From Israel’s perspective, the timing of its attack on Iran, which started last week, couldn’t have been better.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that he had no choice but to act now because Iran was taking steps to “weaponize [its] enriched uranium” and could make a bomb “in a very short time” cannot be verified. But what is certain is that Iran is currently more vulnerable to an attack than at any time since Israel began contemplating one 15 or so years ago.
Iran’s air defenses were considerably degraded in two Israeli raids last year. Tehran’s carefully constructed and so-called Axis of Resistance, which was supposed to help defend Iran in case of an Israeli attack, had all but collapsed. Fighting its own desperate war, Russia was in no position to help its ally rearm. It turns out that U.S. President Donald Trump’s warnings to Israel to not attack Iran while nuclear talks were underway were not made in earnest. They may even have been aimed at deceiving Iran into believing no attack was imminent.
The case for starting the war and removing the Iranian nuclear threat was a powerful one. But four days into the fighting, it is becoming increasingly unclear how it will end. In a public statement after the initial strikes, Netanyahu said the operation would continue for “as many days as it takes.” Israeli army chiefs were less sanguine, talking about weeks rather than days, but it doesn’t seem they envisioned a war of attrition as appears to be developing. Could Netanyahu end up being like Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader convinced his superior forces could vanquish the enemy quickly and efficiently, only to discover the enemy wouldn’t cooperate?
It is unlikely that Israel and Iran will be striking each other with missiles, drones, and bombs three years from now. Israel, at least, is not in a position to fight an open-ended war of attrition. It is geographically too small and its population too heavily concentrated in an even smaller area around Tel Aviv to absorb chronic pummeling. As its offensive against Iran has amply demonstrated, the Israeli military is capable of remarkable feats, but it also has limited resources in terms of personnel, weaponry, ammunition, and money. Since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been engaged in almost continuous warfare in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, as well as countering regular Houthi missile strikes.
Israel is bigger, richer, and militarily more powerful now than at any time in its history, and it no longer has to rely on lightning victories as it did in the past, but it does not have endless resources. A war of days or even weeks appears to have been based on the swift destruction of three broad targets. The first was Iran’s already weakened air defenses, a goal that seems to have gone according to plan. As of June 16, Israel said it had achieved “aerial superiority over Tehran’s skies,” which is to say near-complete freedom of movement. The second was to take out a large part of Iran’s two-pronged military command structure (the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and its leading nuclear scientists. That has also been a success—operationally at least—although whether the deaths will significantly undermine Iran’s ability to fight or continue its nuclear program remains to be seen.
But all these targets are secondary to the main one, which is to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Here, there is little evidence that Israel has achieved its aims. Of Iran’s three main nuclear facilities, Israel probably did extensive damage to Natanz’s aboveground facilities, but it is less clear how much damage it caused to Isfahan. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Fordow has been attacked but has not sustained any observable damage.
Many doubt that Israel can destroy Fordow, which is located under a mountain. Military analysts have raised several ideas, including repeated Israeli airstrikes on the same location (a task made more feasible now that Israel has freedom of action in Iranian airspace) or a land operation by special forces. Israel did something similar in Syria last September, but Fordow is much bigger, more secure, and much more distant. The risk of failure is enormous.
It seems hard to believe that Netanyahu launched an attack on Iran on the assumption that, by hook or crook, the United States would eventually join it—for the denouement of destroying Fordow if nothing else. At this stage, the White House seems divided between pro-Israel hawks and isolationists, but the final word will come from Trump. His public remarks indicate that he is content to let Israel fight the war alone and that his ultimate goal is still to bring Tehran back to Oman for resumed negotiations. “I hope there’s going to be a deal. I think it’s time for a deal, and we’ll see what happens. Sometimes they have to fight it out, but we’re gonna see what happens,” Trump said on June 15.
An Iranian attack on U.S. military assets, Gulf oil tankers, or even Saudi oil facilities might tip the balance in Washington in favor of attacking Iran. If so, then decision of whether the United States enters the war really lies with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he may not comply with Netanyahu’s wishes for the very reason that they are Netanyahu’s wishes.
In what must be deeply worrying for Netanyahu, it is becoming increasingly evident that Tehran’s strategy is to wage a war of attrition, a replay of the “war of the cities” Iran fought with Iraq in the 1980s. Iran’s target bank in Israel appears to include military and nuclear facilities, mirroring the one Israel has for Iran, albeit without the same kind of precision. But its missiles have hit a number of residential buildings, in or around Tel Aviv. To date, the attacks have killed at least 24 people, injured hundreds, and leveled or damaged large numbers of buildings. The majority of Iranian missiles and drones have been intercepted, but it takes only a few to wreak severe damage.
The casualty numbers are nowhere near the kind that would give Israeli leaders second thoughts about continuing their assault on Iran, but they represent only four days of war. Unless Israel succeeds in destroying Iran’s missile launchers and stockpiles, Tehran has enough firepower to pummel Israel for some time. Would Israel be able to withstand a war of attrition that involves targeting the civilian population?
On the one hand, Netanyahu’s obsession with the Iranian threat never struck a chord with the Israeli public; they were willing to make personal sacrifices for its war with Hamas in Gaza, but they may not be prepared to do the same to fight Iran. Moreover, Israel has been engaged in almost nonstop fighting for 20 months, straining its economy and the reserve forces that the IDF relies on and testing Israel’s wherewithal. On the other hand, the history of city bombing as an enemy morale-crusher is not very good, as Putin learned after he turned to the tactic as part of his plan for the assault on Ukraine.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the conclusion of the Israel-Iran war will not be nearly as clean-cut as its start. Unless Israel has a rabbit waiting to be pulled out of its hat or convinces the United States to join the war effort, it is unlikely to end Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by force. And if that is the case, the scenarios that Netanyahu would face are less than ideal, or worse than the prewar status quo, from his point of view.
One is that Khamenei drinks from the “poisoned chalice,” as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini described in 1988, when he decided to end Iran’s mutually destructive war with Iraq for fear it was unwinnable and risked bringing down the Islamic regime. Israel may be trying to coax Khamenei to take that fateful sip by threatening to foment regime change. The risk for Netanyahu is that Khamenei could return to the negotiating table with Trump and get sanctions relief that improves the regime’s survival prospects. Iran may even be able to retain part of its now degraded nuclear program. That’s not the end Netanyahu envisions.
A more plausible option for Khamenei might be to reject the chalice and continue fighting, for months or maybe even years. In that case, it would be the Iranian leader who is channeling Putin’s strategy in Ukraine—betting on the idea that his country can ultimately win a war of attrition by tiring out its smaller adversary.
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