Yves here. Below is some additional information that may help readers better assess the background to Iran’s missile strikes on Israel and their impact.
Readers may recall that immediately before Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassim Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah and Iran Revolutionary Guard officials meeting with him, the US was broadcasting that it plus 12 countries, including some Arab states, were pushing hard for a 21 day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. We thought this was too obviously a White House serving gambit, that it was intended to kick the can of a wider war down the road enough for it not to the a hot issue for the US elections. We were very skeptical.
While we were drafting our post, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel immediately threw cold water on the idea and launched more airstrikes.
We now learn that Nasrallah had agreed to the ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated and Israel or the US was affirmatively duplicitous, as if that comes as a surprise. Antiwar summarizes a CNN interview with the Lebanese foreign minister:
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah agreed to a US and French-proposed 21-day ceasefire with Israel right before Israel killed him.
Habib said the US and France told Lebanon that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also agreed to the ceasefire proposal.
“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this, and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And, you know what happened since then,” Habib told CNN host Christiane Amanpour.
I would put my bet on the misrepresentation being US doing, to secure agreement from Hezbollah and then hope they could use that to browbeat Israel into what it would contend was a short pause. Recall that the US has presented ceasefire proposals as originating with Israel and later ‘fessed up that they came from Biden.
Second is a useful report from Electronic Initifada from Ali Abunimah, who videoed the incoming “river of missiles” as they flew over Jordan. He continues with verified videos of Iran missiles approaching and then striking in Israel. Recall the original estimates were 200 to 400 missiles. Israel is now claiming 181. Looking at these videos, a higher number seems plausible. Abunimah says he counted 24 missiles hitting the Navatim air bases in 30 seconds on one clip.
These videos show the large number of strikes on Navatim, where Israel’s F-35s lived, and, as Abunimah also points out was a key point of entry, for US weapons deliveries. There has been a lot of skepticism of Iran’s claim that it destroyed 20 of Israel’s 35 F-35s. None other than Military Watch treats that as credible, and further reports: Massive Iranian Missile Strike ‘Completely Destroys’ Israeli F-35 Base Nevatim: Stealth Fighters Destroyed – Reports. From that story:
A massive Iranian ballistic missile strike on targets in Israel launched on October 1 has targeted Nevatim Air Base, among other key targets in the country. The facility hosts both of the Israeli Air Force’s F-35 fifth generation fighter squadrons, and was previously intended to host a third squadron of the fighters after they were delivered. Iranian media sources have reported that the facility was “completely destroyed” in the attack. Footage from Israel has confirmed the impact of dozens of ballistic missiles which Israel’s air defence network failed to shoot down, with targets impacted including the headquarters of the intelligence agency Mossad, located in Tel Aviv which was levelled by the attack. Labelled “True Promise 2,” the operation follows a year of escalating tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv, and represents a long awaited retaliatory attack after an Israeli strike on Tehran on July 31. Iran was previously reported to have agreed not to retaliate if Israel deescalated hostilities, with Israel’s invasion and intensive bombardment of Lebanon and assassination of the leadership of the Iranian aligned militia group Hezbollah having been seen to have broken this agreement.
Reports have indicated that the bulk of Nevatim Air Base’s F-35s – over 20 fighters – were destroyed in the attack, with the stealth fighters representing one of the most high value targets in Israel. The facility has been widely referred to as Israel’s “most important air base” due to the importance of the F-35 in the country’s fleet. Israel fields just two squadrons of the costly stealth jets, and relies on them heavily as the remainder of the fighter fleet relies on largely obsolete avionics and old mechanically scanned array radars. F-35s play a central role in Israeli plans for potential attacks on Iran, with their stealth capabilities and advanced avionics, including electronic warfare systems and other air defence suppression features, making them optimal assets for such operations. The destruction of F-35s is thus an important step towards limiting Israel’s ability to respond with further escalation….
The current state of the Israeli fighter fleet remains highly uncertain, and alongside the reported destruction of Nevatim Air Base, other fighter losses have been reported including losses of F-15s at Hatzerim Air Base.
Even though the headline quote comes from Iran, the intensity of the missile barrage shown below makes the idea credible. Even though US intelligence had picked up the coming attack and gave Israel some time to get air assets out of harm’s way. But there are limits to what could have been achieved. From comments yesterday:
shargash
Regarding Israeli f-35s, Hurricane Michael damaged about 1/3 of the f-22s stored at Tyndal AFB, because they were unable to fly (down for maintenance). F-35s have a much lower readiness than f-22s, so it seems unlikely to me that the Israelis could fly them all out.ISL
The full mission readiness rate of F-35s is 29%. As far as flyable, 50% undergoing maintenance and not flyable in a 2 hr window seems not a bad estimate.https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/engine-woes-dominate-f-35-hearing-but-other-issues-remain/
I am not an expert in airport/airfield design. Readers like to point out that runways are easily repaired. I doubt the same is true of the critical air control tower and related systems. If Iran merely destroyed those components, one might be able say Iran had effectively destroyed the airbase.
The video below also provides evidence that Iran did hit and may well have destroyed the Mossad Unit 8200 building. It also shows what look to be much faster, perhaps hypersonic missiles striking the Tel Nof airbase. That suggests it was a very high priority target. But I have yet to see much about those attacks.
Abunimah also observed that conducting the attack at night meant that it could be widely seen across the Middle East, greatly boosting morale, and correspondingly was also visible all over Israel. He points out the shocked and dismayed gasps on the Israeli videos, and that these attacks were nothing like the now-familiar Hezbollah rocket barrages.
Predictably, Israel refuses to accept any constraints. The Hill reports this morning: Israel defies Biden in Lebanon, testing US support.
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, the authors ofWar in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq
On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.
For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.
Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.
Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.
President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”
On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.
“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.
Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.
The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.
That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.
On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.
Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.
When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.
But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.
Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.
Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.
So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”
