We were dismayed by President Biden’s offer the other day of a military assistance and diplomatic backing “compensation package” if Israel would refrain from attacking certain sites in Iran – believed to include nuclear sites and oil fields – when retaliating for Iran’s recent missile barrage. (The President is also, somewhat incongruously, calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon.) Yet, Iran is perhaps more militarily vulnerable now than any time since the early days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, presenting a real opportunity to deal decisively with Iran’s role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and its march towards getting nuclear weapons.
So, it would seem that our side should be thinking about how to exploit Iranian weakness and not how to rescue them. Nor can there be any doubt that this is a period of serious exposure for Iran.
Citing American and Israeli security analysts and former officials, Israel now has a freer hand to respond to Iran’s missile barrage last week in retaliation against Israel’s assassination of Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran than it did in April following an earlier Iranian missile attack on Israel.
Thus, in April, Israel was reportedly worried that too intense an Israeli response would prompt Iran to order its proxies – particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon – to retaliate extensively. However, after launching a bombing campaign that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with other senior leaders and an almost simultaneous ground invasion into Lebanon, Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah and substantially diminished its deterrence against wider Israeli action.
The New York Times reports that American officials are saying that the Israeli actions against Hezbollah have severely damaged its command-and-control structure, leaving few senior people to give orders to the lower-level fighters. In addition, it appears that Israel has destroyed about half of Hezbollah’s arsenal but the latter’s efforts to get a commitment from Iran to replenish them has so far been unavailing. And if Hezbollah uses up most of the rest of its arsenal and is not able to replenish it, any deterrence would evaporate.
In addition, the successful targeting of so many leaders – especially Nasrallah – reveals a startling level of Israel’s penetration of Hezbollah’s security apparatus and militates against the notion of orderly decision-making itself. It has also caused panic amongst those who aspire to succeed the recently departed leaders.
We note the September 20 air strike in which the leadership of the special operations command of Hezbollah, known as the Radwan force was eliminated. The deaths included that of Ibrahim Aqeel, effectively Hezbollah’s chief of operations. And this is to say nothing of those exploding pagers and walkie-talkies.
And of course, the assassination of Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh while he was a guest of the Iranian government in a “safe house” in Teheran showed that Israel could attack in the heart of Iran such that Iranian leaders live at the sufferance of Israel. So, the reports we are hearing of a panicked Iranian government in hiding and in great disarray are likely true.
At all events, Iran is clearly in a very tough place. As we see it then, this is a time to maximize pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran and not to pull any punches.
