Iran’s miscalculated attack

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: A milestone in Middle East warfare.

Israel has promised to respond to Iran’s missile and drone attack carried out on Saturday. So far, they’ve held off on launching any strikes.

A multinational force that includes the U.S. and Jordan helped Israel shoot down almost all of the incoming missiles and drones. And they’ve also encouraged Israel to settle for a defensive victory.

But is a more proactive approach needed to prevent a regional war with Iran?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now to talk about it is Will Inboden…he’s a former member of the National Security Council and now teaches at the University of Florida. He’s also a regular contributor to World Opinions.

Will, good morning.

WILL INBODEN: Good morning. Great to be with you.

REICHARD: In your World Opinions column on Monday, you say Iran crossed a significant threshold by attacking Israel directly. Why do you think Iran took the risk of a direct strike rather than act through one of its proxies closer to Israel?

INBODEN: I think it was a couple of things, Mary. First, Iran has paid careful attention to the Gaza war and Israel's, you know, ongoing assault to eradicate Hamas. And Iran has seen Israel's growing isolation, right? Iran has seen that international opinion, especially across the Middle East and most European countries and the United Nations had been turning against Israel. And so I think Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini felt a certain political moment here that now if we are going to escalate against Israel, we Iran, may have more international support to do that, because Israel is so isolated. Iran had also seen the growing distance between Israel and the Biden administration and thought maybe this is a chance to further drive a wedge between Israel and the United States.

The second factor is the more immediate one, which is just a couple of weeks earlier in Damascus, Israel had launched a remarkable operation to kill several Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders. So that's Iran's kind of main, if you will, terrorist supporting power projection arm. It's a very elite part of the Iranian Armed Forces, including Reza Zahedi, who was the commander of the IRGC for the region, and there's pretty strong evidence that Zahedi had worked with Hamas to plan Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. So Israel, I think, was very justified in the operation that took him and his colleagues out. But that was a big blow to Iran, and Iran decided that they wanted to retaliate in turn. And so I think those are the two factors why Iran decided, for the first time in its history, and that's why this is so notable, to launch a direct attack on Israeli territory.

REICHARD: Well, Iran did take advantage of the political moment. It launched more than 300 missiles and drones, but Israel and its allies shot down 99% of them…so was Iran’s plan thwarted, or was it trying to accomplish something besides killing hundreds of Jewish people?

INBODEN: Yeah, well, nobody can know for sure what is in the mind of Supreme Leader Khamenei and the Iranian leadership because they are so isolated, and so, you know, perverse in their Islamic radicalism. But I do think that Iran had intended, especially those ballistic missiles they launched, I think they had intended to try to kill as many Jews as they could. They were trying to calibrate it so that they could launch a damaging attack on Israel, but not so overwhelming that it would lead to an all out war, but I think Iran wanted to cause more damage and death and destruction than they actually did. I think in Tehran, they're pretty surprised to how effective the Israeli defenses were.

REICHARD: Will, what lessons do you think the U.S. should learn from this? After all, leaders in Tehran promised to make things painful for whoever gets between it and Israel.

INBODEN: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the bigger takeaways is we need to remember that, especially in the Middle East, strength and power are the most important currencies, right? I mean, Israel and the United States needed to show our adversaries in the region, especially Iran, and its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, or the Houthis in Yemen, or Hezbollah, that we will work together to to protect Israel's interests, to protect America's interests. And sometimes that does need a display of force. But we also do that best when we have partners in the region and with the Saudis and the Jordanians and Emiratis, and then our European allies acting together. That's also a very potent combination.

REICHARD: One nation watching how the U.S. helped Israel was Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has since voiced frustration that the Americans haven’t provided similar support for Ukraine against Russia. Why the different treatment, you think?

INBODEN: Yeah, I think it really comes down to a fear of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Iran is very close to having a nuclear arsenal, but doesn't yet. Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and at least in the case of the Biden administration, I think that's why they have been more cautious or hesitant in what they're willing to do to support Ukraine. There's a certain amount of self-deterrence there. I think, you know, I personally don't put as much stock in Putin's nuclear threats, but he's gotten away with bluffing there. And so I think that's why you've seen a hesitation on the part of the United States to get directly involved. 

On the other hand, we hadn't needed to, at least up until now. Ukraine has shown a real willingness to do its own fighting as long as they're given the tools, as long as they're given the weapons, and they've been very effective at that. But now Ukraine is suffering some significant battlefield losses and losing territory and losing a lot more of its civilians from these unrelenting Russian attacks, because American aid has stopped, because Congress hasn't passed it. And so I can certainly understand, and like I said, I support President Zelenskyy's appeal. He's not asking for American troops there. He just wants the weapons that his people can do the fighting for themselves to defend their own freedom, to defend their country.

REICHARD: Final question here: Any other aspect of this story you think the mainstream media are missing?

INBODEN: Yeah, I think the mainstream media has been missing the connections between, what I call it in my WORLD article, this "new Eurasian belt of tyranny," that Russia and Iran and China and North Korea, those four countries are working very closely together. They're sharing intelligence, they're supplying each other weapons, they've got close economic ties. And so when Iran is attacking or threatening the existence of our partner, Israel, Iran is also supporting Russia's aggression against Ukraine. And similarly, Russia and Iran are both quietly supporting China in its threats against Taiwan. And so these different threats are connected and I think Americans, Christians, conservatives, we need to have a more sophisticated and realistic view of the dangers out there in the world and see how they are connected and how the best way to protect our own security is to, to have a stronger posture against all of them.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is a former National Security Advisor who now teaches at the University of Florida. Will, thank you for your time and expertise!

INBODEN: Thank you, Mary. Great to be with you, as always.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.