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I agree that Iran intends this as a face saving measure and not as a real attack. But they fucked up... badly.
It appears that almost all of the attacks are being shot down and (it's early so grain of salt) Jordan and Saudi Arabia are even helping Israel shoot them down. This confirms that Iran is much weaker and more impotent than thought. They aren't actually capable of hurting Israel in a direct way.
So the question becomes what does Israel do now. Bill Ackman is tweeting a source called Israeli Radar which says :
"Senior source: Israeli response vs. Iran will be unprecedented; don't go to sleep tonight."
Well, we all know how reliable "senior sources" are so I wouldn't expect an Israeli attack. But I wouldn't rule it out either. Israel probably has 48-72 hours to attack Iran's nuclear program before their hall pass expires.
Edit: Looks like Biden is telling Israel they don't have a hall pass.
In general I agree with you.
However, if Iran launched its full capabilities in conjunction with Hezbollah that would be a mess.
Not in the sense that Iran could meaningfully degrade Israel’s military capacities, but in the sense of wanton destruction and death. Presumably, Israel would respond with an invasion of Lebanon and major retaliatory strikes on Iran.
So Iran still has that option and I don’t think this operation changes the perception of that risk from Israel.
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I'd look at traditional media coverage. If the coverage is "Iran launched an enormous attack, stretching Israel's defences to their limits", then face is saved and it worked. But if the coverage is "Iran launched a nothingburger attack and Israel laughed at their incompetence", then Iran might need to escalate some more in order to save the proper amount of face.
While I think it's really the 2nd way, if I thought that anyone cared what I thought, I wouldn't go around saying it, and would publicly stick to the 1st way (while in private I'd still probably make this argument). Because I don't want the situation in the Middle East to escalate any more, and in a lot of ways it seems like this sort of limited exchange is good for both the governments of Iran and Israel. Not that I like either of those governments, but I think it might be bad if either collapsed during the current crisis. (I think the sooner Netanyahu is booted from office, the better, but it should be done in a way that reinforces Israel's democracy.)
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I expect nothing from Israel. This feels like a textbook we have to do something but don’t want to escalate so we sent an attack that is easily defended. I believe Iran even said they consider the matter settled.
Honestly though Iran probably needed a handful of dead Israelis. This feels like a prepackaged diplomatic attack.
Most likely you're right.
But I do believe that Israel is at least able to hurt Iran if they wanted to. The same is not true of Iran. Getting all your missiles shot down does not project the message of strength they intended.
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