Fog of escalation: open threads like Israel's attack on Iran

Normally, I would post about such a momentous event that (according to US sources) Israel would fulfill its promise to attack Iran in retaliation for Israel’s attack on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus. right.

But there isn’t much solid coverage right now, even before the intense spin that unfolded after Iran successfully attacked three targets in Israel last weekend. Even though the United States was pretty successful with its far-from-impossible claim that “no way” did Ukraine have anything to do with the terrorist attack on Russia’s Crocus City Hall, the story ‘s eagerness to ground the stakes means more commentary (and supporting evidence) will emerge on the claims of both sides (currently the US, Oman, and Iran; Israel has yet to compile intelligence). It makes sense to wait until

Recall the competing article about the Iranian attack over the weekend. As we and many others have pointed out, the fact that the missile landed safely and did real damage to all targets is a key development. This shows that Iran was able to penetrate not only Israel’s defenses, but also those of supporting countries such as the United States, France, and Jordan, even with the most cleverly telegraphed volleys. However, Western media picked up reports that Iran had sent a huge number of flying objects to Israel, and nearly all were shot down. But most of them were unmanned aircraft, whose main role was to fire both to deplete the stockpiles of Israel and its allies, and to reveal how combined air defense works . If these drones had passed, the five-hour flight time would have been shocking.

Scott Ritter, in a detailed discussion of this attack, deemed it established that Iran had a deterrence advantage.

Now, let’s talk about the current, not exactly clear state of play.US sources NBC and CNN declare Israel a dunit Israel then notified the United States, but the United States did not consent or participate.

There are strong arguments against the extent of the damage, if any. The attack took place on Isfahan before dawn. Iran claims it only had a few drones and shot them all down. Anadolu Agency reported that an anonymous US official said: Natch, described as a ballistic missile attack…However, “attacking” does not necessarily lead to success. And so far, there is a lack of supporting evidence.

There are no signs of any missiles being detected, and there are several countries between Israel and Iran. Ballistic missile projectiles are visible to many people in these countries, but no evidence has been found so far.

— Sammy (@SammyXCVIII) April 19, 2024

While this is not a negative proof, there are also cell phone videos that purport to be over Isfahan at the time of the attack, which appear to capture at least some of the drone’s downing. There is no footage of the missile hitting.

Iran appears to have only temporarily closed its airport, but not its airspace. Despite Twitter’s claims, when Lambert looked at his flight tracking device, the plane was still in the air. Some airlines, such as Emirates, are said to have quickly redirected flights over Iran based on breaking news rather than official instructions.

Arab News reported that Iran downplayed the attack and had no plans to retaliate. from that account:

Explosions rang out in Iranian cities on Friday, with intelligence sources saying the attack was carried out by Israel, but the Iranian government downplayed the incident and suggested it had no plans to retaliate. This seems to be aimed at avoiding war in the entire region.

The limited scale of the attack and Iran’s silent response both point to diplomats who have been working around the clock to avoid an all-out war since last Saturday’s Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel. seemed to indicate that the effort was a success.

Iranian media and officials said there were a small number of explosions, which they attributed to Iranian air defenses attacking three drones over the city of Isfahan. Notably, they called the incident an attack by “infiltrators” rather than Israel, avoiding the need for retaliation.

Iranian officials said they had no plans to retaliate against Israel over the incident.

“No foreign sources in this incident have been confirmed. We are not under any external attack and discussions lean more towards infiltration than attack,” the official said.

The reason why Israel thinks it has done less than it would have liked is that even though the United States has squeezed out that it had nothing to do with the incident, Haaretz and the Times of Israel, as shown below, have argued that the United States In exchange for the escalation, Israel gave the green light to attack Rafah, which the United States has fiercely opposed.

Yesterday, it was reported that the US has agreed to an onslaught against Rafah if Israel does not launch a major attack against Iran.

This must be scary.

The onslaught against Rafah would represent the worst humanitarian catastrophe yet in an already obscene and genocidal war. pic.twitter.com/1FE6kuipYN

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) April 19, 2024