Ignore the naysayers. Israel‘s war with Iran was the most impressive military victory in the country’s history, and perhaps the most lopsided major conflict in the 21st century.
For 12 days, Israel ruled the Iranian air unmolested, targeting major military installations and nuclear facilities. After deploying a slew of creative feints and ruses, the IDF knocked out Iran’s entire aerial defense as Mossad decapitated virtually the entirety of the Iranian military leadership. Among others, Israel killed the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the chief of Iran’s emergency military command, and the commander of the Air Force. Wiping out the enemy’s top generals and disrupting the entire chain of command was an unprecedented feat in warfare. As with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the institutional knowledge and experience lost will take decades to replace.
That was just the opening day.
The IDF estimated that it ended up destroying around 65% of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and up to 1,000 missiles before they were launched. Its military infrastructure has been set back many years and tens of billions of dollars.
Iran, conversely, didn’t hit a signal military target or kill any military personnel (save one soldier killed in a post-ceasefire missile strike who was sleeping in his home). As far as we can tell, Israel lost two drones, all told. Then again, Iran’s launches held no real strategic military purpose other than to terrorize and murder civilians. And we shouldn’t dismiss the destruction. Iran launched over 500 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 drones, killing 27 Israeli civilians.
Still, the Israelis intercepted nearly 95% of ballistic missiles. Iran was never able to overwhelm the Iron Dome, a lifesaving technology developed by Israel and funded by its ally, the United States. The war will only help both nations improve defense technology.
Notwithstanding Iran’s flaccid last-minute face-saving missile attack on U.S. interests in Qatar, the mullahs were humiliated. If Israel desired, it could have decimated the Islamic Republic’s oil and gas industry, plunging the nation into complete collapse.
The propelling reason for the war, of course, was the debilitation of Iran’s nuclear program. Here things get a bit more nebulous.
Along with Israeli and U.S. strikes, at least 16 leading Iranian nuclear scientists were reportedly assassinated by Israel. I’m not sure how many bright young Iranians will be clamoring to get into the field of physics moving forward, but, again, knowledge can’t be easily replaced.
Could Iran simply pick up and start over? Sure. CNN’s anonymous sources say the core components of the program have survived and Iran is “likely only set it back a few months.” Color me skeptical that Iran can simply clean up the decimation of 14 30,000-pound bombs and resume its program in a couple of months. Weaponizing enriched uranium is going to be complicated when most of your infrastructure is smoldering, and the world is watching.
And for all the talk of Israel finding itself alone in that world, nearly every free nation has openly, and every Sunni Arab country quietly, supported the strikes.
The Russians, who were reportedly sent hundreds of deadly “kamikaze” and large drones by the Iranians over the past year, didn’t even bother returning the ayatollah’s calls. Russian President Vladimir Putin went as far as expressing a kinship with Israel’s Russian-speaking population. China, which makes a nice sum selling Iran antiquated military technology at jacked-up prices, was never going to be pulled into a conflict over the Islamic State. The last thing the Chinese want is for the mullahs to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, from which it gets around 45% of its imported oil.
Was the war transformative for the Middle East? If we think about the conflict as having gone hot on Oct. 7, 2023, as we should, it certainly seems so.
Iran’s favored means of striking is activating and sacrificing Arab lives for the cause. This policy has been severely hampered, if not largely extinguished. Hamas is now decimated. Hezbollah didn’t even bother engaging Israel over the past two weeks after having its military leadership and capabilities decimated by Israel. Syrian airspace was wide open as Iran’s ally was toppled. This week, the Israeli national security adviser told the media that both Syria and Lebanon are now candidates for the Abraham Accords. Maybe Arabs are sick of dying for the Iranian regime and its Western cheerleaders. We’ll see.
How long can an authoritarian regime survive plunging its country into war and poverty while trying to sneak a nuke past the world? We might find out. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was almost certainly pushing for a ceasefire because his nation’s war aims were achieved. Israel was never going to topple the clerics. And the U.S. was never going to enact regime change. One suspects this was a better outcome than the Israeli military brass envisioned.
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Americans will be safer, as well. Without a single casualty, the U.S. likely knocked back nuclear proliferation for years. An antagonistic regime with nuclear weapons would be free to pursue terrorist activities and emerge as a haven for our enemies.
Will the war lead to peace with fundamentalist clerics? If the ceasefire creates another Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, former President Barack Obama’s unenforceable deal that allowed Iran to continue its program to the point of no return, they’ll be in conflict again soon enough. If a weakened Iran feels compelled to sign a denuclearization agreement with some teeth, it will have been a diplomatic success, as well.