Israel’s air strikes on Iran on 13 June, decapitating its top military command and targeting nuclear and military facilities, caught Iran by surprise. Tehran, engaged in indirect talks with Washington, failed to anticipate that President Donald Trump’s coercive diplomacy on Iran’s nuclear issue would embolden Israel to undertake a military operation against Iran. Since 7 October 2023, as Israel waged a war against Iran’s allies including Hamas in Gaza and degraded Hezbollah in Lebanon, it also inched closer to a direct confrontation with Iran. The exchange of missile strikes between Iran and Israel last year underscored Iran’s failing deterrence.
Israel’s declared objective is to “eliminate the double existential threat” of Iran’s nuclear programme and its ballistic missile capabilities. It has been seeking US involvement to strike at Iran’s nuclear sites, especially Fordow, which is buried deep under a mountain. The threat of direct US involvement on the Israeli side has acted as a constraint on Iran. Initial Iranian retaliatory strikes on Israel were not aimed at escalation. As the conflict stretches on, Iran will come to see escalation against Israel as a form of deterrence by punishment. Iranian leaders have warned that an American intervention will invite an “all-out war” in the region.
The Unravelling of Iran’s “Forward Defence”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his video statement announcing the military operation “Rising Lion”, noted that he ordered plans for the attack last November, soon after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. By degrading the offensive capabilities of Hezbollah, Israel dealt a severe blow to Iran’s forward defence strategy, which based homeland defence on confronting threats and enemies as far from Iranian borders as possible. For Iran, its allies in the “axis of resistance,” particularly the forward strike capability of Hezbollah, served the purpose of deterrence against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. As part of a war avoidance strategy, Iran’s proxies provide a buffer against direct conflict involving Iran and the United States. After President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018 and launched a sanctions-based “maximum pressure” campaign, to counter Iran’s strategy of deterrence through proxies, Israeli military leadership devised the Octopus Doctrine, calling for recalibrating Israel’s national security resources from fighting Iran’s proxies to weakening the “primary enemy,” that is Iran. Since launching its war against Hamas in October 2023, Israel has intensified its grey-zone attacks targeting Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders in Syria and Lebanon to raise costs for its alleged involvement in targeting Israel. By targeting Iran’s Beirut consulate in April 2024, Israel signalled that it was getting closer to launching a direct attack on Iran.
