Bibi took chance to attack isolated foe, but call for popular rebellion is risky
Netanyahu added that Tehran was planning on giving nuclear weapons to its “terrorist proxies”.
Yet this is at odds with the US Director of National Intelligence assessment at the end of March, which said the intelligence community continued to assess that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, nor had Iran’s Supreme Leader authorised development of a nuclear weapons program.
Netanyahu has not sought to outline any new information on which he has based his claim regarding the imminent danger from Iran.
The divergence in intelligence assessments is because this assault is not based on new intelligence that required an immediate response from Israel.
Rather, Israel’s decision to attack is further evidence the country is now more willing to use decisive force well outside its immediate neighbourhood, and sensed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to press home the massive strategic advantages it possesses against Iran.
Israel’s air force is the best equipped and most experienced in the region. It enjoys the complete support of the US and all the logistic, intelligence and military support that brings with it. And despite claims to the contrary, it enjoys significant support from other Western countries.
Iran by contrast has no state allies to assist it, and has seen its forward defence strategy laid waste as its so-called “Axis of Resistance” has been degraded to the point where Israel no longer feels militarily constrained by potential responses from it.
Hezbollah is still regrouping from the pummelling it received after siding with Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack, the pro-Iranian Assad regime has fallen, and Syria’s antiquated air and naval forces destroyed by Israel for good measure.
Israeli forces occupy key terrain in both Lebanon and Syria, Iran’s ally. Pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Yemen pose a limited threat but certainly not one of sufficient lethality to constrain Israeli actions. And at home, Iran lacks an effective air defence capability, in contrast to Israel, which can disrupt a large proportion of whatever retaliatory strikes Iran launches.
Netanyahu has promoted the idea that the attack can be part of a broader strategy that may lead to regime collapse in Iran. Yet it is difficult to envisage how that occurs. Assassinating regime officials, nuclear scientists and military officers normally has a short-term effect.
Attacking economic targets such as oil refineries and gas fields may impose an economic cost on the population but not to a degree that will compel them to act against the regime. And Iran is equally capable of attacking Israeli economic targets.
The regime is already widely disliked, as evidences by decreasing participation rates in presidential and parliamentary elections. But attacking state infrastructure without being seen to be attacking the country is a hard thing to achieve.
Iranians have a strong sense of national identity and being bombed by Israel is hardly likely to ignite a popular uprising. In fact the opposite may be the case, at least in the short term. Iranians endured eight years of attacks on their cities in the Iran-Iraqi war, so they are resilient.
That’s what makes the end game difficult to predict. If it was intended to force Iran to negotiate with Washington over its nuclear program it will need to be a long-term campaign that would be near impossible to sustain. And Iran is now incentivised to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
If it was designed to force regime change it lacks any political dimension. More likely it represents an opportunity to set back Iran’s nuclear capability temporarily, further degrade its conventional military capability in advance of more military action down the track, and to demonstrate Israel’s willingness to use force has fundamentally changed.
In 2002, while testifying before a congressional committee on the strategic sense it made to invade Iraq, Netanyahu said “the application of power” was the most important thing in winning the War on Terrorism, and “the more victories you amass, the easier the next victory becomes”. This may well inform his current approach
But the problem with this belief was apparent when he then argued “the first victory in Afghanistan makes the second victory in Iraq that much easier”.
Dr Rodger Shanahan is a Middle East analyst and author.
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According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he struck Iran because in recent months Tehran had “taken steps it had never taken before … to weaponise this enriched uranium”.