Is Israel Deterring Iran?

Like the lamest of lame ducks, President Biden is still quacking about the unlikely cease-fire he’s been trying to engineer in the Hamas-Israel war in the Gaza Strip. In his latest warning, Biden said that “no-one in the region should take actions to undermine this process.” But no one — not Hamas, not Israel or Hamas’s sponsor, Iran — is listening to Biden.

Biden sent Secretary of State Tony Blinken to the Middle East again to try for the long-delayed cease fire. No one is going to listen to Blinken either.

Neither side — Israel on one hand and Iran and Hamas on the other — is interested in a cease fire at this point. The August 7 anointment of Yayah Sinwar as the sole leader of Hamas meant that Iranian control of Hamas will be complete as long as Sinwar is alive. (READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Harris and Walz Are the Radicals)

Which may not be much longer. Almost daily, since the Israelis managed to kill both Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas and Fuad Shakur, one of the leaders of Hizballah, the Israelis have managed to kill another top terrorist.

On Saturday, the Israelis did away with Hussein Kassab, another top Hizballah commander. Israel said it was the 412^th such killing of an Hizballah operative since the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7.

According to my friends at the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), on August 12 Hizballah Executive Council Deputy Chairman Sheikh Ali Damoush gave a speech at a memorial to dead Hizballah fighters. In it, he said, “By simply threatening to respond, Hizballah has put the Zionists in a state of exhaustion, paralysis, fear, panic and terror, and everyone is now living on their nerves inside the entity, and some of them are living on tranquilizers.” He said it was “’A serious psychological blow to Israel,’ in the words of some Israeli politicians.”

This is what psychiatrists call “projection.” In rough terms it means accusing the other side of what you’re doing yourself.

On July 20, Israeli air forces struck the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, essentially leaving the port facilities burning. It will take about a year to rebuild them. Israel struck back after a Yemeni drone killed one Israeli in Tel Aviv.

The Hodeidah strike proved that Israeli air forces have the capability to strike at long distances, equal to the distance from their bases in Israel to Tehran.

Add that to the fact that Russia is delivering highly advanced S-400 anti-aircraft/anti-missile systems to Iran. And, as a MEMRI source told me, Israel is penetrating Syrian air defenses — which have the same systems — regularly, presumably with stealthy American-built F-35s.

Israel can, as it proved by the assassination of Haniyeh, operate successfully in Tehran. The fact that Israeli air forces can reach Tehran and operate successfully against targets at that range, means that the ayatollahs are themselves in danger. (Israeli air forces can probably also reach Qom, the other city in Iran in which the ayatollahs sometimes reside.)

Iran’s April strike against Israel failed when almost all of its three hundred drones and missiles were shot down by Israeli, US, Jordanian, and UK forces.

If Iran again launches great numbers of missiles and drones — in addition to those launched by Hizballah in a coordinated strike — Israel may well target the ayatollahs themselves and others in the Iranian leadership. The ayatollahs are quite brave in risking others’ lives. For themselves, not so much.

The fact that Iran hasn’t yet struck directly with its own weapons or those of its northern proxy, Hizballah, means that Iran is not ready for a total war with Israel. That fact proves that Israel is deterring Iran for the moment, not permanently.

Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Iran is on the precipice of developing nuclear weapons. A July report by the Director of National Intelligence said that Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” That report didn’t include its standard language that, Iran “isn’t currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”

In truth, no one really knows how close Iran is to developing and deploying nuclear weapons. It may already have them, either developed at home or purchased from North Korea.

Some reports say that Iran may announce its first deployable nuclear weapons this fall. Biden said, along with previous U.S. presidents, that Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons but he has done precisely nothing to ensure that they cannot.

Iran is much more respectful of Israeli Prime Mister Netanyahu than it is of Biden. The ayatollahs know that Netanyahu will strike first against any nuclear weapons capability that it could announce. If Iran struck Israel with any nuclear weapon it would trigger an all-out war that neither the ayatollahs’ regime nor, perhaps, the Netanyahu government or Israel itself would survive. (READ MORE: Iran’s Khamenei Threatens Israel … and the West)

Russia is the only power that has urged Iran to restrain itself in attacking Israel after the assassination of Haniyeh. Former Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu — still a Putin confidante even after his demotion — delivered that message on August 5. The fact that Biden hasn’t urged restraint is irrelevant to how the war between Iran and Israel is conducted.

The quietude of the Iran-Israel war is no source of comfort. Iran or Hizballah or both will strike Israel again when they believe the time is ripe. How large the resulting war will be is entirely up to Iran.

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