Iran’s missile attack on Israel on Tuesday was highly significant in scale and aggression.
Some analysts, such as Ian Bremmer, emphasize Iran’s prior notice to the United States that its attack was imminent. Others, such as U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, are emphasizing the successful interception of a large number of Iranian missiles by the U.S. and Israel. With Israel apparently suffering no casualties, these arguments suggest that Iran sought to avoid dramatic escalation and that cooler heads can now prevail.
It sounds good. The problem is that there is at least one undeniable piece of evidence that Iran wanted to kill a significant number of Israelis with this attack. Namely, the fact that Iran focused on saturation strikes involving numerous ballistic missiles launched in near-simultaneous fashion against individual targets. This tactic is inherently designed to overwhelm missile defense systems and cause maximal damage at specific locations. Had Iran wanted to exercise true caution against escalation, it could have warned the U.S. in advance while also employing cruise missiles that are easier to shoot down. Alternatively, Iran could have launched ballistic missiles across an extended launch timetable.
And while many of its missiles were shot down, the fact that Iran successfully struck Israeli population centers in a high-visibility attack is what matters most here. Israeli deterrence has been undermined by Iran’s success.
Rightly obsessed that a future Iranian ballistic missile attack might one day carry nuclear warheads, Israel will want to restore deterrence in quick order — so also will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be loath to surrender the strategic initiative Israel has secured amid the recent weeks of spectacular attacks on Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Israeli government will want to make Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and those around him understand that Israel holds the best hand whatever the stakes.
The Biden administration will have to come to grips with this reality. President Joe Biden has been highly deferential to Tehran in the face of previous Iranian terrorist plots and attacks, including against former President Donald Trump and on American forces. But in response to this Iranian attack, Biden should end his equivocation. The White House should offer public diplomatic support, refueling aircraft and targeting intelligence that supports Israel’s imposition costs on Iran for what it has done. The U.S. should also impose its own direct costs on Iran by striking Iranian forces that are supporting the Houthi rebel destabilization of the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.
At the same time, however, the U.S. should push Israel to retaliate in a short and sharp fashion. This might, for example, entail strikes against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters and Guard missile command-and-control apparatus, against missile stockpiles, and against radar and air defense networks. Israel needs to impose more potent costs on Iran now than it did with its own strikes against an Iranian air defense system that followed a more restrained Iranian missile attack in April.
Still, Israel cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear program without U.S. support. And it is not in the U.S. interest to see Israeli action that either attempts to decapitate the Iranian regime or degrade its nuclear facilities. That’s because such action would almost certainly lead to a full-scale war. It would mean terrorist attacks unleashed across the globe, a naval conflict in the Persian Gulf over energy transit routes, scaled-up ballistic missile attacks across the Middle East, and significant bloodshed on all sides. It would also drain U.S. air defense weapons reserves that are already far too limited to cope with the contingency of a war with China. And that war is likely coming before 2030.
To be clear, the Biden administration’s deferential policy of sanctions relief for Iran is an unambiguous failure. It has fueled Iran’s ability to carry out attacks, such as the one we have just seen, and has helped Iran boost its nuclear program and otherwise sclerotic economy. But unless the Iranian people rise up against the regime amid Israeli action, the regime would retain power even under maximal military pressure. But the human, economic, and other costs of that war would be significant and highly unpredictable. The U.S. might be forced to choose between defending Israel and abandoning the Philippines to Chinese aggression, for example.
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The Pentagon-U.S. public appetite for a war with Iran is low. And rightly so.
But to support Israel in educating Iran about the excess costs of actions such as Tuesday’s, the Pentagon-U.S. public appetite is high. That objective can be accomplished in a way that mitigates the risk of full-scale war.