrichment levels have been attained, Iran is too far from conversion of the enriched uranium into a deliverable platform along with all the sophisticated trigger mechanisms.

Whereas the state of Iranian Air Force also does not make it a suitable platform for nuclear delivery the ballistic missiles cannot be configured for nuclear use due to lack of miniaturization capability by Iran.

So, in the absence of a nuclear deterrence and the reality of a state of sanctions’ induced decrepitude of Iranian conventional forces, the Iranians are left with no option but to continue their reliance on Asymmetric Warfare.

If Iran reacts viscerally and fires its ballistic missiles (As per US sources it has 3000 ballistic & cruise missiles including Mach 5, Fateh I Hypersonic missile) then the three-tiered Israeli Air Defence System through active help of its allies has the capability to intercept a large number of those missiles.

Israel’s multi tiered defence system comprises Iron Dome (4-70 km), Arrow 2 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (100-150 km) and ICBM range Arrow 3 (2400 kms).

The US delivered THAD Air Defence Battery is also capable of providing effective defence in medium altitude range just like Arrow 2. As is evident, with the space and aerial surveillance capabilities of US, Israel and other allied countries, the chances of Iranian missiles to penetrate the Israeli Air Defence shield are slim, especially when they are in a state of full alert.

So, we come back to the Asymmetric Warfare by Iran and its allies as the only instrumental rationality in a conflict equation against a nuclear equipped and conventionally superior Israel.

While the asymmetric tactics of Iran and its proxy network would continue troubling Israel till the time it does not resolve the fundamental cause of the conflict the nuclear hubris and US shored conventional capability would keep encouraging Israel to avoid addressing the root cause of the conflict.

The US help and the nuclear capability invest Israel with an audacity to seek an Armageddon unmindful of the consequences.

The present escalatory spiral of the Iran-Israel conflict may wind down temporarily but who will stop Israel from initiating it again? The greatest fear is that if having lost the trust in international community’s ability to rein in Israel, one of its foes (Possibly Iran) picks up the same playbook being used by Israel and attains the nuclear capability as well as the patronage of a global power, equally devoted to Iran’s defence cause as US is to Israel’s. Is there any statesmanship capital left in the world to avert the above doomsday scenario?

(The writer is a security and defence analyst with Masters in Security and Defence Management from Royal Military College Canada [e-mail])