Beginning in October 2023 a renewed cycle of violence began destabilizing the Middle East. Hamas’ October 7, 2023 military operation into Israeli-held territory served as a pretext for Israel, not to dismantle Hamas itself, but to conduct an indiscriminate punitive military operation against all of Gaza.
While the Western media repeatedly refers to Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack as “Iranian-backed,” the West itself has admitted that Iran had no knowledge of the impending operation, let alone any role in it. This resembles deliberate attempts by the US to infer Iraqi culpability regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, despite officially admitting Iraq played no role, all to serve as a partial pretext for the eventual US invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 onward.
Omitted from deliberately deceptive narratives trying to link Iran to Hamas is the fact that Hamas has a long-standing history of serving as an extension of US aggression in the region, rather than serving as a bulwark against it. In 2012, Hamas publicly announced it would mobilize against the Syrian government on the side of US-backed and armed militants. For years, Hamas fighters would play a role in fighting the Syrian government and its Iranian, Russian, and Hezbollah allies.
For years, Hamas has worked in tandem with Israel itself to frustrate efforts to establish a two-state solution, perpetuating hostilities, and serving as a continuous pretext for continued Israeli aggression.
Creating an Impossible Dilemma for Iran
The ultimate goal of Israel’s punitive operation against Gaza is to create an impossible dilemma for Iran and its allies and, eventually, a permissive environment for wider conflict across the region.
While Iran does not support Hamas, it supports the Palestinian people and their right to resist what the UN recognizes under international law as illegal Israeli occupation. Iran and its allies, including Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen-based Ansar Allah (referred to across the Western media as “Houthis”) were compelled to assist the Palestinians.
Hezbollah has since exchanged fire with Israeli military targets along the Israeli-Lebanese border, while Ansar Allah has conducted interdiction operations against Israeli-bound shipping through the Red Sea.
Israel has used this as a pretext to escalate further, striking Iran’s consulate in Syria on April 1, 2024, and a series of terrorist attacks and targeted assassinations against Hezbollah culminating in the death of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.
Both escalations were met by Iranian retaliation. Iran conducted a large-scale attack on Israel using stand-off weapons including drones, cruise missiles, and long-range ballistic missiles in mid-April and a larger ballistic missile strike in early October.
Both strikes were conducted with considerable restraint.
The mid-April strike was preceded by Iranian warnings, providing the US and Israel days to prepare. The second strike, although conducted on short notice and involving a larger number of ballistic missiles, was designed to demonstrate Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses rather than to maximize damage.
At every juncture, Iran has resisted escalation and conflict, only to face further US-Israeli escalation. This should come as no surprise – as this most recent cycle of violence is part of long-standing US plans to provoke a wider war with Iran.
Washington’s Long-Awaited War with Iran
The Brookings Institution’s 2009 paper “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran,” in regard to carrying out strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, explicitly stated:
…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it.
The paper would suggest using cover US-backed regime change operations to trigger an Iranian response the US could then cite as a sufficient “Iranian action.”
Within the paper, an entire chapter was dedicated to using Israel as a proxy to trigger a wider war with Iran. Titled, “Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” it would explain:
As in the case of American airstrikes against Iran, the goal of this policy option would be to destroy key Iranian nuclear facilities in the hope that doing so would significantly delay Iran’s acquisition of an indigenous nuclear weapons capability. However, in this case, an added element could be that the United States would encourage and perhaps even assist the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto Israel.
It is abundantly clear that a variation of this strategy is now in play, with Israel elected as an eager proxy provoking Iran up a ladder of escalation leading to an opportunity for Israel to carry out dramatic strikes on Iran itself and possibly precipitate the wider regime-change war Washington has sought for years.
There, however, exists significant complications.
Israel’s Precarious Position
Iran’s most recent missile strike on Israel has demonstrated an ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses on a significant scale.
According to the Telegraph in an article titled, “Iran has proved it can breach the world’s greatest air defense system. What comes next could be devastating,” over two dozen missiles reached their targets, overwhelming Israel’s layered air defenses.
The article explains Israeli defenses consist of the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow 3 missiles, each dealing with incoming targets at increasingly distant ranges.
Two dozen missiles of 180 launched making it through Israeli defenses may indicate Israeli defense systems have an 86% success rate, or that not enough systems exist to launch enough interceptors to deal with barrages of this size, or a combination of the two. Either way, it reveals one aspect of the limits of Israeli defenses.
Another problem exists for Israeli air defenses – regardless of their capabilities – the quantity of interceptors in stockpiles and the annual production rate of additional interceptors versus Iranian stockpiles and annual production of ballistic missiles could leave Israel increasingly vulnerable to successive waves of Iranian missile strikes.
Many of Israel’s air defense missiles were developed and are jointly made with the United States. The US suffers from chronically low military industrial capacity for critical hardware like air defense systems, radars, anti-armor missiles, and even items as simple as artillery shells. This includes the production of the Patriot air defense system and the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-ballistic missile system.
It is highly likely that production of interceptors for Israel’s systems suffer from similar limits to production.
Washington’s other proxy war in Ukraine has exposed critical shortcomings of US military industrial production, but shortages of Patriot missiles began even before Russia launched its Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022 demonstrating just how limited US production is.
It is likely that Israel has a limited number of interceptors for its various layered defenses, incapable of repeatedly weathering the sort of barrages Iran demonstrated in early October.
Bolstering Israeli Defenses…
More recently, Israeli media reported the possible deployment of US THAAD batteries to Israel to bolster Israeli air defenses ahead of planned Israeli strikes on Iran and the anticipated Iranian retaliation to follow. While THAAD batteries could play a role in enhancing Israeli defenses, it would be temporary.
The US has only 7 existing batteries, each with between 6–9 launchers, for a total of between 42–63 launchers. Each launcher holds 8 missiles at the ready. An entire battery would have between 48–72 missiles at the ready. If all 7 batteries were transferred to Israel (which is highly unlikely) this would mean 336–504 missiles were at the ready, assuming all batteries were fully operational.
Standard operating procedure often requires 2 interceptors launched at any single incoming target to increase the probability of success, meaning that all 7 batteries would be capable of targeting between 168-252 incoming targets – or approximately the number of ballistic missiles Iran launched in its early October missile strikes.
Lockheed has only produced approximately 800 missiles for THAAD since production began in 2008, meaning that US THAAD batteries could only defend against approximately 2-3 additional Iranian missile strikes of this scale before exhausting their stockpiles. But this assumes all 800 missiles produced are still on hand. They are not.
Missiles are spent annually on training and missiles have been used operationally, including in 2022 by the United Arab Emirates against a missile and drone attack by Ansar Allah. While THAAD reportedly intercepted a ballistic missile during the attack, other missiles and drones managed to get through, striking targets, causing damage and casualties.
All of this casts doubts on efforts to bolster Israeli air defenses against successive waves of Iranian missiles if the US and its Israeli proxies continue seeking escalation.
Iran’s Large and Growing Missile Arsenal…
Conversely, Western sources claim Iran may have up to 3,000 missiles on hand. Reuters reported earlier this year that Iran is believed to be expanding ballistic missile production even further. While many of these missiles may not have the ability to reach Israel, potentially hundreds could – and may be able to do so in much larger waves than demonstrated so far.
Just as the US is discovering in Ukraine as Russian military industrial production outpaces the collective West’s, tilting the conflict in Russia’s favor, Washington’s proxy war against Iran runs the risk of its geopolitical reach exceeding its military industrial grasp.
But the real danger lies in the dynamics spelled out in the 2009 Brookings paper and manifesting themselves through political theater unfolding now, setting Israel up as a rogue nation urged to exercise restraint by the US, but determined to resort to extreme measures unilaterally – allowing for military options the US could never justify itself, and creating plausible deniability for Washington if and when such options are exercised.
Among these military options could be extensive conventional military strikes by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities, oil refineries, and elements of its missile production lines. Iranian retaliation could trigger wider hostilities the US could then use to justify military intervention, or possibly the use of Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal.
The ultimate objective would be to neutralize Iranian military capabilities, create the conditions in which regime change could be attempted, and the emergence of a significant weak point along Russia and China’s peripheries the US could then exploit vis-à-vis Moscow and Beijing more directly.
US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has centered around plans to eliminate all peer and near-peer competitors, especially a reemerging Russia and a rising China. As prospects for US success in Ukraine dim and as China continues to surpass the US militarily in the Asia-Pacific, the temptation to resort to drastic measures regarding Iran in the Middle East will grow, especially under the cover of plausible deniability using Israel as a willing proxy provides.
At the time of this writing, Israel has not yet carried out its next round of provocations against Iran. Only time will tell exactly when and how Israel will proceed, and how the US will exploit the plausible deniability it has crafted for itself along the way. Much that follows will depend on Iran’s ability to protect its conventional missile forces, continue utilizing the leverage they provide, and successfully manage escalation with the US and its Israeli proxies. Short of extreme measures on Washington and Israel’s part, Iran will likely continue cultivating a large and growing strategic advantage. Because of this, however, the likelihood of the US and/or Israel resorting to extreme measures grows.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
