Issue 71: A Night Different From All Others
At least for a brief moment Iran’s attack on Israel changed the narrative of the war
It was approximately 1:42am Sunday morning when a boom awakened me. I had fallen asleep on the couch in our living room in an effort to support my wife Sarah, who upon hearing that the Islamic Republic of Iran had launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles towards us, couldn’t to go to sleep. What can I say, after everything we have been through since October 7 I didn’t feel like doomscrolling that evening. We put on Central Intelligence - a laughably bad movie - and I passed out within a matter of minutes.
BOOM. That was enough to get me upright. The sound I had heard so many times while sitting watch on Israel’s borders over the years. Clear and sharp in the cool night air.
We leapt to our feet. Sarah went directly to check on the girls, asleep in their room which also serves as our bomb shelter. I went to the window.
The following morning, my father-in-law remarked that it reminded him of the Star-Spangled Banner:
And the Rockets' red glare, the Bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled Banner yet wave,
O'er the Land of the free and the home of the brave?
To be honest, I thought of Star Wars. Israel’s multilayered defense system includes exoatmospheric missiles designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles during the mid-course (and terminal) phase of their trajectory - a fancy way of saying they target the missiles while they are in space or descending from space. And while I don’t think my iPhone captured an exoatmospheric interception, the event’s cosmic nature is on full display.
The attack was unprecedented but not unpredictable, and in the wake of October 7 this matters a lot. Since the targeted assassination of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Damascus on April 1, Iranian officials promised to exact revenge on Israel with a direct attack from Iranian soil and not by proxy. According to The Wall Street Journal, Iranian officials shared with “counterparts from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries on the outlines and timing of their plan for the large-scale strikes on Israel so that those countries could safeguard airspace…” which was then passed along to the United States and eventually Israel. Turkey and Switzerland have also taken credit as intermediaries between the Islamic Republic and the United States that may have also given advanced warning. In short, Israel and her allies had ample time to prepare a successful counterstrategy.
The IDF’s preparedness on April 14 throws into sharp relief its shortcomings on October 7. It was prepared not only because Iran signaled its intentions weeks in advance, but because Israeli intelligence agencies warned about the Iranian threat for decades. The country has spent billions of dollars (in partnership with the United States and others) to develop one of the most sophisticated multilayer defense systems to protect its citizens and national infrastructure from the kind of event that unfolded on April 14. Its tragic how, in contrast to its sharp assessment of the Islamic Republic’s conventional threat, Israel downplayed the threat posed by Hamas and at times over the past 15 years sought to manage its conflict with the organization by delivering Qatari payments to Hamas leadership. And it is inexcusable how Netanyahu - the same prime minister who was willing to burn bridges with the White House for the sake of rallying the world against a nuclear Iran - believed he could pacify Tehran’s proxy in the Palestinian arena with a few truckloads of cash.
This is the price of hubris, an excess of self-confidence that blinds someone to their core flaws and eventual moment of retribution. Put plainly, you reap what you sow, and Netanyahu did just that.
So did Israel, as US President Joe Biden reportedly told Netanyahu, win on Sunday night? It is all a matter of perspective.
While the attack marked an unprecedented moment where the decades-long proxy war between Israel and Iran became a direct conflict, it also showed that Israel isn’t as isolated as it may seem. Despite international calls for the IDF to show restraint in Gaza, and worrying reports that Western countries - including the United States - would withhold arms shipments if Israel didn’t address the escalating humanitarian crisis, the defensive effort against Iranian drones and ballistic missiles was not a solo Israeli performance but the synchronized work of a coalition including (and this list may grow in time) the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. I’m not certain whether at the present moment it matters why these countries chose to support Israel - it is merely enough that they chose to act. This should serve as comfort to Israelis. They are not alone. They have partners who are able to differentiate between their frustration with Israel’s stalled campaign against Hamas and their common interests with Israel against the Iranian threat. Many countries would consider themselves blessed to have such relationships, imperfect as they may sometimes appear.
Israel can also be confident in knowing that its defense system provided the necessary response to thwart Iran’s attack. It predicted a potential threat, prepared against it, and those preparations proved themselves worthy to the challenge. The attack also provided Israeli intelligence valuable information about Iran’s missile and drone capabilities.
It can also be argued that for at least a brief moment Iran’s attack has changed the narrative of the war from a localized conflict between Israel and Hamas to a regional conflict with potentially disastrous global consequences. To clarify, this has always been an element of the war. The Islamic Republic finances and arms Hamas. It trained Hamas fighters and helped prepare them for the October 7 attack. It arms and funds Hezbollah and the Houthis, who are also active participants (in different capacities) in this war. But the international media narrative has focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Gaza, something that Israel’s government has desperately tried to change. Criticized at home for his failure to achieve the war’s aims and criticized abroad for failing to adequately protect civilians and humanitarian workers in Gaza, Iran’s missile strikes indirectly threw Netanyahu a lifeline.
However, for every argument there is a counterargument. Israel isn’t as isolated as some may describe it, but it also needed the help of its regional and international partners in order to minimize the impact of Iran’s aerial assault. If the Islamic Republic were to strike again, and with greater force or with more participation from its proxies, will the result once again play to Israel’s favor? Can Israel rely on this level of international support and cooperation in the future - especially if the situation in Gaza doesn’t improve?
And what is left of Israel’s deterrence if Iran felt comfortable sending such a significant payload? How does Israel build back its deterrence without further escalating tensions with the Islamic Republic, or potentially miscalculating in its response? Why would one assume that the next time Iran would operate the same way, by communicating its intentions with Israel’s neighbors and announcing when it would strike? What lessons has Iran learned about Israel’s defensive capabilities that could potentially expose weaknesses in its systems? I am not making the argument that Iran currently seeks an all-out war with Israel, in fact I think the regime calculated a specific set of costs and benefits prior to launching its attack on April 14 (and may have failed to reach some of those benefits) and will not continue this approach unless further provoked by Israel’s potential response.
And although the international community is focused on deescalating tensions between Israel and the Islamic Republic this week, over time attention will return to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to the imminent or not so imminent campaign in Rafah, and the fact that Israel’s government has yet to produce a plan for The Day After. As much as Netanyahu benefits momentarily from the change in narrative, he understands as well as anyone that it is not in Israel’s interests for the war against Hamas to morph into a regional conflict against Iran. So how can Israel thread the needle between responding to Iran without escalating tensions while also focusing its attention on what should remain priority number one: Gaza?
Assessing the series of events that have transpired between October 7 and April 14 there is no question that Israel’s strategic doctrine has been severely damaged. If deterrence is meant to reduce the pressure exerted on Israeli decision makers to respond during violent escalations and extend the time available to Israel’s political leadership to decide on the nature of its response to an attack, then we are currently in a moment where the pressure on Israeli decision makers is greater than at any point in the last 50 years and the impulse to act is greater than the impulse to wait. In this moment it is more important than ever to ask questions - not just about how we got here and who is responsible - but also about how, together with those who share our interests and values, Israel can start walking back from the brink and towards a more secure future.
As is the Invisible Boundaries tradition, I am sharing three links worth checking out that relate to this week’s newsletter:
Few policy institutes have done a more thorough job of tracking the developments of the Israel-Hamas war than the Institute for the Study of War. It is well worth checking out their daily updates, which include specific details and maps of what is transpiring on the ground. The Israel-Hamas war falls under ISW’s “Iran Updates” which tells you something about how the institute contextualizes the conflict. ISW published a recent piece by Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan who draw a line between Iran’s missile strike and the ongoing war in Ukraine and their assessment is more pessimistic than President Biden’s.
The Islamic Republic of Iran casts a long shadow over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I suggest reading Alex Vatanka’s piece to better understand its policy towards the current war and the limitations of its influence over Palestinian actors.
Last but not least, check out Neri Zilber’s detailed description of Israel’s potential responses to the Iranian attack as well as the argument made by Jeremy Issacharoff, former Israeli ambassador to Germany, that Israel’s best counter to the threat of Iran and Hamas is to pursue a two-state solution. Do you agree? Disagree? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I hope you found this newsletter interesting. Please feel free to share with others and spread the word.
Best,
Gabi