Enemies shun rules in high-risk ‘game’ of brinkmanship

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waits for the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting also attended by the US President Joe Biden.

Israel and Iran are currently engaged in a dangerous retaliatory game in which each side pulls their military punches to send a message, while avoiding an escalation to a regional conflict.

The stakes remain extraordinarily high. Either side could miscalculate, although it is fair to say that to date both have calibrated their responses to provide the other with sufficient reason not to overreact.

The current round of rocket and missile tit-for-tat started with Israel’s targeting of the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus. This was a step was regarded as too far for Tehran, whose willingness to absorb casualties among its forward-deployed personnel in Syria and Iraq has been notable.

But given the number and seniority of the casualties – and the location of the missile strike – such a brazen attack could not go unanswered if Iran hoped to retain a semblance of regional deterrent capability.

The subsequent missile-and-drone response was notable for the sheer scale of the attack, as well as the fact that Israel enjoyed the protection of Western and Arab (read Jordanian) air defences in defeating it. And although only a few missiles or drones hit their target, without the forewarning many more would have impacted inside Israel.

Relatively little is known about Israel’s latest response. There are indications, contrary to Iranian claims about small gyrocopters, that Israel may have used an air-delivered missile without the aircraft needing to penetrate Iranian airspace.

Whereas Iran used mass to send their message, Israel used a more precise approach designed to highlight the country’s technical capability and to send another message to Iran about its own vulnerability to Israeli attack.

What we know of the target selection also indicates it was designed to send a particular message. An air defence radar at Shekari air base near Isfahan was allegedly destroyed and it is this air base that forms part of the air defence system for the Natanz nuclear facility.

The messaging was quite unambiguous. Israel was able to rely on a multinational coalition to augment its own air defences and provide defence in depth against several hundred incoming missiles and drones.

Iran on the other hand is vulnerable due to its international isolation and the technical superiority of its opponents. Reports of a Syrian air defence site being targeted as part of a preliminary operation to provide the Israeli air force a safe corridor through which to fly also highlighted the absence of any real strategic depth to Iran’s air defences.

Tehran was quick to downplay the significance of the attack or the need to reply in kind. It can ill-afford any direct conflict with Israel or its allies. Its national defence strategy depends on gaining strategic depth through the use of proxies and other subordinate regional partners. But it is vulnerable to the type of attack conducted by Israel, and it knows this.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the capital Tehran’s Grand Mosallah.

There is nothing in it for Tehran to pursue further direct action against Israel and much that can be lost if it does. Having saved face with its April 19 attack, Tehran would be satisfied to return to its preferred method of pressuring Israel through proxies.

The fact the Israeli attack was allegedly carried out on the supreme leader’s 85th birthday also indicates that Iran is likely to face a significant political transition period in the not-too-distant future, as a new supreme leader will take the reins for only the second time in post-revolutionary Iran.

Grand Ayatollah Khamenei does not want Iran’s response to Israeli actions to jeopardise the stability of the system.

Israel also appears to have decided discretion is the better part of valour in this case, as its military response to the Iranian attack was both muted and pointed. You can be sure some significant pressure was being exerted on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his close allies to limit his response. Washington, London and Paris had all helped to defend Israel against the Iranian drones and missiles. They don’t want to repeat such actions.

The Israeli response will, at least in part, have been calibrated to address those concerns. Reports Netanyahu’s National Security Minister described the Israeli attack as “lame” on social media also highlights the internal political tensions that plague Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition government.

Israel has been accused of using quadcopters in attacks against targets in Iran since 2022, so the idea that this most recent attack is a game-changer is not entirely true.

The at-times deadly strategic dance Iran and Israel conduct has long had boundaries that were generally accepted, even if they could be flexible.

Israel’s direct targeting of Iranian personnel and logistic elements in Syria and Iraq has long been at the edges of “accepted” behaviour, but the Damascus attack breached the rules of the game and hence Iran’s response was designed to re-establish deterrence and prod Israel back into playing by the accepted rules.

The problem is that as long as the rules of this most deadly of games remain ill-defined, the chances of breaching them – regardless of whether it is done intentionally or inadvertently – remain unacceptably high. And the consequences of misreading the risk tolerance of either side are potentially catastrophic. Little can be guaranteed in the Middle East, particularly in the current strategic environment, but having broken the rules of the Israeli-Iranian strategic “game”, it appears both sides are likely to return to the status quo ante – definitely not peace, but not quite war.

Rodger Shanahan is a Middle East analyst and former army officer. He is currently in Lebanon.