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Once again, in 2024, history was made in the Middle East.
On October 25, Israel took credit for a long-expected military retaliation against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The attack reportedly involved over 100 planes striking 20 targets in three separate waves. In so doing, it constituted the first-ever direct and overt Israeli strike against Iranian military sites. (Note: Israel had not publicized or claimed an earlier attack against an Iranian radar installation on April 19, which was in response to Iran’s first drone and missile salvo at Israel earlier that month).
Iran’s official response in the first few hours amounted to shrugging its shoulders, attempting to spin defeat as victory and downplay the strikes. “The skies are in Iran’s fist,” declared Shargh, a reformist daily newspaper, in a large headline above the fold. “Iran’s defenses are superior to Iron Dome,” bragged the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). “The false-promise of the Zionists,” proclaimed Resalat, a Tehran daily newspaper, in an apparent reference to the operation name (True Promise 1 and 2) of Iran’s April and October missile attacks against Israel.
Beyond serving as traditional propaganda, this framing reveals an understanding of the severity of Israel’s strike against Iranian military sites—becoming increasingly apparent with analysis of commercial satellite imagery—and potentially even the need to dampen expectations about an Iranian response against an adversary with clear escalation dominance.
Israel’s strike, which reportedly went on uninterrupted for three hours, damaged or destroyed Iran’s Russian-provided air and missile defense platforms and key nodes in its domestic ballistic missile supply chain involved in producing both solid- and liquid-propellant missiles. Four Iranian Army (Artesh) air defense force servicepersons were also killed in the strike.
Predictably, the Islamic Republic is marshaling all it can to signal strength and feign a sense of normalcy in what otherwise amounts to an abnormal situation for an unpopular regime that was rendered defenseless against an attack by a foreign adversary. These efforts include attempting to capitalize on videos of Iranians on their rooftops during the Israeli attack, posts mocking Israel’s retaliation, and even correcting images floating on social media that were not related to the attack.
To that end, Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff (AFGS) has beseeched the population to ignore any news about the strike emanating from unofficial channels. “The honorable people of Iran, the media, experts and analysts are requested to ignore the rumors and unreliable narratives and follow the correct news through official sources and national media,” said the AFGS press release.
Cutting through this call by the regime, however, was a popular Iranian social media account famous for chronicling everything from news to crowdsourced RUMINT (rumor-based ‘intelligence’). In one post on the same day as the attack, the account noted a key difference facing populations at the heart of the conflict in the Middle East. “When the Israelis hear the sound of explosions, they head to the shelter, while the Iranians go up to the rooftops: they don’t want to miss seeing the mullahs get what they deserve!”
A day after the strike, however, hardline Iranian outlets took to calling for revenge. Tasnim News Agency, a semi-official media outlet citing an “informed source,” declared that “there is no doubt that Israel will receive a proportionate response to any action.” Javan newspaper, linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), ran a headline on Sunday claiming Iran had “the right for a strong response to a weak attack.” Similarly, the hardline Tehran daily Vatan-e Emrooz newspaper said “Iran must respond” in large print above the fold. Not far behind was Kayhan, another hardline Tehran daily, which said now “is Iran’s turn for a devastating response.” Writing in the same edition of Kayhan was its editor-in-chief, Hossein Shariatmadari, a confidant of Iran’s Supreme Leader, who penned an editorial titled, “We saw your rain, now await our flood.” In the next edition, Kayhan ran a separate editorial (not by Shariatmadari) entitled “The Zionist regime’s strategic mistake.”
In an address on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei struck an intermediate position, simultaneously trying to right-size the strike but still threatening retaliation. Addressing families of Iranian martyrs, he said, “Well, they made a mistake; and of course, they exaggerated it. Their magnification of it is wrong, but note, minimizing it is also wrong. But for us to say it was nothing, and unimportant, and things such as this, is also wrong. The Zionist regime’s miscalculation must be confounded, they have a miscalculation about Iran. They don’t know Iran, they don’t know Iran’s youth, they don’t know the Iranian nation, they still haven’t been able to properly understand the strength, ability, initiative and will of the Iranian nation. We must show this to them.”
However, Khamenei went on to personally distance himself from what may follow, leaving the exact scope and scale of a response to “officials.”
“Of course, the quality of the work should be properly recognized by our officials and what is in the best interest of this country and the nation, so that they understand who the Iranian nation is and what its youth are like,” said Khamenei. In so doing, Khamenei again showed that as the Middle East’s long-running contemporary autocrat, his ultimate aim is to wield power without accountability.
It’s too early to say if Khamenei’s speech will provide the Islamic Republic with a face-saving line of retreat or if it merely serves as a vague promise for revenge at a time and place of Iran’s choosing. But one thing appears increasingly certain: The period in which the Islamic Republic was able to enjoy uncontested military successes in the Middle East through proxies and long-range-strike capabilities alone is quickly coming to an end.
The triple threat of a changing regional context due to Israel’s neutering of Iran’s Levantine proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, intercepted and devalued missiles and drones from Tehran’s April and October barrages, and Israel’s successful suppression and destruction of enemy air defense operations on Iranian territory in response to those barrages has resulted in a major setback for Khamenei and the IRGC’s defense strategy. The implications of this strategic setback will reverberate both in Iran and throughout the region in the weeks and months to come.
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