Israel’s surprise attack on Iran in the early hours of Friday morning killed at least nine leading nuclear scientists, damaged key nuclear facilities, eliminated the Iranians’ top military brass, sowed confusion in the command-and-control centres and damaged air defence systems and ballistic missile production sites.
By Saturday afternoon the Israel Defense Forces announced that Israeli jets were now flying with impunity over Tehran and western Iran. Iran is a vast country and the bank of potential targets is enormous: the war is expected to continue for at least a fortnight.
Israel has the ability to inflict significant damage on Iran’s nuclear project and may already have set back the time it will take Tehran to assemble a nuclear bomb by a few years. The facility in Natanz has been severely damaged, and may have been put out of commission for the foreseeable future. Part of the facility in Isfahan has also suffered heavy damage. However, the primary aim of the war for Israel – preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb – will require the US to join the fray.
Israel struck areas near Qom, but the Fordow site, where it is believed most of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is stored deep underground, can only be destroyed by US long-range B-2 bombers, based in the Indian Ocean, dropping advanced bunker busters – almost the only ordinance Washington has refused to transfer to Israel.
Israel clearly has an interest in the US joining the war and is hoping that the regime in Iran will somehow provoke such a scenario. Threats over the weekend by Iranian military commanders of an escalating regional conflict that will also target American military installations throughout the Middle East, could be an indication of such a direction.
US officials have been careful to stress that they were not part of the Israeli attack, even though they did have prior knowledge.
US president Donald Trump’s moves in the coming days will be critical in shaping the direction of the war.
Meanwhile, the initial euphoria in Israel is waning as the home front begins to pay a heavy price. Iranian ballistic missiles slammed into residential areas of Rishon Letsion, Bat Yam and Rehovot over the weekend, along with the Arab town of Tamra, in the north. The destruction was on a scale never witnessed before and it is clear that this is only the beginning.
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The interception rate by Israel’s layers of missile defence remains impressively high but it only takes a few projectiles to get through. For the foreseeable future Israelis will go to bed knowing that they will be woken up by sirens and praying that the missiles will not land on their neighbourhood.
