Attack on the Iranian Consulate
In the latest update on the Iran-Israel war, Israel attacked an Iranian diplomatic enclosure on 1st April 2024, killing Brigadier General Reza Zahedi and 7 commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). A tit-for-tat strategy was being played out in Syria where the regime has little control over the affairs of its own country.
‘How do we prevent Iran from developing an atomic bomb, when, on the American side, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not recognised as a war crime?’ – Gunter Grass.
US presence is one thing, but Iran too has tried to reduce its logistic line by manufacturing missiles in Syria and supporting its affiliates from Syria. The affiliates, ‘axis of resistance’, include the Yemeni Houthis, the Hezbollah, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are resourced out of Syria, and Iran had plans to expand and develop its air defense system there as well. Apparently, the resistance in Gaza, and the Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon seem to have frustrated the Israelis to initiate an attack on the Iranian consulate to contain Iranian assistance in weapons and munitions to the ‘axis of resistance’.
That Israel initiated the attack independently and without consulting with the United States is highly unlikely, but all the same, a probability does exist, where Israel may have presented a fait accompli to the United States with sufficient confidence to bring them on board later. Iran retaliated after a pause of 13 days, during which there was a lot of bluster and threats being passed to and fro. Iran has justified its attack by citing Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, on ‘self-defence’.
The Iranian Response
The Iranian response involved 170 drones, 120 missiles, and 30 cruise missiles. The mean time of travel for the drones was about 6 hours (with the slower engines) and 3 hours with the faster engines. The ballistic missiles would take about 20 minutes, while the cruise missiles about 2 hours. The payload that a Shahed drone can carry is about 50 kg, while on average, other missiles can carry up to 750 kg.
Iran had forewarned Israel in particular and the world in general that the munitions had been launched and were likely to arrive over Israeli skies in a few hours—this was crucial information given, allowing the defenders to take critical defensive safeguards and prepare the air defence system. The drones and missiles were mostly intercepted by a combination of the US Navy, Jordanian Armed Forces, and Israeli Air Defence systems. The overall effect was minimal damage to life and property and had no military impact on Israel.
Foreign Policy of Other Nations
Jordan enthusiastically jumped onto the United States bandwagon; Turkey made a valiant but meaningless statement that it would not allow its territory to be used against Iran; Saudi Arabia is silent, the Middle East is quiet, and Pakistan of course, under the prevailing circumstances, is irrelevant. It remains in no position to influence matters and as such has wisely done the right thing by not projecting any policy since it does not have one in any case. Any meaningful voices are from China and Russia who have announced their assistance to Iran in the event of the United States joining Israel in this conflict.
What Could Have Been the Objectives?
Now, coming to the conflict. Israel has long desired that the US put in an attack on Iran which the US has been avoiding. Iran is the chief coordinator and facilitator in gathering resistance against Israel and has managed to develop the art of proxy warfare without directly getting involved against Israel. It has managed to acquire a reputation for maintaining a strong military potential and a fiercely independent and sovereign posture.
Its reputation was first tested earlier when Iran decided to attack Pakistan with drones and missiles in January 2024, when it unnecessarily exposed itself and its limitations. This exposure probably emboldened Israel to conduct its own offensive against Iran in Syria, more as a test rather than any miscalculation.
The objective behind the Israeli strike was to contain Iranian expansion into Syria, restrict Iran’s support to the ‘axis of resistance’ by dismantling their hub of operations in Syria, and also test Iran’s capacity to respond. Another possible objective could be to broaden the Iran-Israel war and draw the US into it. The US has since stated that it was reluctant to get involved in any further escalation, but if it ever came to that, the US would probably join Israel in offensive operations against Iran with the intent of dismantling the Iranian military capacity.
A Political Show
Iran mounted its response more as a political maneuver rather than a military one. It first allowed a full 13 days for the US to get into an appropriate position, provided an early warning to the target themselves, and then launched a meaningless attack more for form than for substance. They screamed out in indecent haste, that the matter was considered concluded, like an accountant finds a closure to a transaction. Their screams are loud in the hopes that they are believed and accepted. In other words, Iran had to do something and this was the least that they could do without causing material loss and any significant harm to the people.
The question is whether Israel will accept this offering and be adequately appeased or will it see this as an Iranian weakness and go in for the kill? In the latter case, Israel would only escalate into a physical conflict if the US supports them and in fact, would welcome the US to lead the conflict itself. Such a scenario would, however, cause retaliation by Russia and China and as such may snowball into a much larger conflict. This is something the world would avoid and thus is already trying to contain the conflict to where ever it stands now. In the former case, both sides will declare victory; Iran would celebrate having taught Israel a lesson, while Israel would rejoice having effectively blocked the Iranian attack by a highly successful defensive maneuver.
Both sides would cut their losses and withdraw their offensive posture; the crisis would subside and it would be business as usual in the region. With the Ukraine crisis now coming to some kind of a close, and the South China Sea hotting up, the world is not yet ready for another large-scale conflict. More than likely, this exchange between Iran and Israel will remain a choreographed performance leading to nothing. Both will stand exposed, Iran for possessing limited conventional capacity that remains in proxy warfare and Israel for being able to interdict aerial threats to its cities.
Gaza will remain one of the biggest testimonies to international hypocrisy and a neutered Islamic world that will remain history’s most unexplained contradictions. This Iran-Israel war has nothing to do with Gaza or the Palestinians, but it has shown the universal impotence of the Arab countries against Israel; how irrelevant they are and how willingly they enthusiastically dance to the tunes of their masters in the West.
“He who wishes to fight must count the cost” – Sun Tzu
This conflict fully exposes the entire Muslim world who have so far lived by the famous idiom of the classic appeaser who, ‘keeps feeding the crocodile, hoping it would eat him last’. Now, no one will be spared and everyone will have to taste the consequences of the positions they have taken in their individual vested interests, the sides they supported in their enthusiastic sycophancy, and the neutrality they shamelessly displayed—it is now only just a question of time.
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