May 10, 2024
by Warren L. Nelson
Apart from military success and failure, there is the question of what either side accomplished politically. Israel appears to have gained in standing with Europe and the US while also earning points with Arab leaders by not doing what its usually does over-react.
Its minimal retaliation satisfied almost everyone from Washington to yes Tehran. The only complaints came from ultra-hardliners in Israel itself. As for the Islamic Republic and its massive barrage, it racked up a host of negatives and it’s hard to see any positives for its barrage except that it satisfied most of its own ultra-hardliners (which was likely one major goal of the barrage). Otherwise:
• It showed that all the missiles it has been building and boasting about this past decade were totally useless against Israel’s counter-missile defense, although it must be recognized that Israel’s missile defense cost much more than the Islamic Republic’s missile offense.
• It may have brought the Arabs together with Israel and the US to build a joint missile defense system. The US has been trying to convince the Arab states of the Persian Gulf since the 1980s to build such a system in the Persian Gulf. They can easily afford it. The Gulf Arabs agreed in the 1980s to build such a system but didn’t do anything. That may now have changed, but it will be some months before we know for sure about that.
• It appears to have convinced most Arab states (but not their citizens) that the real threat to them comes from Iran and not Israel. Only the Houthis in Yemen lauded the Islamic Republic for its attack. Even Syria remained silent. Steven Cook, a Mideast analyst with the US Council on Foreign Relations, said that no matter how much countries in the region dislike Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, they dislike the Islamic Republic even more. Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Iran’s attack was “a major strategic error. He said it was a classic case of ignoring Napoleon’s dictum: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
• It further riled the Europeans, who have gone from tolerating the Islamic Republic and telling the Americans for many decades to cool it, to instead be entirely fed up with the Tehran regime and discuss what more it can do to disable the regime.
• It used up the majority of its long-range missiles that can reach Israel (according to the former commander of the US Central Command) meaning that it cannot launch a bigger barrage against Israel in the near future.
• It distracted the world from focusing on Gaza contrary to the Islamic Republic’s interests and what Israel is doing there, although that may be only a transitory development. According to the latest count by Israel, the Iranian attack of April 14 totaled 330 missiles and drones.
Military analysts said the 145 ballistic and cruise missiles comprised the largest missile barrage ever carried out in history. The 185 drones were apparently not intended to do any damage. It took 6-1/2 hours for the slow drones to make their way to Israel. Their purpose was to distract Israel and occupy its missile defense system.
As the drones neared Israel, the Islamic Republic then unleashed 110 ballistic missiles and 35 cruise missiles that were intended to overwhelm Israel’s defenses and do major damage to the Israeli military. The Islamic Republic says it only targeted Israeli military and not civilian sites. There is little reason to question that. While Tehran was damning Israel for killing Gazan civilians, it would not earn Iran any brownie points to be seen murdering thousands of Israeli civilians.
Pasdar commanders say the missiles were aimed at two Israeli airbases in the Negev Desert in the far south of Israel Nevatim and Ramon and a radar site on Mount Hermon at the northern tip of Israel. They said Nevatim and Mount Hermon were targeted because they were the installations central to the April 1 Israeli attack that leveled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed the Pasdar officer team that ran Pasdar operations in that part of the Arab world.
The reason for targeting Ramon was not explained. According to Israel, one missile hit the road going up Mount Hermon to the radar site while another cratered a taxiway at Nevatim and a third landed outside a building under construction at Nevatim, doing some damage to the building. It acknowledges no other damage Satellite observation has not turned up any other damage. Commentators the world over have long said that while the Israeli missile defense system was good, it was not great and an Iranian attack using 100 to 200 missiles would surely overwhelm it.
That did not happen, making the Israelis look very good. But critics then fired back that Tehran had given the world 72 hours’ notice that it was attacking, so the Israelis had time to get organized. The whole point of an air defense system, however, is that it is on alert 24 hours a day precisely because it cannot assume any advance warning.
US satellite systems detected Iran bringing missiles out of hidden storage and getting them ready for launch just as it did in 2020 before Iran fired missiles at US troops on the Ain al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq so Israel had advance warning even without Iran saying anything. The latest count from an American official talking to ABC News is that nine of the 145 missiles Iran fired got through Israel’s air defense system.
He said not a single drone reached Israel as all either crashed or were shot down by US, UK and Jordanian planes operating over Jordan. Numerous rocket casings have been photographed where missiles plummeted in the desert. These are what remained after they were hit by Israeli anti-missile missiles.
They did not explode, just plopped onto the ground. ABC News said nine missiles evaded Israeli air defenses with five striking Nevatim and four Ramon, which ignores the one Israel admits hit Mount Hermon in the north. Many other missiles fell harmlessly after they were damaged by Israeli anti-missile missiles. Two were pulled out of the Dead Sea, one on the Jordanian side and the other on the Israeli side.
Another was found a full week after the attack by hikers trudging through the Negev. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the state news agency, said Iran used one type of drone in the attack, the Shahed-136, the type that has gained great fame over Ukraine. IRNA said Iran used one kind of cruise missile, the Paveh, which has subsonic speed and a range of 1,000 miles (1,650 kilometers).
It said it used two kinds of ballistic missiles the brand new Kheibar Shekan, which uses solid fuel and has a range of 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) and the older Emad, which is liquid-fueled, has a range of 1,050 miles (1,700 kilometers) and carries a warhead of 1,650 pounds (750 kilograms). Israeli health authorities say 31 people were treated for injuries they suffered trying to get to air raid shelters. This included panic attacks, heart attacks and injuries from falls as people rushed to shelters.
In addition, a seven-year-old Bedouin girl, Amina al-Hassouni, received major head injuries when she was in her home in the Negev as it was hit by debris falling out of the sky debris some Israelis said came from an Israeli antimissile missile, not an Iranian missile. At last report, after two operations, she was recovering. No other human casualty was reported.
A US official told CBS News that “half” the missiles launched by Iran were defective and crashed long before they could reach Israel. That is a very large number. In general, about 20 percent to 25 percent of Iran’s missiles have failed in 12 previous missile barrages launched against targets outside Iran. For example, Iran fired 16 missiles at Ain al-Assad Air Base in Iraq in 2020 and four of them dropped on Iraqi farmland or desert without ever reaching Ain al-Assad.
If correct, that would mean Israeli air defense had to deal with about 75 incoming missiles, not nearly as many as news reports spoke about, and somewhat simplifying the task of Israeli air defense. If nine of 75 missiles got passed Israeli defenses, that would be a success rate for Israel of 88 percent, not the 99 percent claimed after the attack. A US official said two US Navy warships stationed off Israel in the Mediterranean shot down four to six ballistic missiles using a Standard Missile 3 (SM3) for the first time ever in combat.
Another official said an Army Patriot missile battery based in the Kurdish area of Iraq shot down one ballistic missile. Reuters reported that Jordanian warplanes downed at least one dozen drones and cruise missiles. Britain said its planes shot down “a number” of drones. The US Central Command said its forces destroyed more than 80 drones. Israel’s retaliation was launched April 19.
News reports have spoken for years about how Israel could send dozens of planes into Iranian air space to hit dozens of targets. But, actually, Israel has no combat aircraft with the range to fly over Iran and return without refueling over or in an Arab country (although there have been recent reports of Israel trying to fit its new F-35 190 miles (305 kilometers) so the plane carrying it would have to fly deep into Iran and beyond its range to launch the Rampage.) The Islamic Republic says Israel fired no missiles but rather had its local agents in Esfahan launch three quadcopters, which are small drone helicopters with four rotors; Amazon is experimenting with them to deliver packages to homes.
Iran fired a volume of air defense artillery shells at those quadcopters, which fire was recorded on videos by many in Esfahan. The Islamic Republic says it destroyed all three and prevented any damage. But those quadcopters were apparently a diversion, just like the multitude of drones that Iran sent on the long flight to Israel a week earlier.
Iran’s air defense system apparently never detected the incoming Blue Arrow missile as the sky lit up from the firing at the quadcopters. Satellite photos taken in succeeding days looked for the main radar truck used to track incoming threats (like Blue Arrow missiles and quadcopters) and to guide outgoing missiles to the threats.
The truck was gone and its power.” He said, “The armed forces’ recent achievements have created a sense of splendor and magnificence about Islamic Iran in the eyes of the world and among international observers.” Some analysts claimed that the Islamic Republic didn’t want to cause any damage, just show off its might. But most laughed at that, saying that one doesn’t fire 145 missiles with the intent of doing no harm.
A few days later, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a retired four-star general, was asked about Iran’s attack. He said, “They should be questioning the effectiveness of their weapons systems and their planning.
Hopefully, they don’t walk away from this over-confident that they can do this at will, because I think Israel has demonstrated that it has a significant ability to defend itself.” He said the Islamic Republic should have learned, “first of all, their systems don’t work as advertised, that they employed a lot of munitions with the intent of creating significant damage in Israel and none of that worked. That should give them pause.”