Israel restricts airstrikes to Iranian military sites

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 29th of October.

This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It:

Israel strikes back.

Early on Saturday morning, Iran state media reported explosions in the capital city, Tehran. Since then, Israel has confirmed that it carried out a series of airstrikes on Iranian military sites.

EICHER: It was the retaliation everyone was expecting. The Israel Defense Forces hitting back for an Iranian attack on Israel—following Israeli operations against Hezbollah and Hamas.

KHAMENEI: Their exaggeration is wrong, but note that downplaying this is wrong too.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei told an audience on Sunday that Israel’s attack shouldn’t be exaggerated or downplayed.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about it is Michael Singh. He’s a former senior director of Middle East Affairs for the National Security Council. He’s now Managing Director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Michael, good morning.

MICHAEL SINGH: Good morning.

REICHARD: Israel launched several waves of advanced fighter jets. What’s known about the targets Israel hit?

SINGH: It seems as though Israel's targets in this airstrike were pretty much military-only targets. So there was a lot of speculation, obviously prior to the strikes, as to whether Israel would target Iran's energy infrastructure, whether it would target nuclear sites. It appears to have done neither of those things, and to have confined its targets really just to military sites, so sites associated especially with the production of missiles, sites associated with Iran's air defense and so forth, and it seems to have been a very precise strike in that sense.

REICHARD: Mmm-hmm…I’ve seen some reporting that Israel took out several missile defense batteries from Russia that were supposed to protect Iran from strikes like this…and now those air defenses are gone. Well, based on that, then what response would you expect from Iran?

SINGH: Well, that is the $64,000 question. And I think what U.S. officials are likely hoping is that number one Iran, privately, Iranian officials in their internal deliberations will look at the Israeli strike and see it as essentially proportionate, a sort of reciprocal response to Iran's October 1 strike on Israel, as opposed to something escalatory that demanded an escalation in turn. And as I think U.S. officials look at Iran's public rhetoric, the public rhetoric of Iranian generals and officials, what we hear is we hear those officials downplaying the attacks, and that seems to me to at least implicitly, be sort of leading towards deescalation, you have Iranian officials saying, Look, this was no big deal. And if, in fact, they're saying it's no big deal, maybe that means no significant response is necessary.

REICHARD: Do you think U.S. pressure influenced Israel’s decision not to hit Iran’s nuclear program or oil industry?

SINGH: Well, look, one of the U.S. goals since October 7 of 2023, since that horrific attack by Hamas in Israel, has been to prevent the conflict between Hamas and Israel from turning into a regional war. Obviously, that hasn't succeeded. So we have now war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now we have direct conflict ever really since mid-April between Iran and Israel. So I think U.S. officials’ comments really reflect that desire to somehow keep this conflict contained. Yet I think there has been a recognition inside the U.S. government that the nature of Iran's attack on Israel on October 1 really merits a response by Israel, even if you know, they had hoped that, given the lack of significant damage in Israel, that Israel might, you know, sort of choose to “take the win,” as President Biden said previously. I don't think there was an expectation of that. So instead, you had, I think it a quite intense dialog between the US and Israel as to what constituted an appropriate response. And you heard President Biden publicly try to rule out certain categories of targets that the US felt would be escalatory, and talk about the need for any Israeli response to be proportionate, which I think we can interpret as meaning limited to military targets. In that sense, I think U.S. officials will look at this strike favorably and will think that their conversations and coordination paid off in that sense.

REICHARD: Final question: tapping into your expertise in this, what about Israel's conflict with Iran? Do you think the public may not understand or perhaps misunderstands from media coverage?

SINGH: Well, you know, it may be hard to tell, but, but there is still a sense that neither of these countries really wants direct conflict with the other. Iran has, you know, in the past, largely confined itself to fighting via proxies against Israel or against the United States. In fact, this is the first direct strike on Iran since the Iran Iraq War of the 1980s. Israel, too, has, you know, sort of hesitated to find itself in direct conflict with Iran, and largely has conducted what you might call a shadow war against Iran attacking Iranian targets well outside of Iran. Now, obviously things have escalated to the point where we see this direct conflict, but it does seem as though both sides are reluctant to to really sort of see that conflict through or escalated. And that may be a good sign, frankly, for those who are interested in you know, the eventual achievement of some more calm and peace in this region.

REICHARD: Michael Singh is Managing Director of the Washington Institute, and a former staff member of the National Security Council. Michael, thank you so much for your time.

SINGH: Thanks very much.

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