Iran’s surprise attack lasted for just under an hour and came after its supreme national security council (SNSC) chair, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, declared that Iran was at war. Around 180 ballistic missiles were launched, just hours after the US warned that Iran was preparing an imminent attack.
To bolster Israel’s defence, US forces shot down Iranian missiles. President Joe Biden later said that the attack appears to have been “defeated and ineffective”, and Israel said that most of the missiles were intercepted.
Iranian officials, however, announced that 90% of its missiles successfully hit their targets. The extent of the damage caused by the missiles remains unclear.
The order to launch the strike was made by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the backing of the SNSC and the Iranian defence ministry. Iran has said the attack was a “legal, rational and legitimate response to the terrorist attacks of the Zionist regime”.
This attack is far more aggressive than Iran’s one in April, which was largely considered a symbolic strike. Iran gave several days’ notice then and the main target was a military base in the underpopulated Negev desert. This time, the missiles themselves seem to be much faster and the targets appear to have included dense cities.
The Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh has useful insight into Iran’s military strategy now: “Firing so many ballistic missiles in a few minutes also represents a serious effort to overwhelm or exhaust Israel’s air defences. Because they are sophisticated, the interceptor missiles are expensive – and their stocks uncertain,” he writes.
Why did Iran do this?
In late September, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, insisted that the country does not “wish to be the cause of instability in the region.” It seems the impending threat of war has lost its deterrent power, with the spokesperson of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission saying that Iran is “not afraid of going to war. We are not warmongers, but we are ready for any war.”
Iran’s risky and unprecedented retaliation “reflects a growing consensus inside the Iranian elite that its decision not to mount a military reprisal after the assassination of [Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh] in Tehran in July was a strategic mistake”, Patrick Wintour writes.
The perceived inaction has led to a growing frustration among some hardliners in Iran that Tehran has become “passive” in the face of Israeli aggression. Instead of placating Israel, they say, it has emboldened Netanyahu to mount further attacks and has weakened its image as the leader of the “axis of resistance”.
Iran held off from ordering a reprisal for the assassination of Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran in July, because of US assurances that a ceasefire deal in Gaza was imminent and restraint from Iran would be key in making sure it happens. (Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death). No such deal materialised. Early last month, Pezeshkian accused the US of lying, adding that Israel’s actions would not go “unanswered”.
Iranian officials were also alarmed by Netanyahu’s announcement last weekend that Israel’s latest actions are steps towards changing “the balance of power in the region for years to come”. To show restraint after the series of escalations would, they believed, put them in an even weaker strategic position.
What’s next?
Leaders across Europe condemned Iran’s attack and the UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that Britain stands with Israel and recognises “her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemned “escalation after escalation” in the region. “This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,” he said.
Israel has already launched attacks in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria this week, indicating its willingness to keep fighting on all fronts. Analysts have noted that Israel has a much freer hand to respond more comprehensively and aggressively. What little “forces of restraint” there were in the Middle East are “weakening with every passing day,” Julian Borger writes in his analysis. “Politically speaking, the Biden administration cannot be seen as tying Israel’s hands in the face of an Iranian attack on Israeli cities.”
The looming fear of this deepening conflict has been a direct confrontation between Tehran and Washington, which gets closer with each attack.
As Israel readies for a reprisal and Iran’s leadership vows that any retaliation would be met with a “more crushing and ruinous” response, the cries for peace continue to go unheeded.
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