UNEXPECTEDLY: The Iran Détente Did Not Age Well.
Chief Iran deal promoter Ben Rhodes, in a video commenting on last weekend’s attack, emphasized Israel’s recent strike on IRGC personnel in Syria, claiming that Iran could have, in response, escalated even further via Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon. What played out last Saturday, he said, was not the “worst-case outcome.”
Noah Rothman and Jim Geraghty both reject the idea that Iran’s attack was somehow “designed to fail.” Rather, Noah writes, “its aim was to kill as many Israelis as possible.” In hindsight, the idea of America striking a lasting deal with Iran was always fanciful; in recent months, Iran-backed militias’ drone attacks on U.S. outposts in Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, Iran-backed Houthi attacks on Red Sea vessels, and now this have made that conclusion inescapable.
To the contrary, as the Wall Street Journal reported, long-running outreach to Israel’s other Middle Eastern neighbors helped to minimize the damage from what could have been an overwhelming assault by Iran. Per the Journal’s timeline, this included efforts to build an air-defense system dating back decades, which at last gained steam following the Trump-era Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE/Bahrain. Then, under Biden, “the Pentagon shifted Israel from its European Command to Central Command, which includes the rest of the Middle East, a move that enabled greater military cooperation with Arab governments under U.S. auspices.” The top U.S. commander in the region at the time reportedly convened a meeting of Israeli and Arab military officials “to explore how they could coordinate against Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities.”
Fast-forward two years, and with Iran vowing to respond to the strike in Syria, the U.S. was able to put a plan into action, coaxing the UAE and even Saudi Arabia to share intel, according to the WSJ, while Jordan allowed the U.S. and others to use its airspace. The result was an incredible success, and demonstrated unmistakably which Middle Eastern governments are willing to partner with the West — and which one never will.
Noah, without getting his hopes up, writes that Biden should push to restore conventional-arms embargoes at the U.N. level, apart from unilateral sanctions imposed when they expired and now being expanded. Doing so would force a confrontation with Iran’s enablers there, communicate that the White House takes the threat from Tehran seriously, and reflect a stark reality: “The JCPOA is dead and gone.” Few mourn the loss.
Meanwhile: Satellite pics show Iran air base damage after IAF strike.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that a high-tech missile hit a Russian-made S-300 air defense system at Shikari, citing two Iranian officials. Western officials told the newspaper that the strike was intended to show Tehran that Israel could break through Iran’s defense systems undetected and paralyze them.
According to the Times report, the missile was from a warplane fired “far from Israeli or Iranian airspace” and did not enter Jordanian airspace so as to not to involve Amman after it assisted in shooting down hundreds of Iranian aerial threats launched at Israel last weekend.
An Israeli official told The Washington Post that the assault “was intended to signal to Iran that Israel had the ability to strike inside the country.”
Report: New Images Show Base Of Iranian-Backed Group In Iraq Was Completely Destroyed In Strike.