How Israel's Long-Awaited Counterstrike Weakened Iran

Israel’s long-awaited counterstrike on Iran destroyed large swaths of the Islamic Republic's air defenses, including Russian-made missile systems, leaving Tehran more vulnerable than ever to future strikes by the Jewish state or other adversaries.

"We should understand that Tehran is naked right now, the ayatollah has no clothes," said Richard Goldberg, a former White House National Security Council member who worked the Iran portfolio. "Israel destroyed Iran’s strategic air defense capabilities and set back its missile and drone production extensively."

Though Iran knew the attack was coming—and was even able to prepare following the explosive leak of classified American intelligence on Israel’s military movements—it still failed to stop more than 100 Israeli Air Force planes as they hit deep inside the Islamic Republic. This was made possible in part by Israel’s initial strike on radar systems stationed in Syria, essentially leaving Tehran blind as Israeli planes flew more than 1,000 miles into Iranian airspace. 

Satellite imagery reviewed by the Associated Press showed extensive damage to sensitive Iranian military sites, including some previously linked to Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. Other facilities targeted by the Israelis included manufacturing points for Tehran’s ballistic missile industry, which is responsible for fueling the two massive attacks on Israel this year that set the stage for Friday’s retaliatory operation. Iran says four military members were killed during the strike.

Regional analysts believe Israel put up to half of its air force in the sky during the operation, with all pilots returning home unscathed.

It was the largest direct attack on Iran in Israel’s history and followed years of covert operations meant to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear program, weapons facilities, and oil infrastructure. While the Biden-Harris administration pressured Israel to avoid most of those sites, hoping to ward off a wider regional war, Israel still proved that it can deal Iran a devastating blow. 

"Israel fundamentally altered the battlefield in a positive way for the United States and close allies, not just for itself," said Goldberg, who serves as a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. "So many years of people telling us what Israel wasn’t capable of doing; so many years of people telling us what Israel just did would be so very challenging for us to do ourselves; so many assumptions reset inside the Beltway once again."

The Pentagon, Goldberg added, should immediately review "its own assumptions and contingency planning" given the drastically different conditions on the ground in Iran following Israel’s unprecedented assault.

As the scope and scale of Israel’s attack came into focus over the weekend, it became clear that Iran’s air defenses are now in tatters. Israel conducted a multi-wave attack that destroyed Tehran’s surface-to-air missile defenses, long portrayed as impenetrable by Iran. This most notably included Iran’s stock of S-300 missile defense systems, which were manufactured and provided by Russia.

Israel then hit key military sites tied to the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, including in Tehran and the city of Karaj, where multiple explosions were reported.

In addition to deploying American F-35 war planes, Israel used "heavy munitions, long-distance strikes," and advanced mid-air refueling capabilities to ensure all critical targets were hit, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ran the operation from a high-tech underground bunker in Tel Aviv known as "the pit." The United States and several Arab nations were informed of the attack just before it was launched, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said "officials in some of those countries then alerted Iran."

Israel says it is prepared for further strikes should Iran respond but signaled there is little appetite for a full-blown war, a position shared with Tehran’s leadership.

"The message is that we don’t want an escalation but if Iran decides to escalate and attack Israel again, this means that we have increased our range of freedom of movement in the Iranian skies," an Israeli official told the Journal on Saturday, after the dust had settled.

Iranian officials sought to downplay the strike over the weekend, with the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, reportedly saying during a Sunday cabinet meeting that Tehran "is not seeking war but will defend its rights in the recent aggression of the criminal Zionist regime."

Iranian state-controlled media claimed "the country’s air defense units intercepted a significant number of Israeli missiles and stopped its military aircraft from penetrating Iranian airspace," though Western reports show this is untrue.

Iran’s vice president, Mohammad Reza, promised Israel will "receive an appropriate response," but there were few indications on Sunday that Tehran is preparing a military reprisal. 

Privately, the Israeli counterstrike caused "deep alarm" in Iran, the New York Times reported.

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