Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel this weekend has challenged Israel's assumptions about its adversaries and the long-held calculation that Iran can be most effectively deterred by further Israeli aggression.
Israeli officials have long argued publicly and privately that the harder Iran suffers, the more cautious it will be in striking back. Iran's barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles on Saturday, Iran's first direct attack on Israel, upended that logic.
The attack was a response to an Israeli attack on Syria earlier this month that killed seven Iranian military personnel. Analysts say this means Tehran's leaders are no longer content to fight Israel through various proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, and are instead prepared to confront Israel directly. He said it shows that there is.
“I think we miscalculated,” said Sima Shine, a former head of research at Israel's foreign intelligence agency Mossad.
“Based on Israel's accumulated experience, Iran does not have good means to retaliate,” Shine added. “I had a strong feeling that I didn't want to get involved in the war.”
Instead, Iran has created a “whole new paradigm,” Shine said.
Iran's response ultimately caused little damage to Israel, largely because Iran telegraphed its intentions in advance and gave Israel and its allies several days to prepare a strong defense. This is because I gave them time. Iran also issued a statement saying it had no plans to attack Israel any further, even before the offensive ended.
Nevertheless, Iran's attack turned years of shadow war between Israel and Iran into a direct confrontation — although it could still be contained, depending on Israel's response. Iran has demonstrated that it has significant firepower that cannot be defeated without intensive support from Israel's allies like the United States, and it is difficult to imagine how much damage it could do without such protection. It emphasizes that there is.
Iran and Israel have had a more ambiguous relationship in the past, with Israel selling weapons to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. However, after the war ended, their bond frayed. Iranian leaders have increasingly criticized Israel's approach toward the Palestinians, and Israel has grown wary of Iran's efforts to build its nuclear program and increased support for Hezbollah.
For more than a decade, the two countries have quietly pursued each other's interests across the region, but have rarely announced individual actions.
Iran supports Hamas and funds and arms other regional militias hostile to Israel, some of which have had low-level ties with Israel since the deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. engaged in conflict. Similarly, Israel has regularly targeted these proxies. Additionally, there have been assassinations of Iranian officials within Iran and killings that have avoided formal responsibility.
The two countries have targeted commercial ships with ties to the other and conducted cyberattacks against each other, and Israel has repeatedly thwarted Iran's nuclear program.
Now, that war is exposed to the light of day. And the main reason for that is due to what some analysts consider an Israeli miscalculation: April 1st. On the same day, an Israeli attack destroyed part of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, one of Iran's closest allies and proxies, and killed seven senior Iranian military officials. , including three commanders-in-chief.
The attack followed repeated indications by Israeli leaders that increasing pressure on Iran would encourage it to scale back its ambitions across the Middle East. “Increased pressure on Iran is extremely important,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in January, “and could prevent regional escalation in further areas.”
Rather, the attack on Damascus led directly to the first Iranian attack on Israeli sovereign territory.
Analysts said Israel may have misunderstood Iran's position because of Iran's lack of response to previous Israeli assassinations of senior Iranian officials.
Israeli leaders have long feared that Iran would one day build and launch nuclear missiles at Israel, but they were accustomed to targeting Iranian officials without direct retaliation from Tehran.
In one of its most brazen attacks, Israel killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist, in Iranian territory in 2020. As recently as December, Israel was accused of killing Iran's top commander, Saeed Raji Mousavi, in an attack in Syria in which Iranian military officials advised and supported the Syrian government. These assassinations, and several others, did not provoke retaliatory attacks on Israel by Iran.
Iran analyst Ali Baez said Iran's decision to respond was partly prompted by anger among some segments of Iranian society over Iran's previous passive attitude.
“The degree of bottom-up pressure we've seen on the regime in the last 10 days is unlike anything we've seen before,” said Baez, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research group.
Iran also needs to show that it can stand up to proxies like Hezbollah, Baez added. “Iran showing that it fears retaliation for such a brazen attack on its diplomatic facilities in Damascus is extremely damaging to Iranian relations and Iranian credibility in the eyes of its regional partners,” he said. It's going to be damaging.”
For some analysts, Israel's attack on Damascus may yet turn out to be a smaller miscalculation than initially expected. The Iranian air strikes had already distracted from Israel's stalled war against Hamas and reaffirmed Israel's ties with Western and Arab countries that had become increasingly critical of Israel's actions in Gaza.
Michael Koplau, an Israeli analyst at Israel Policy, said the fact that Iran gave Israel so much time to prepare for the attack meant that Iran remained relatively deterred and could not seriously escalate. He said this could be an indication that they are trying to create a short-term opportunity for a large-scale response while avoiding the situation. The Forum is a research group based in New York.
“For me, the jury is out,” Koplau said.
“The question is whether this was actually intended to harm Israel, or whether it was meant to make it look like Israel was fighting back forcefully, when in fact it wasn't. That's true,” Koplau said. Added.
But for others, it was already obvious. Aaron David Miller, an analyst at the Washington-based research group Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Israel made two major strategic mistakes in less than a year. Prior to October 7, Israeli authorities had publicly – and incorrectly – concluded that Hamas had been prevented from attacking Israel.
Hamas then launched the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
“Israel is 0-for-2 when it comes to concept,” Miller said. “They failed to correctly read Hamas' capabilities and motives on October 7, and clearly misjudged how Iran would respond to the April 1 attack.”
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
