There’s much speculation about how and when Israel will respond to Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile attacks at three military targets in Israel. Iran’s attack was a response to Israel’s targeted killing of the chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran and multiple assassinations of Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon, including the killing of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.
For its part, immediately after the attack, Israel promised a punishing response at a time and place of its choosing. It was joined by the United States, which also spoke of severe consequences for Iran. The US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, told reporters at the White House: “This is a significant escalation by Iran…We have made clear that there will be consequences, severe consequences, for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.” Similar sentiments were expressed by President Joe Biden. Last Friday, the US imposed sanctions on companies and vessels that are allegedly engaged in trading and transporting Iranian oil, the so-called ghost vessels.
Additionally, the US has moved a Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system to Israel along with a nearly 100-member crew. The deployment signals the US’ commitment to defending Israel, even if that requires putting US boots on the ground. It also means the US has signalled its support to Israel against a reprisal attack by Iran. This is unlike the last time Iran had attacked Israel in April this year. At the time, Biden said he had told the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “You have a win. Take it.”
Multiple reports and analyses, however, suggest that while the US has green-lighted an Israeli response this time, Washington does not want Israel to go for targets — nuclear and oil facilities — that could force Iran’s hand into escalating and further broadening the war, a possibility that could impact international markets and commodity and oil prices. The US is also just a month away from a messy presidential election, and the electorate is almost divided down the middle.
But wars are never neat, and they don’t really go according to plans. As Clausewitz noted, when you apply force to an animated object, you don’t get mechanical results. Animated objects have a funny way of reacting unexpectedly.
To be precise, Israel’s objectives in this case are different from America’s. Israeli right wing, most notably Netanyahu, has long desired a conclusive war against Iran. Any basic content analysis of writings from Israel shows that Israeli planners consider Iran to be the arch-foe that must be neutralised if Israel is to secure itself. This is also why Israel has undertaken multiple covert operations to degrade Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities, including cyberattacks and killing Iranian scientists and those involved in the procurement of materials.
There are four targeting possibilities: low-risk tactical and limited missile strikes, for instance, counterforce targeting of some military infrastructure; a tactical response with a broader array of targets — military and industrial infrastructure, including oil rigs, refineries and ports; covert actions to take out Iranian civil and military leaders and, finally, a much more ambitious one
Another important strand in Israeli analyses is the assessment that a majority of Iranians oppose the post-revolution theocratic system and want the country to reintegrate into the international system. Israel believes that efforts can and should be undertaken to degrade the system to the point where people can reclaim the space for governance.
That calls for a maximalist approach.
To recap, there are four targeting possibilities: low-risk tactical and limited missile strikes, for instance, counterforce targeting of some military infrastructure; a tactical response with a broader array of targets — military and industrial infrastructure, including oil rigs, refineries and ports; covert actions to take out Iranian civil and military leaders and, finally, a much more ambitious one, hitting Iran’s nuclear installations, especially Natanz and Fordow.
Let’s park this for a while and go to what Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9 while speaking to Israel’s Intelligence Unit 9900: “The Iranian attack was aggressive but inaccurate. In contrast, our attack will be deadly, pinpoint accurate, and most importantly, surprising — they will not know what happened or how it happened. They will just see the results.”
Was it a coincidence that Gallant made this statement to Unit 9900? I don’t think so. Unit 9900 is a highly-capable, secret outfit which gathers visual intelligence, including geographical data from satellites and aircraft. It also maps, interprets and analyses intelligence for troops on the battlefield and decision-makers at the higher echelons of command. One of its subunits, Roim Rachok (Looking Ahead), recruits young men and women “on the autism spectrum [who] are gifted with an incredible ability to analyse, interpret, and understand satellite images and maps.”
Combine this with Gallant’s description of the attack as “deadly, pinpoint accurate and surprising”. Pinpoint accuracy is not just a function of the accuracy of the system which delivers a payload but also of precise intelligence on the target. That much should be obvious. But what about “surprising”?
Hundreds of analysts have been writing about the possible targets. What could be surprising for Iran? Certainly not any strikes on military infrastructure, oil rigs, refineries, ports, even nuclear facilities et cetera. There’s nothing surprising about the attack itself. It is not a question of whether but when.
The decapitation strikes would seek to neutralise high-value civil, military and intelligence targets; degradation strikes will hit a broad array of hard and soft military and economic targets
This is where we need to go back to Israel’s assessment of how it can solve the Iran problem: the chasm between Iran’s system and Iran’s people. It would be very ambitious but let’s run this hypothesis. Such a plan would not be about a single wave of attacks but multiple waves. The thrust of such a plan, Clausewitz’s schwerpunkt (point of effort), would be to exploit the schism. Any targeting would simply be in service of that goal.
Put another way, any decapitation and degradation strikes will not be the main focus but supplementary efforts in support of local armed attacks. The decapitation strikes would seek to neutralise high-value civil, military and intelligence targets; degradation strikes will hit a broad array of hard and soft military and economic targets. But for this strategy to succeed, there must, in theory, be some elements on the ground that could foment multiple uprisings.
In theory, Iran has at least four fault lines: secular Iranians, Kurds, Ahvazi Arabs of Khuzestan and the Baloch. All these groups have been discriminated against and the Kurds (Kurdistan Free Life Party) and the Baloch (Jandallah) have armed cadres that have fought the Iranian state. Their resentment continues to simmer.
The real surprise would be sudden, internal attacks on targets, not so much as external attacks. In theory, if an external actor can exploit and also fan internal chaos while exacerbating the internal situation through external attacks, the target state could likely lose the necessary internal balance for a riposte.
As noted above, this would be a maximalist policy. It would require meticulous planning and much hard work. Israel, for all its genocidal evil, has shown very impressive intelligence and target acquisition capabilities. Whether it can harness dissidents on the ground in an operational strategy that seeks optimum results through internal attacks is anybody’s guess.
Be that as it may, Israel is unlikely to fully read the US in. It is banking reliably on the fact that regardless of what it does, the US will have no option but to watch its six.