Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Elder of ZiyonThe Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said most of the political and military leaders in Iran, headed by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei have decided: The decision to respond has been made, and it is only a matter of time, and there is no doubt about that....The next response, which will come under the title “ True Promise 3,” will be shocking, devastating and beyond the enemy’s imagination. It should think a thousand times before firing even a single bullet towards the Iranian desert....The response will be many times stronger than the response that the world witnessed in “True Promise 2”, without any concern for the date of the American elections. The response may come on election night, election day, or after the elections.
Iran reportedly told Arab nations to prepare for a major attack that will pass over their skies, using drones, missiles and other weapons, with higher payloads than they have used to far - analysts say as large as 1,500 kilograms.
The Al Alam channel has recently published graphics of missiles that Iran says it might use to target Israel.
On October 31, the graphic was for the "Khaybar buster," the perennial reference to Mohammed's defeat and ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Gulf.
The one that was published this week is called the Hajj Qasem, which Iran says was specifically designed to target Israel.
In the first days after Israel's Operation Days of Repentance, it looked like Iran would shrug it off, deny any damage and pretend it won. But now - seemingly because the Israeli attack killed members of the Iranian conventional armed forces (Artesh) - Iran is signaling a major response.
Once again, it is necessary to look at this through an honor/shame prism. Just as with Lebanon, there was little chance of avoiding a war as long as Hezbollah kept the mindset of maintaining its "honor," so does Iran. Each retaliation must be calibrated to appear bigger than the previous one.
That same "honor" ensures that Iran is not bluffing. Calling the operation True Promise 3 means that it must attack; if it doesn't it looks not only weak but like a liar.
As we saw with the previous Iranian attacks, while Israel (and the US) anti-missile defenses are pretty good, at least several missiles made it through. They aren't close to 100% coverage for ballistic missiles. All it will take is for one missile, purposeful or errant, to inflict mass casualties. I'm no expert but I believe that it a one ton payload would destroy a moderate size apartment building and heavily damage those buildings surrounding it. If that happens, God forbid, there will be a war - a strange long distance war that hops over countries that don't want to be involved but are powerless to stop it.
There was a theoretical, honorable way for Hezbollah to climb down from the tree that was leading to war, but I cannot see any such way for Iran to stop its aggression and ever-increasing set of attacks and counter-attacks. Israel has a far superior air force but that is not enough to protect Israelis when Iran decides to directly attack Haifa or Tel Aviv with rockets that have payloads of half a ton or more.
Once Iran promises to attack, and puts its own honor on the line, there is no chance that diplomacy or threats will deter them.
The only way I can see to minimize Israeli casualties is a pre-emptive attack by Israel that destroys large parts of Iran's missile inventory before they can be fired. This is pretty much what Israel has been doing with Hezbollah. There are reports that Israel is considering such a scenario.
A secondary question is whether a pre-emptive Israeli attack to hobble Iran's missiles and drones on the ground is legal under international law. Iran's promise to attack is not enough on its own, and since it is open-ended as far as timing, it makes the critical criterion of "imminence" to pre-emptively attack difficult to prove. Nevertheless, a combination of Iranian threats, reported Iranian informing its neighbors of an attack, intelligence showing Iran moving its missiles to more advantageous positions, breakdown of diplomatic attempts to forestall an attack, and similar evidence should be enough to prove that a pre-emptive action is self defense. Obviously, most of the world will call Israel the aggressor no matter what it does, but it still must have good documentation of strong evidence that an Iranian attack is imminent to support such a decision in the media and, possibly, in a courtroom.
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