Israel has inflicted unprecedented damage on Iran's elite - why now?
Not only has Israel's attack on Iran been more wide-ranging and intense than its two previous military operations last year, but it also appears to have adopted some of the strategy that was used in the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon last November.That is not only to hit Iran's missile bases - and thus its ability to respond with force - but also to launch strikes to take out key members of Iran's leadership. That strategy of decapitation of Hezbollah senior figures had devastating consequences for the group and its ability to mount a sustainable counter offensive.Footage from Tehran has shown what seem to be specific buildings hit, similar to images from Israel's attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which culminated in the killing of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
No figure of that magnitude appears to have been killed in Iran. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not been targeted. But to kill Iran's military chief of staff, Hossein Salami, the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and several of the country's top nuclear scientists in the first hours of an operation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested might go on for days is to have inflicted an unprecedented degree of damage on Iran's elite.That would seem to necessitate a fiercer response from Iran than we saw in its two attacks on Israel last year. But it may also make Tehran's ability to summon up such a response that much harder. That presumably is the calculation that Netanyahu made in ordering this escalation in the conflict.
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Why he decided to go ahead with the attack right now - one that he has for so long advocated - could be for the reasons he has given. In a statement released not long after the operation began, he said that it was a matter of Israel's survival. But Netanyahu has been making the argument that Israel faces existential threat if Iran gets a nuclear bomb for many years. To underline the renewed urgency, a senior Israeli military official has said that there was information that Iran had enough material to make fifteen nuclear bombs within days.But there may also have been a very different factor at play. The talks between the US and Iran on a deal over Tehran's nuclear programme was about to enter its sixth round on Sunday. There have been conflicting signals over how much progress has been made in this. For Netanyahu, though, it may have seemed that this was a crucial moment to ensure that what he sees as an unacceptable deal would be stopped in its tracks.Militarily, he and his advisors may have felt that not only Iran but its proxies in the region - Hezbollah in particular - have been weakened to such an extent that the threat they once posed is now no longer as potent. The coming hours and days will show whether that is proved to be correct or a dangerous miscalculation.
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BBC News
16 minutes ago
- BBC News
Israel's endgame may be regime change in Iran - but it's a gamble
Beyond Israel's stated goal of destroying what it calls an existential threat from Iran's nuclear capabilities with its attacks on Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu has a wider aim - regime change in this scenario, he might hope that the unprecedented strikes start a chain reaction leading to unrest that topples the Islamic said in a statement on Friday evening that "The time has come for the Iranian people to unite around its flag and its historic legacy, by standing up for your freedom from the evil and oppressive regime."Many Iranians are unhappy with the state of the economy, the lack of freedom of speech, women's rights, and minority rights. Israel's attack is posing a real threat to Iran's strikes have killed the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the chief of staff of the armed forces, and many other high-ranking IRGC chiefs, and the Israeli attack is not yet over. Iran retaliated in the afternoon, with the Revolutionary Guard saying it carried out attacks against "dozens of targets, military centres and airbases".The situation escalated quickly and after Iran's retaliatory missile attacks, Netanyahu said, "More is on the way". More of Iran's leaders could be targeted. Israel may calculate that the attacks and killings could unsettle the regime and open the way for a popular uprising. At least this is what Netanyahu hopes this is a gamble - a big is no evidence that such a chain reaction will start in the first place, but even if it starts, it is unclear where such a process might with the most power in Iran are the people who control the armed forces and the economy, and most of that is in the hands of hardliners in the IRGC and some other unelected don't need to stage a coup because they are already in power, and they could take Iran in a more confrontational direction. 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Live: Latest update as Israel targets Iran's nuclear sitesWatch: Footage shows explosions and buildings ablaze in TehranIsrael has inflicted unprecedented damage on Iran's elite - why now?Israel chose to act now, whether Trump likes it or notIran is reeling from Israel's unprecedented attack - and it is only the start There's also the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled opposition group that backs the overthrow of the Islamic Republic but is against going back to the as a left-wing Muslim group, it previously staunchly opposed the the revolution, the MEK went to Iraq and joined Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s during his war against Iran, which made them unpopular among many group continues to be active and has friends in the US, some of whom are close to Donald Trump's it appears to have less influence with the White House than during Trump's first term, when senior US officials including Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani appeared at MEK gatherings and gave supportive are other political forces as well, from those who want to establish a secular democracy to those who seek a parliamentary monarchy and so might be too early to analyse the full extent of Friday's attacks, but during last year's exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel, there were no strong indications that Iranians saw those situations as an opportunity for toppling the those events didn't even come close to the level of destruction during Friday's attacks. 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Reuters
30 minutes ago
- Reuters
China's UN envoy condemns Israeli strikes on Iran
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
How a surge in late-night pizza orders at the Pentagon predicted Israel's attack on Iran
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