You cannot see Iran of Israel, but on its picturesque Nordic border, the hills of Lebanon, which to the point where the two countries are closest, is made to resemble the Islamic Republic.
In Kfar Kila, a city a few meters from an Israeli city, you could be in Tehran: the Iranian leaders, past and present, agitate a monument decorated with the emblem of its flag. The blue metal boxes on the posts line the roadway, a slit to signal to a few pieces from the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, named after the religious who, in 1979, transformed Iran from the faithful ally of Israel to his implacable enemy.
During the decades that followed, all the other countries in the region made a kind of accommodation with Israel, convinced on the one hand by its formidable soldier supported by the United States, and on the other by the technological sector concerned with security which was born from this soldier. Iran was different. He threw Israel as the enemy unification in his improbable ascent to the direction of a Muslim Middle East only. The eradication of “the Zionist entity” remains at the heart of the radical regime that Khomeini installed around 1,000 miles away.
This distance was the biggest challenge for the 200 war planes that the Israeli defense forces launched in Iran the early hours of the morning of June 13. The main target was the nuclear installations that got closer and closer to the production of a bomb, and Iranian state television showed images of an attack on the installation of Natanz where uranium is enriched. Orange flash gusts of less than half a dozen columns of black smoke moving just beyond a highway where traffic continues as usual. This is daylight, which meant that the assault has been in progress for hours. It was not yet at 3 am when the apartments of senior commanders began to explode in the northeast of Tehran. Iran announced the death of the head of the body of the Guards of the Islamic Revolution, two other senior commanders and, like at least two of the 25 nuclear scientists Israel would have targeted.
By first decapating military leadership before continuing the equipment, the plan of attack of Israel reflected the one who had rendered the possible. Last September, he led an extraordinarily effective campaign against Hezbollah – the militia that Iran had installed in Lebanon, then armed with more than 100,000 missiles, with instructions they had to be launched on his order. These missiles were pointed out on Israel, which lived in the deadly fear of them. There was more than what could be eliminated from the sky by Iron Dome or any other defense system. It was why Israeli hospitals have planned to treat mass victims in underground garages. The missiles have essentially protected Tehran by making Israeli leaders think about the consequences of an attack on Iranian nuclear sites.
“We considered it an existential threat to it,” said an Israeli reserve officer on June 12, wonders in his voice that the missiles had disappeared. They disappeared in waves of Israeli bombs last fall – precision strikes that followed the disappearance of Hezbollah leadership deep in their bunkers. The militia’s rank and file, on the other hand, were first broken by tele-welders, then talkies-talkies that exploded in their hands, having been boobytrapated by Mossad. After having lived in the fear of Hezbollah for 20 years, Israel decimated it in the space of a month. Then turned to Iran.
The Islamic Republic looked badly. Israel had already humiliated it by exploding a bomb in the most guarded area of Tehran, killing the head of Hamas in a government guest house. None of his earnings in the previous two decades – seeing Iraq went from the enemy to the vassal by the American invasion; Take the shots in Syria, where he saved the Assad diet; And find a friend in Yemen, where he sponsors the Houthi militia – none of this compared to the loss of Hezbollah. Obliged to answer, Iranian leaders have launched dozens of missiles and drones towards Israel. As had been the case in an even more important attack in April, while almost all were overthrown with the help of the American, European and even neighboring Arab forces, the result was ineffective.
Worse still, the attack gave Israel standing to retaliate, which he did by launching precision strikes that eliminated the most important anti -aircraft defenses in Iran – in preparation for the current assault. By announcing it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack would last at least a few days and noted that the targets included Iran’s ballistic missiles. Iran has so much that, even at 1,000 miles from there, the figures could overwhelm all interception systems. “We cannot leave these threats for the next generation,” said Netanyahu. “If we don’t act now, there will be no next generation.”
President Trump described the attack on “excellent”. Iran’s initial response, apparently 100 drones, has produced no results. Meanwhile, Israel has published images of what she said to be her own commandos in the field in Iran, with a database attendant. He said he had killed most of Iran’s Air Force management after attracting them to a meeting. Half a day, war was fine.
Like the cascade campaign against Hezbollah, it was the war that Israel was preparing.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the other type is lying down: 1,200 civilians and soldiers killed in Israel in one day (and 251 drag in captivity) and 55,000 civilians and soldiers killed in Gaza in the next 20 months. Israel, with precision, calls Hamas an Iran client, although the relationship has had its ups and downs. Iran has the leader of the two branches of Islam, Shiite, and all of its other customers align themselves on the sect in one way or another. Hamas is firmly Sunni, which has caused problems in the past. The elimination of Israel is their common ground and the attack on Hamas on October 7 was intended to ignite. After having crushed Israel with his Gaza strike in the south, the hope of its planners was that Hezbollah would trigger the Israeli assault had long feared from the north, and that “the Zionist entity” would collapse.
Instead, Iran asked Hezbollah to hold back. For the following year, while tens of thousands of Israelis fled their houses near the border, Tehran played the military equivalent of failures, sending some missiles per day above the border in tit-for-tray exchanges which have not pointed out any change, status quo. As if it could continue forever.
