THE Israeli air force and Mossad spy agency have left Iran’s Islamist leadership on the ropes.
Yesterday’s extraordinary mix of targeted assassinations of Iran’s military and nuclear masterminds and heavy blows to the country’s air defences will be a textbook case for study in military academies for decades to come.
GettyBuildings in Tehran were razed to the ground after Israel’s attack[/caption]
AFPAyatollah Ali Khamenei and his surviving henchmen — provided they keep control of Iran — will remain a threat to Israel[/caption]
ReutersIsraeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made it clear that he is determined to neuter Iran’s nuclear project to stop it from getting an atomic bomb[/caption]
The operation grew out of how it knocked out Iran’s proxy allies, Hezbollah, in nearby Lebanon last autumn.
Back then, an astonishing mix of exploding pagers and precision bombing strikes paralysed Iran’s main proxy terrorist ally, other than Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has a long record as the master of the surprise attack.
The current crisis echoes how it initiated the Six-Day War in June, 1967.
Then, Israeli bombers destroyed Egypt’s air force on the ground at dawn on the first day. Five days later, the Israeli Army stood along Egypt’s Suez Canal and on Syria’s Golan Heights and captured Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.
Dramatic seizure
But that’s also where today’s conflict is very different from the one 58 years ago.
Israel’s planes and spies have hit Iran hard but the Israeli Army is not going to repeat 1967’s dramatic seizure of enemy territory.
Israel’s soldiers already have their hands full fighting Hamas in Gaza and keeping control of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli tanks are not going to roll east to Tehran.
That means that the Ayatollah and his surviving henchmen — provided they keep control of Iran — will remain a threat to Israel.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has made it clear that he is determined to neuter Iran’s nuclear project to stop it getting an atomic bomb.
But he argues that regime change in Tehran is the only way to kill that threat, not an Israeli occupation.
Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Shah’s Iran was friendly to Israel and shipped oil there.
Optimists hope that situation could return if the brutal regime of the Ayatollahs collapses in humiliation because it could not deter the Israeli strikes.
Syria’s new government since the fall of Iran’s ally, President Assad, last December, has been reaching out to the West and turned a blind eye to Israeli overflights to attack Iran yesterday.
It’s possible a revolution against the Islamic Republic in Iran could lead the country back to a pro-Western and pro-Israeli position.
But that is not guaranteed.
So long as the Islamist regime remains in place in Iran, strikes by Israel and counterattacks by Iran can be expected.
Friday’s dramatic developments should not delude us that this war is virtually over.
Iran might have spent yesterday waiting for nightfall before trying to hit back with its missiles under the cover of darkness, so it would be harder for Israeli bombers to locate their movement to launch sites.
But it is possible that Israel’s mix of decapitation of key military planners and damage to Iran’s weapons stockpiles has weakened Iran hugely, but not yet made it surrender.
Friday’s dramatic developments should not delude us that this war is virtually over.
Israel has been fighting a covert war of sabotage and assassination against Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes for a long time.
The world faces a much bigger crisis since the latest explosive conflict between Israel and Iran. And no one knows how to handle the shock waves.
Only a few weeks ago, a stockpile of raw materials for Iran’s rocket fuel which had been delivered from China went up in smoke.
Such trade reminds us that Iran is not absolutely friendless.
Other pariah states could help it in this crisis.
Russia, in particular, is a military partner.
It has bought thousands of Iranian Shahed drones to attack Ukraine.
Now Iran’s drone supplies to Russia will dry up as the Ayatollah keeps them for his war with Israel.
But the plus side for Putin is that oil prices are soaring, helping him to pay for his war on Ukraine while American and European attention is distracted in the Middle East.
Even if Russia does not get involved, its vast territory could be a useful route for Iran to get help from an actual nuclear-armed rogue state, North Korea.
Will North Korea now supply Tehran with weapons, even a ready-made atomic bomb from its own stockpile?
Israel’s nuclear nightmare is not over just yet.
Wounded predator
The Israeli surprise attack has also killed off any American or European ability to act as Middle East mediators.
President Trump had originally tried to keep nuclear talks going with Iran but now he has come all-in behind Israel.
He has posted on his Truth social media platform about America’s willingness to supply even more powerful weapons to Israel as it pursues an air campaign to degrade Iran’s military power.
Israel’s other Western friends, including Britain could also be seen as “soft targets” by Iranian agents.
Iran’s Islamic regime is a dangerous wounded predator.
It cannot defeat Israel, but it could go mad and unleash terrorism, even using chemical weapons which its industries can make much more easily than nuclear weapons.
The world faces a much bigger crisis since the latest explosive conflict between Israel and Iran. And no one knows how to handle the shock waves.
APIsrael’s Iron Dome air defence system intercepts missiles over Tel Aviv on Friday[/caption]
APSmoke rises over Tel Aviv after Iran launched a retaliatory attack[/caption]
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