Thread by @ArtaMoeini

Now that this episode of 🇮🇱-🇮🇷 tit-for-tat has concluded, some thoughts:

💢 At the surface level,

1) Iran has successfully reestablished the deterrence that had become severely compromised since Oct 7th— due to its own strategic patience & desire to avoid war with the US.

2) Israel's Iron Dome & missile defense worked as intended & intercepted most of Iranian attacks receiving minimal damage & zero casualties.

➡This should give both sides room to avoid further escalation⚡

💢 On the deeper level,

1) The Attacks were not a surprise neither in form nor timing-wise: they appear to have been coordinated with the Biden Administration in advance, giving the US/allies ample time to deploy additional resources to complement Israel's own defenses & repel bulk of the attacks. Still, Iran was able to successfully hit the couple airbases in Negev desert that it had specifically targeted & claims were directly involved in the bombing of its embassy. That's too precise to be a coincidence. Either the US allowed it to happen as a prior agreement, or the Iranians are flexing their missile maneuverability, using the cover of the barrage to actually hit the targets they choose.

2) The higher than anticipated number of missiles launched by Iran was a signal of Iran's capability to launch multiple forms of projectiles simultaneously, and to further highlight Israel's dependency on US assistance to repel even this more limited barrage. Iran reaped a psychological victory of blanketing Israeli skies with missiles while warning that the next attack, were things to escalate, would be many times more severe & of course an actual surprise with potential to actually penetrate into Israel.

3) The decision not to target a single one of many US bases in the region (that are now obv strategic liabilities for Washington) was clearly deliberate as to emphasize that Iran & the US are not at war. This is held over the US as a potential threat if Biden fails to rein in Israel in the future or, worse, assist Israel with attacks on Iranian soil.

4) Israel is not a monolith, & Netanyahu's utter failure in Gaza to either secure the hostages or to actually eliminate Hamas (impossible goal) on top of his provocative actions against Iran bringing the specter of ultimate existential war to Israel is rousing the good decent people of Israel against him & the extremists around him. Those holding 🇮🇱 government accountable for its action will ultimately be the Israelis themselves, but 🇮🇷 attack is a wake-up call that the current path is a dead-end.

5) Iran's insistence on ceasefire in Gaza as an off-ramp for the attack, knowing full well that Netanyahu would not abide, is a testament to the Iranian expertise in hybrid wars. This was a diplomatic win that raised its profile in the Arab world, undermined Arab governments' legitimacy & exposed empty Turkish rhetoric on Israel. Tehran's follow-through on its words was something Arabs haven't seen from their own states (one reason for Hamas' rising popularity among Arabs); this could prove inspiring in the Arab Street.

6) The United States kept its word to protect Israel against its enemies. But demonstrated that its commitments to Israelis security will be only defensive. The Iranian display of strength has made it all but clear that the US has no interest in an all-out regional war in an election year, with Biden touting a “united Diplomatic response” to Iran's attack and telling Bibi not to engage in a further overt military response. In other words, if Israel decides to go on the offensive, it'll have do so alone.

7) Despite the DC Anti-Iran brigade's immediate bluster calling for strikes against 🇮🇷 nuclear sites, the coordination & proportionality of the attacks suggest a degree of acceptance re Iran's right to self-defense against Israeli provocations. The administration will likely push for sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program, but we may have just avoided WWIII this time around—if by a hair!