With Israel preparing to launch an attack on Iran after surprising friends and enemies alike with its expanded attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon a few days ago, and then the Iranian bombing of Israel, there is now talk of an inevitable slide towards a new war in the Middle East.
A number of experts in the field of decision-making at the intelligence and military levels told Reuters that there are still factors that prevent the region from being dragged into a major conflagration that could push Israel and Tehran into an escalating conflict that would drag other countries into it.
The experts added that Israel would likely not back down from launching an air attack on Iran in the next few days in response to Tehran’s launch of about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
“Whoever attacks us, we will attack him,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a meeting with the security cabinet on Tuesday evening.
Yesterday, Saturday, Netanyahu confirmed that his government would confront “all Iranian threats,” holding Tehran responsible for the strikes on Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation announced that the government decided to launch an attack, which it described as “strong and large,” on Iran, stressing that preparations are being made in coordination with Washington, while the Israeli army has raised its state of alert on all fronts in light of its readiness to respond to the Iranian attack.
However, Israeli officials have informed their American counterparts that their response to the Iranian attack will be “thoughtful” but have not yet provided a final list of potential targets, according to a source in Washington familiar with the discussions who requested anonymity.
Potential targets
Former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamed said, “I believe that the targets that will be chosen will be chosen carefully and with great care.”
He added that potential targets include sites of military importance to Iran, such as missile infrastructure, communications centers and power plants.
More than six former officials from the United States and Middle Eastern countries who worked in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic fields said – during interviews conducted by Reuters – that Israel will likely not target the oil facilities that support Iran’s economy or the nuclear sites.
Experts expected that the bombing of these highly sensitive targets would lead to a strong Iranian reaction, including the possibility of Tehran launching attacks on oil production sites for US allies in the region, including the Arab Gulf states.
US President Joe Biden said – Thursday – that he would not reveal the progress of the negotiations he was conducting publicly when he was asked whether he urged Israel not to attack Iranian oil facilities.
Biden’s statements came hours after he said that Washington was discussing such Israeli strikes, which led to a rise in oil prices.
Israel surprised most of the world with its violent and expanded attack on Hezbollah – supported by Iran – last month, which began by detonating thousands of communication devices known as “pagers” and walkie-talkies used by party members, and the attack continued with the assassination of the party’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasr. God launched an air strike on Beirut, and the matter reached the point of a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
Norman Rolle, a former CIA official who was in charge of the Iranian file from 2008 to 2017, said, “It is not wise for outside observers to try to speculate on the Israeli attack plan.”
He added, “But if Israel decides to launch a strike that is both proportionate and substantive, it may choose to limit its attacks on Iranian missiles and the structure of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supported the attacks launched by Tehran and its proxies on Israel.”
Rolle, a senior advisor to the United Against Nuclear Iran group, said that Israel could bomb Iranian facilities working in refining gasoline and diesel for domestic consumption while avoiding facilities that are used to export oil, which would deprive Tehran of any justification it might resort to to bomb facilities. Oil in the Gulf countries and limits the rise in crude oil prices.
Iran is a ‘cautious adversary’
If a broader conflict erupts in the Middle East, it will likely not resemble the grinding ground wars of past decades between warring armies.
Over the past year, no military confrontations have occurred between sovereign countries except between Iran and Israel, which are separated by two other countries and vast areas of desert land.
Because of the vast distance between them, operations between Israel and Iran were limited to exchanging air strikes, secret operations, and the use of armed factions such as Hezbollah.
Iran has long threatened to destroy Israel, but it has taken a cautious stance in this crisis as it carefully studied two air attacks it launched against Israel, the first in April after Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing several leaders, and the second this week. After the killing of Nasrallah.
The two Iranian attacks only resulted in the deaths of two Israelis, according to the Israeli authorities.
It is widely believed that Egypt – which fought wars with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 and signed a peace treaty with it in 1979 – has little interest in entering this conflict.
As for Syria – an ally of Iran that also fought battles with Israel in the past – it is mired in economic collapse after a decade of internal conflict in the wake of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
The Gulf states – which have strong partnerships with the United States on the security level – want to distance themselves from this conflict.
The United States says it will do everything it can to defend Israel against Iran and allied groups, but no one believes it will deploy troops on the ground as it did in the 1990 and 2003 Gulf wars against Iraq.
Is it possible to hit nuclear sites?
War is already a grim reality for many in the region.
According to Israeli and Palestinian officials and United Nations statistics, the Al-Aqsa flood attack launched by the Palestinian resistance, led by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), on Israel on the 7th of last October led to the death of 1,200 people, while the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip led to About 42 thousand were killed, and almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip, numbering about 2.3 million people, was displaced.
Clashes between Hezbollah and Israel also forced thousands of families in northern Israel and southern Lebanon to leave their homes.
The informed source in Washington said that the United States is not pressuring Israel to refrain from a military response to the latest Iranian attack, as it did in April, but it calls for careful consideration of the potential consequences of any response.
However, Washington’s influence over Israel has proven limited and Netanyahu remains determined to target what he describes as “Israel’s enemies.”
“The Israelis have already crossed every red line we set for them,” said Richard Hooker, a retired US Army officer who served on the National Security Council under Republican and Democratic presidents.
The approaching US presidential elections scheduled for November 5 also means that Biden’s ability to persuade has become limited during the final months he spends in the White House.
Biden told reporters on Wednesday that Israel has the right to respond “proportionately.” He explained that he does not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel and Western countries say that the Iranians have a program aimed at making nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.
On the contrary, former US President and Republican candidate for the upcoming elections, Donald Trump, said that Israel should strike Iranian nuclear facilities.
Trump referred to a question asked to Biden about the possibility of Israel targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. Trump said, “They asked him this question, and the answer should have been: Strike the nuclear first, and take care of the rest later.”
Hooker said targeting such sites was possible but unlikely “because when you do something like this, you put the Iranian leadership in a position to do something very tragic in response.”
Israel considers Tehran’s nuclear program an existential threat to it. It is widely believed that Israel is the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, although it has neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses such weapons.
US Senator: Strike Iranian oil refineries
Voices have been raised in Washington calling for a strike on refineries and other energy facilities in Iran. US sanctions on Tehran have not yet succeeded in stopping the activity of the oil sector.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said – in a statement – “Strong strikes must be directed at (Iranian) oil refineries because they are the source of money for that regime.”
The Arab Gulf states fear Iran’s response if its oil facilities are targeted.
Oil has been trading in a narrow price range ranging between $70 and $90 per barrel during recent years, despite the war between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.
Analysts say OPEC has enough spare capacity to cope even if Iran’s production stops completely. But it will face difficulties in compensating for the lost Iranian production if the escalation harms the operational capacity of the oil sector in Saudi Arabia or the UAE.