The US must deter Iran, for the sake of its own interest - opinion

The Iranian attack came in response to Israel’s targeted killing of Mohammed Reza Zahedi, also known as Hassan Mahdawi, a high-ranking officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and commander of its activities in Syria and Lebanon. Israel’s attack, in turn, followed months of aerial attacks by Iranian proxies, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, in which the very same Mahdawi was no doubt involved. 

Iran’s attack on Israel is unprecedented in two regards: the number of projectiles hurled at Israeli targets, numbering in the hundreds, and the fact that this attack was perpetrated by Iranian forces, from Iranian territory. The Islamic Republic has made sure until now to attack the Jewish state using its proxies, supposedly leaving its hands clean in the current preposterous global system in which appearances are everything. Israeli sources claimed that “99% of the Iranian response was intercepted.”

While this cannot be confirmed, it is clear that the Iranians have failed to do significant damage to Israeli targets, military or civilian. A seven-year-old girl, a Muslim Arab citizen of Israel, was severely injured in the attack – tragically revealing, once again, that the first victims of Islamist politics are Muslims themselves. 

Following the largely successful interception of Iranian projectiles, US President Joe Biden reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “You got a win. Take the win.” Indeed, it appears that Israel has successfully delivered a blow to the IRGC and its threat on Israeli interests, while suffering relatively minor blowback. 

Biden’s statement, however, is a misreading of Iranian strategy and tactics, one which leads to dangerously bad policy decisions. In the same conversation, Biden reportedly said that the US would not support or assist Israel in any attacks against Iran. This despite the fact that missiles were intercepted in the skies of Israel’s capital and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its citizens found themselves running for shelter. 

BIDEN’S MISTAKE rises from Western insistence on analyzing Iranian policy as that of a “normal” state actor, acting within a system of accepted international semantics, even when breaking the rules of the current world order. While perhaps understandable – Iran is, after all, a modern state – this approach leads to a mistaken interpretation of Iranian strategy, tactics used and policy success and failure.

Instead, I believe that to better comprehend Iranian strategy and tactics, we should understand the Islamic Republic’s conduct as one would a terrorist organization’s behavior. Naturally, several avenues of analysis can be employed beneficially to understand Iranian policy. However, the perspective presented here is not only neglected, but of particular relevance at present. 

What characterizes a terrorist organization’s strategy and tactics? In general terms, as the name implies, a terrorist organization is a non-state actor working to achieve its political goals by spreading terror. Terrorist organizations usually arise from a position of weakness, and because of this, they avoid direct military confrontation with the enemy, one which will likely result in failure.

Instead, such organizations employ various modes of violence to sow terror in their enemies’ ranks – civilian and military alike. By doing this, they hope to gradually erode their opponents’ resolve, military might and economic prosperity. Nowadays, one should add to this the gradual defacement of a state’s reputation; in a global system in which words speak louder than actions, damaging a country’s good name and international standing has become an additional, central vector of action and influence. 

Understanding Iran's policy through the lense of a terror organization's strategy

BY VIEWING the recent Iranian-Israeli clash through this lens, one can understand Iran’s policy much better. The Iranians are no amateurs. With Israel’s excellent aerial defense systems, and US and British forces in the region at the ready, one can assume that Tehran knew most of its projectiles would not reach their targets. This mattered little, however. 

Tehran had already scored a significant win by Saturday night. Even before a single drone was launched, Israeli media and many Israeli citizens had gone into hysterics, analyzing and reanalyzing Iran’s possible avenues of revenge, mentally preparing for war and expecting the worst. In this they had allowed Tehran to achieve its desired effect: Israeli civilians’ sense of security was rattled.

This is not an isolated effort but part of a long-term campaign, which has seen Iran build machines of terror on Israel’s borders, attack its ships in international waterways and, reportedly, employ social media campaigns to undermine social cohesion, replacing it with hate, division and a sense of instability. Acting from a perceived position of weakness, Iran has chosen to employ the tactics of terror in a long-term effort to gradually gnaw at Israel’s well-being, hoping ultimately to undermine its foundations and topple it. 

This campaign has been especially successful in the last six months. Since October, tens of thousands of Israeli citizens have been removed from their homes because of its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. And of course, Hamas’s attack on October 7 shattered Israelis’ sense of security as no attack has done perhaps since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Globally, Israel is increasingly attacked and isolated, even by its allies.

THIS UNDERSTANDING of Iranian policy helps us better comprehend their reasons for launching such a seemingly ineffective attack, as well as past actions. Importantly, it can also help us fashion a policy best equipped to cope with this new creation: the terrorist state.

Viewed in this light, Iran’s policy this past week has enjoyed great success. Israel’s citizenry was frightened, and the country has bled ounces of security, stability and economic well-being in a short time. Most importantly, Tehran appears to have achieved all this while avoiding a direct confrontation with Washington. The sense of security of US allies throughout the region has suffered another setback. Emiratis, Saudis and Israelis now see that Iran can bomb their countries and disrupt civilian life, and the US will rush to assure the Iranians that no retaliation is on the agenda. 

In order to send a clear deterring message to Tehran, Jerusalem must act, and do so forcefully. That, however, is not enough. To send a clear message that states cannot employ the tactics of criminal terror organizations with impunity, the US must act decisively as well. It should do so for the sake of its own interests in the region and worldwide, no less than for the sake of its long-term allies. Americans can choose to continue to pursue their Chamberlain-esque policy for a while longer, but what lies at the end of that path is known to us all.

The writer is a graduate student at the Hebrew University’s Middle Eastern Studies Department, and a researcher at MEMRI.