The international community calls for restraint while holding its breath in the face of the retaliation that Israel may be preparing, which is considered certain, in the face of the latest Iranian offensive. Washington defends Israel’s right to defend itself and acknowledges that it is in contact with Israel on this. “We are discussing that” although “nothing is going to happen today,” President Joe Biden acknowledged when asked this Thursday about a possible bombing of Iranian oil infrastructure after having opposed the bombing of its nuclear facilities. This attack that is being prepared threatens to further deepen the spiral of violence in the Middle East and push into the abyss of an open regional war, one year after the conflict that began on October 7.
Washington has been against directly hitting Tehran’s nuclear system. Biden himself has asked that the response be “proportionate,” although he has also pointed out that the United States—in coordination with the G-7 countries—will take measures on its part, such as imposing a new round of sanctions against the Iranian regime, as punishment for Tuesday’s offensive. And this Thursday, the American president recalled that, in the end, the one who will have the last word in the response will be Israel: “We do not give permission to Israel. We give advice to Israel,” he concluded.
It remains to be seen what the response already announced by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will take shape, when he will implement it and whether the opinion of his allies, mainly the United States, will be decisive. Because no one foresees that the president is going to sit idly by at a time when his war plans, cemented especially throughout the last year of war, are increasingly incompatible with the search for ceasefire agreements. All this despite the fact that there are still a hundred hostages in Gaza, whose release under a truce is getting further and further away. The possible response options being considered for the Iranian offensive could involve ordering its secret services or its army to carry out one or more murders among senior officials of the regime. Also due to a possible bombing of Iranian nuclear program facilities, military bases or, as Biden has been asked, on oil infrastructure.
“I think the answer is going to be some type of military installation,” says security analyst Jesús Manuel Pérez Triana, who points out this possibility after Israel recently attacked Syrian anti-aircraft systems, which would provide a “corridor” for reach Iran. “It seems to me that there is no one interested right now in an escalation,” he adds in a telephone conversation. He does not see Netanyahu, who believes he is being pressured by Washington, ordering a bombing of nuclear facilities because it is “technically complicated” and because it would mean a very serious aggravation of the conflict. Nor about refineries, since that would affect the international oil market and could also have consequences for its allies.
Mike Mulroy, former US Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and now an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, also believes that the option of an attack against nuclear infrastructure would be too complicated, even technically: to carry it out it would require US equipment that Washington would hardly allow him to use. But the rumored possibility of this type of retaliation is not bad for Israel: if it chooses to attack Iranian oil facilities, he points out, the Netanyahu government can claim that it decided “to do something less aggressive to conform to Biden’s recommendations and try “Do not escalate tensions.”
In what has been its biggest challenge, Tehran launched some 180 missiles into Israeli territory on Tuesday in revenge for the assassination of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general. It caused only one fatality, a Gazan, and the damage was not extensive, but some projectiles managed to hit inhabited areas and several military bases. This represents the greatest achievement of the Iranian regime in the conflict it has had for decades with Israel. Automatically, this attack has opened the door to a possible response by the Jewish State, which considers Iran the brain and driver of what they call the axis of evil, which also includes Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
Reduce tension
Among the calls to reduce tension are those of President Pedro Sánchez, who has condemned Iran’s attack, while demanding a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza and that international law be respected. “It is necessary to avoid an escalation of unforeseeable consequences,” he said this Thursday. Tehran, for its part, has described the G-7’s condemnation of its attack on Israel as “biased and irresponsible,” according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry, Reuters reports. This group of countries has also expressed its “deep concern” about the regional crisis and demands a diplomatic solution.
Although Israel is celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Biden has stressed that this Thursday “nothing is going to happen,” an attack could occur at any moment. So far, neither the Government nor the army have offered clues about what option they are considering, but in the last two days meetings have been held at the highest level. Also the pressure and advice from international diplomacy so that Netanyahu does not push the region to the precipice of an armed conflict with complicated reversal and worldwide consequences.
“We are at the height of a difficult war against the Iranian axis of evil, which wants to destroy us,” Netanyahu said in a video in which he expressed his condolences for the death on Wednesday of eight Israeli soldiers in Lebanese territory. It has been the worst day experienced so far by its troops in their clashes in the last year with the militia sponsored by Tehran. The authorities of that country have ended their offensive unless there are new provocations from the Israeli side, something that has not altered the Jewish State’s retaliation plans in any way.
“Now, more than at any other time in the last decade, the option of a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is on the table,” says Nadav Eyal in the newspaper Yediot Ahronoth. But at the same time, he admits that “an attack on Iran could provide the regime with international legitimacy to explode a bomb” and “would turn the war into an all-out regional war.” “A direct conflict with Iran could last for years. “The Iranians are patient, and Hamas and Hezbollah may be weak, but they still exist and represent a military threat,” he adds.
The two attacks that Iran has carried out so far in the current war against Israel, the one in April and the one this week, can be considered “decaffeinated”, although in the second they have used supersonic ballistic missiles, raising their stakes, interprets Pérez Triana . There have been no Israeli fatalities in any of them. Six days after launching some 300 missiles and drones in April, Israel carried out a moderate response after international diplomacy had appealed for restraint for several days, something similar to what is happening now.
Netanyahu presents his strategy as an existential issue for Israel in the face of those who seek to destroy it at all costs. Although some sectors of Israeli society see this response to Iran as their umpteenth attempt to cling to power and maintain their immunity. On October 7, 2023, not only did the current war begin, with the massacre in Israeli territory of some 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250 in an attack led by Hamas; That day also began the race for the survival of the prime minister, who was then identified as the person most responsible for the biggest security hole in the country’s history.
