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Hours after Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel Saturday, Middle East Forum chief editor Jim Hanson appeared on Fox News to discuss the “amazing display” of military capabilities by Israel and its allies. The barrage of more than three hundred drones and missiles caused negligible damage and just one casualty after 99 percent were shot down or malfunctioned.
Hanson disputed widespread assertions (mostly by those seeking to discourage Israeli retaliation) that the Iranians intended the attack to “save face” at home, but be easily thwarted, minimally lethal, and secretly telegraphed to the Biden administration ahead of time. While domestic considerations were “part of their calculus” and “back-channel communications of some kind” likely took place, according to Hanson,
They shot so many attack weapons at Israel that they had to expect some of them to hit. The idea that Israel would be able to knock down – along with the US, UK, and Jordan – all of these is something that Iran would not have expected. ... There is no way Iran could anticipate this being such a dismal failure. So, we should operate on the assumption that they expected to kill Israelis and damage Israeli military targets.
I think had a lot of these missiles and drones struck targets, killed Israeli citizens, and done more actual damage, that may have been a distinct possibility. You know, the opportunity to go ahead and say the targets they’ve been looking at and been concerned about for decades are now in play. I think this having been a pretty dismal failure as far as the Iranian ability to cause damage, they probably will not make that next step, but I think there’s quite likely to be some sort of retaliation, for the simple fact that the people of Israel will demand that this type of an attack get a response that tells Iran, “You will not attack our country with impunity.” ... So, I think there’s a good chance there will be some Iranian military equipment turning into smoking rubble in the not-too-distant future.
While the Israelis have “every right” to retaliate against Iran, Hanson suggested they might refrain in exchange for a freer hand fighting Hamas. “You know, this may be a situation where they say, ‘OK, maybe we won’t [hit back], but we want full, free operation to finish Hamas in Gaza,’ and roll tanks into Rafah.”
Asked if the Iranians are really trying to move on from the crisis (which their UN representative deems “concluded”) or if the attack is “the beginning of something much bigger,” Hanson replied,
I think the beginning of something much bigger was when Iran’s first proxy, Hamas, launched that horrific attack on October 7 with the full agreement of the Iranian leadership. Then Iran launched the rest of its proxies, including Hezbollah shooting rockets into northern Israel, including the Houthis attacking ships and shutting down global trade in the red sea, and militias in Iraq and Syria attacking and killing U.S. troops. So, I don’t think this is in any way, shape, or form, a singular event.
The Iranians “have overstepped by far their capability to be the dominant force in the Middle East.”
The takeaway for the rest of us is simple, according to Hanson:
Instead of the Biden administration’s follow-on to Obama’s cringing capitulation to Iran and sending them planeloads of cash, it’s time for the free world to contemplate the idea that the mullahs have reached their expiration date, and the people of Iran deserve a better government. Not through direct U.S. or Israeli intervention, but the world should at least say, “We no longer tolerate this regime.”
