XPost: soc.history.war.misc, sci.military.naval, or.politics
XPost: seattle.politics, ca.politics
from
https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-missiles-war-hezbollah-fdc927f764375fabf88041f5a63f3e0f?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDwgAKgcICjCE7s4BMOH0KDD0r4AD&utm_content=rundown
Israel and Iran’s apparent strikes and counterstrikes give new insights
into both militaries
BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Updated 9:39 PM PDT, April 19, 2024
Share
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel demonstrated its military dominance over
adversary Iran in its apparent precision strikes that hit near military
and nuclear targets deep in the heart of the country, meeting little significant challenge from Iran’s defenses and providing the world with
new insights into both militaries’ capabilities.
The international community, Israel and Iran all signaled hopes that
Friday’s airstrikes would end what has been a dangerous 19-day run of
strikes and counterstrikes, a highly public test between two deep rivals
that had previously stopped short of most direct confrontation.
The move into open fighting began April 1 with the suspected Israeli
killing of Iranian generals at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria.
That prompted Iran’s retaliatory barrage last weekend of more than 300 missiles and drones that the U.S., Israel and regional and international partners helped bat down without significant damage in Israel. And then
came Friday’s apparent Israeli strike.
As all sides took stock, regional security experts predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the country’s
allies would emerge encouraged by the Israeli military’s superior performance. In response to international appeals, however, both Israel
and Iran had appeared to be holding back their full military force
throughout the more than two weeks of hostilities, aiming to send
messages rather than escalate to a full-scale war.
READ MORE
FILE - Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli
gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024.
President Joe Biden can breathe a little bit easier with Israel and Iran seemingly stepping back from the brink of plunging the Middle East into
all-out war. But challenges across the Middle East are testing the
proposition he made to voters during his 2020 campaign: A Biden White
House would bring a measure of calm around the globe and renewed respect
on the world stage. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
Biden avoids a further Mideast spiral as Israel and Iran show restraint.
But for how long?
A Palestinian youth mourns his relative killed in the Israeli
bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at the morgue of the Kuwaiti Hospital in
Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, April 20, 2024.
(AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
An Israeli airstrike in Gaza’s south kills at least 9 Palestinians,
including 6 children
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during the AmCham China
Fireside Chat held at the Baiyun International Conference Center (BICC)
in southern China's Guangdong province, Friday, April 5, 2024.(AP
Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)
Thai plastics firm will pay $20 million to settle with U.S. over Iran
sanctions violations
Crucially, experts also cautioned that Iran had not brought into the
main battle its greatest military advantage over Israel — Hezbollah and
other Iran-allied armed groups in the region. Hezbollah in particular is capable of straining Israel’s ability to defend itself, especially in
any multifront conflict.
Overall, “the big-picture lesson to take away is that unless Iran does absolutely everything at its disposal all at once, it is just the David,
and not the Goliath, in this equation,” said Charles Lister, a senior
fellow and longtime regional researcher at the Washington-based Middle
East Institute.
Aside from those Iranian proxy forces, “the Israelis have every single advantage on every single military level,” Lister said.
In Friday’s attack, Iranian state television said the country’s air
defense batteries fired in several provinces following reports of
drones. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews
targeted several flying objects.
Lister said it appeared to have been a single mission by a small number
of Israeli aircraft. After crossing Syrian airspace, it appears they
fired only two or three Blue Sparrow air-to-surface missiles into Iran,
most likely from a standoff position in the airspace of Iran’s neighbor
Iraq, he said.
Iran said its air defenses fired at a major air base near Isfahan.
Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been
repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.
Israel has not taken responsibility for either the April 1 or Friday
strikes.
The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a
Washington-based center that promotes Israeli-U.S. security ties,
quickly pointed out that Friday’s small strike underscored that Israel
could do much more damage “should it decide to launch a larger strike
against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Iran’s barrage last weekend, by contrast, appears to have used up most
of its 150 long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel,
more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command.
Especially given the distance involved and how easy it is for the U.S.
and others to track missile deployments by overhead space sensors and
regional radar, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue
against Israel,” McKenzie said.
Israelis, for their part, have “shown that Israel can now hit Iran from
its soil with missiles, maybe even drones,” said Alex Vatanka, director
of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute.
Iran’s performance Friday, meanwhile, may have raised doubts about its ability to defend against such an attack, Vatanka said. Iran is about 80
times the size of Israel and thus has much more territory to defend, he
noted.
Plus, Israel demonstrated that it can rally support from powerful
regional and international countries, both Arab and Western, to defend
against Iran.
The U.S. led in helping Israel knock down Iran’s missile and drone
attack on April 13. Jordan and Gulf countries are believed to have lent
varying degrees of assistance, including in sharing information about
incoming strikes.
The two weeks of hostilities also provided the biggest showcase yet of
the growing ability of Israel to work with Arab nations, its previous
enemies, under the framework of U.S. Central Command, which oversees
U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The U.S. under the Trump administration moved responsibility for its
military coordination with Israel into Central Command, which already
hosted U.S. military coordination with Arab countries. The Biden
administration has worked to deepen the relationship.
But while the exchange of Israeli-Iran strikes revealed more about
Iran’s military abilities, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and other
Iranian-allied armed groups in Iraq and Syria largely appeared to stay
on the sidelines.
Hezbollah is one of the most powerful militaries in the region, with
tens of thousands of experienced fighters and a massive weapons arsenal.
After an intense war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 that killed
more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and dozens of Israeli civilians,
both sides have held back from escalating to another full-scale
conflict. But Israeli and Hezbollah militaries still routinely fire
across each other’s borders during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Hezbollah “is Iran’s only remaining potential advantage in this whole broader equation,” Lister said.
Six months of fighting in Gaza have “completely stretched” Israel’s military, he said. “If Hezbollah went all out and launched the vast
majority of its rocket and missile arsenal at Israel, all at once, the
Israelis would seriously struggle to deal with that.”
And in terms of ground forces, if Hezbollah suddenly opened a second
front, the Israel Defense Forces “would be incapable at this point” of fighting full-on with both Hezbollah and Hamas, he said.
ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Foreign policy, national security, foreign policy & climate
twitter
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)