A number of experts in the field of decision-making at the intelligence and military levels said that there are still factors that prevent the region from being dragged into a major conflagration that could push Israel and Tehran into an escalating conflict that will drag other countries into it.
The experts added to Reuters: Israel You probably won’t back down from attacking Joey Iran In the next few days in response to Tehran launching about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last Tuesday.
And he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu During a meeting with the security cabinet: “Whoever attacks us, we will attack him.”
However, Israeli officials informed their American counterparts that their response to… Iranian attack It will be “thoughtful,” but they have not yet provided a final list of potential targets, according to a source in Washington familiar with the discussions who requested anonymity.
Avi Melamed, a former official in the… Israeli intelligence The negotiator in the first and second Palestinian intifadas in the 1980s and the first decade of the current century, “I believe that the goals that will be chosen will be chosen carefully and with great care.”
He added that potential targets include sites of military importance to Iran Such as missile infrastructure, communications centers and power plants.
More than 6 former officials said US Middle Eastern countries who worked in the military, intelligence and diplomatic fields during interviews conducted by Reuters said that Israel would likely not target the oil facilities that support Iran’s economy or the nuclear sites.
Experts expected that the bombing of these highly sensitive targets would lead to a strong Iranian response.
Norman Rule, a former official in the… US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who was responsible for the Iranian file in National Intelligence from 2008 to 2017: “It is not wise for observers from abroad to try to predict the Israeli attack plan.”
He added: “But if Israel decides to launch a strike that is both proportionate and substantive, it may choose to limit its attacks on Iranian missiles and the structure of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supported the attacks launched by Tehran and its proxies on Israel.”
Iran…a cautious opponent
If a broader conflict erupts in the Middle East, it will likely not resemble the grinding ground wars of past decades between warring armies.
Over the past year, no military confrontations have occurred between sovereign countries except between Iran and Israel, which are separated by two other countries and vast areas of desert land.
Because of the vast distance between them, operations between Israel and Iran were limited to exchanging air strikes, secret operations, and the use of armed factions such as Hezbollah.
Iran has long threatened that it would destroy Israel, but it took a cautious stance in this crisis as it carefully studied two air attacks it launched against Israel, the first in April after Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing many leaders, and the second last week after the killing of… Nasrallah.
The two Iranian attacks resulted in the death of only one Palestinian after a missile fell on the West Bank.
The United States says it will do everything it can to defend Israel against Iran and allied groups, but no one believes it will deploy troops on the ground as it did in the 1990 and 2003 Gulf wars against Iraq.
