Israel's Attack on Iran
As you know by know, Israel launched at major attack on Iran last night at approximately 2:30 a.m. last night (Israel time). The attack is still ongoing so the results are not yet clear. This appears to be the start of a major war but it remains to be seen how Iran will respond and how long this will go on. I wanted to write about a few aspects of this.
As you know from reading my blog (hopefully), it is not my goal to write "propaganda" or "hasbara." I try to sift through news that I pick up from various sources and use that to discuss particular situations. I do pick up quite a bit of information from Israeli sources since I regularly watch and listen to Israeli news and radio channels. But I do also pick up news from a variety of other sources on different ends of the spectrum so I try to provide some amount of balance.
I want to tackle a few issues.
Why Attack Iran?
There are several reasons for this attack. The Israeli government has also announced a series of war "objectives" and then there are other speculated reasons. I will try to cover some of this.
1. Historical Threats from Nuclear Program
The Iranian Ayatollah regime has been explicitly threatening Israel with destruction for many years. Iran has been building a nuclear bomb program and indicating in no uncertain terms that the plan is to attack and destroy Israel with it. Israel has been facing this clouded existential threat. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been warning for years that Israel would not permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and attack Israel with it. U.S. Presidents, including Obama, Biden and Trump have all stated that they would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Obama sought a diplomatic route. Trump, in his first term, dismantled the diplomatic route. On this file, Biden did nothing. The result was that Iran has been racing towards finalizing its nuclear program - and according to the IAEA, just this week (the world's nuclear watchdog), Iran was not complying with its commitment to nuclear safeguards and was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. Given Iran's repeated threats, Israel had to view this as a real, existential threat.
2. Iran has been fighting Israel since October 7, 2023
It is quite clear that the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 including the Hamas massacres of civilians, kidnapping of hostages and destruction of homes and business was supported and funded by the Iranian regime. The Iranians trained the Hamas terrorists, in many cases at training camps in Iran and funded them. But Iran also armed and activated the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and Syria on Israel's borders, who have also been fighting with Israel since October 7, 2023. Further, as you know, Iran has been supplying the Houthis in Yemen with long range ballistic missiles to fire at Israel regularly. Although Iran has only attacked Israel "directly" twice since October 7, it fired hundreds of ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles on both of those occasions. So although Iran has not been directly involved since Oct 7 with attacks from its own territory, it has been running a four-front war against Israel and Israel's response, until now, has been relatively minimal as against Iran itself.
3. Perceived Opportunity
The success of Israeli operations against Hezbollah, a key proxy of Iran, has left Iran with a vastly reduced proxy threat to Israel from the north. Moreover, Israel's responding attacks on Iran in April 2024 apparently caused significant damage to Iran's defence forces. The political situation in Syria has minimized the perceived threat of Syria becoming involved in the conflict. Given the combination of these factors, the Iranian closeness to completing its nuclear program and a more sympathetic U.S. government, Israeli government officials determined that a narrow window was open for this attack.
Israeli Statements and U.S. Position
Prime Minister Netanyahu stated today that he gave the order to carry out the attack in November 2024. He stated that the original date was supposed to be in April 2025, but the operation was pushed back. According to Netanyahu, with the collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Iranian leadership redoubled its efforts to complete the nuclear bomb program and were threatening to use it. Netanyahu claimed that he has been trying to get support for this type of attack since 2012 but did not have the political support, either domestically or from the U.S. Implicitly, he has suggested that the "green light" only came after Trump's election in November 2024.
President Trump and other U.S. leaders have stated that the U.S. was not involved in these attacks - but knew about them. First of all, I don't really believe that Israel went ahead with this operation without active support, approval and encouragement of President Trump. It seems likely that President Biden was not willing to authorize this type of operation. Secondly, President Trump's tweets have underscored the message that he was threatening Iran that something "terrible" would happen if Iran did not agree to a nuclear deal that was acceptable to the U.S. Thirdly, the U.S. is still calling on Iran to drop its nuclear program, come to the table and reach an agreement. But for Iran, it is hard to imagine that this looks like an inviting offer at this point. Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that the date, June 13, 2025, was selected months ago and that President Trump was kept fully apprised.
Preliminary Reports
From reports to date, from across the world, the Israeli operation to this point, has been devastating. A large number of senior Iranian military and political leaders have been eliminated including the head of the army, the head of the air force, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and others. Estimates are that more than 30 military and political leaders were targeted and killed.
Israel has been attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, missile depots and other military operations.
Just now, Israeli news is reporting that Iranian missiles are "self-destructing" all over the country - and that is being compared to the "beeper" operation with Hezbollah. I have no way of verifying these reports at this point, but they are fascinating.
It is unclear how long this operation will take but Israel appears to be targeting all of the different Iranian nuclear facilities including those that are deep underground.
Stated Objectives
The Israeli government has claimed that the war has several objectives. First of all to significantly degrade the Iranian nuclear program and set it back several years. Secondly, to destroy much of the Iranian ballistic program to minimize Iran's ability to attack Israel (itself or by using the Houthis). Thirdly, to target the Iranian military leadership to force Iran into a change of position with respect to its ongoing war against Israel.
Other Objectives
The Israeli government has stated that it is not attempting regime change in Iran. However, Israel has targeted as wide range of Iranian political and military leaders. Moreover, the current regime, much like Hamas, has stated that its long range goal is the destruction of Israel. Israelis do not believe that to be the general sentiment of the Iranian people and generally believe that if there were a regime change in Iran, Iran and Israel could have a peace deal in place. Israelis point to the fact that under the Iranian Shah, Israel has peaceful relations with Iran. It seems to me that Israel (perhaps with the help of the U.S.) will do everything possible to enable the Iran people to rid themselves of this oppressive regime. A stable, free, more secular Iran would create a dramatic opportunity for long term middle eastern stability. It remains to be seen whether this is realistic or possible.
Cynical Objectives
While I did suggest in a previous blog that Netanyahu would do everything possible to avoid his ongoing trial (and current cross-examination). there does seem to be fairly wide bi-partisan (or multi-partisan) support in Israel at this time for this attack - especially with the latest reports of how close Iran was getting to deploying nuclear bombs to be used for offensive purposes. Israel has been fighting Iran now indirectly since October 7, 2023 with Iran paying a very small price for all of the destruction and damage that it has caused to Israel. I think the Israeli leadership came to a determination that the only way to end the war with Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was to get "behind the curtain" to the real decision maker and orchestrator of the war against Israel.
What's Next
Israel is continuing its attacks across Iran as I write but is also now anticipating a massive Iranian response. I guess we will have to stay tuned and see what happens. Hopefully, Israeli defences, supported by the Americans, will be able to repel any counter attacks with minimum casualties and damage.
Other
The Israeli national airport, Ben Gurion Airport is currently closed to all traffic. The civilian authority has ordered all schools, restaurants, clubs, concert venues and other public places of large gatherings closed including synagogues and other places of worship. Airlines from across the world have announced indefinite cancellations of flights to and from Israel.
I am currently in Toronto with a flight scheduled for the 22nd of June, via Athens. It remains to be seen whether that will be possible. I have real concerns that anti-Israeli sympathizers, including protestors, rabble rousers and terrorists, will target Jewish institutions across the world - even here in Toronto and I hope that the police and security forces will stop up the level of security for these places.
I am going to leave my discussions of other issues for future blogs. For now, I hope that this situation is resolved as quickly as possible - hopefully with a stable end to the entire war, a return of the hostages, a peace deal with a new Iranian regime - and a completely changed Middle East. Okay, it's okay to hope for a lot. But given the changes in Syria and Lebanon, we have every reason to believe that change is possible and within reach.
Shabbat Shalom
