Hold off on the celebrations, Tehran has planned for the long game against Israel - opinion

The Israeli Air Force's attack on Iranian military targets significantly damaged Iran's ground-to-ground missile production capability and its air defense systems.

While Israel's attack can be considered successful and caused significant damage to Tehran, celebrations following the success of the Israeli attack are premature. As we have seen many times in the past, the perspective of most military correspondents, analysts, and retired generals is narrow and current, like looking through a keyhole without broader and deeper foresight into the future.

Consider some statements by retired generals, such as, "The war's step-by-step development has brought us closest to regional victory," or, "The message to Iran is clear: Israel's attack was preparation for a bigger blow." 

Their thinking isn't coherent; they change direction like a weathervane with each new breeze. We should all remember that Iran still has about 3,000 ballistic missiles and rockets that can cause enormous damage to Israel's home front and population centers. More importantly, Israel's war, with US help, isn't just against Iran and its proxies but also against the axis of evil: Russia, China, and Iran, who have joined together to displace America from both its Middle East control and its economic assets and military bases, and of course against Israel, its close friend.

The Axis of evil has invested enormous resources to strengthen Iran. Hence, anyone who claims we are close to regional victory doesn't understand what they're talking about. To achieve regional victory would require defeating the axis of evil, and Israel has no such capability.

Moreover, not many years from today, we will see that the threat to Israel will increase tenfold, despite the success of Israel's attack on Iran. The number of ballistic missiles, rockets, and UAVs and the armament of Iran's terror armies and its proxies will increase greatly. The damage that the IDF did to missile bases and air defense in Iran will be repaired, and over the years, this will have no effect on Iran's continued strengthening with massive assistance from Russia and China.

For Israel to be able to confront future threats, it must go hand in hand with the US, European countries (NATO), and Arab countries willing to join it. It must be an axis that stands against the axis of evil of Russia, China, and Iran, meaning it must create a balance of terror where each side understands that if it strikes Israel or any other country in the alliance – it itself could be struck. 

This can be compared to the balance of terror in the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the US, where their mutual fears prevented the outbreak of World War III.

Israel needs its allies

Since Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East, it needs to establish a strong military with the help of its allies (Israel doesn't have the resources to do this alone) and be the vanguard before the camp. For this, it needs to establish a missile corps whose effectiveness against enemy missile launchers is tens of times greater than aircraft; it must immediately work with the US to develop powerful lasers (the technology already exists in Israeli and US hands) with better effectiveness against ballistic missiles and enemy rockets. The advantage of the laser system is that the cost of intercepting enemy missiles and rockets is thousands of times cheaper than Arrow, David's Sling, and Iron Dome missiles.

We, therefore, need American help in deploying their missiles in Israel. Israel must also equip itself with tens of thousands of suicide drones and intelligence collection drones (with drones, Ukraine has amazed with its faithful and painful blows against the Russians both in defense and attack). 

Israel needs to equip itself with multi-barrel anti-aircraft guns (‘Vulcan’), whose effectiveness against enemy drones is very high, and of course, it must increase its ground forces to the scope it had 20 years ago so it can fight in several land sectors simultaneously in a regional and multi-front war (due to drastic cuts to the ground forces in the last twenty years, it is unable to provide a response even in one combat sector, and therefore the other sectors are completely unprotected).

Two and a half years before the war broke out, I established five expert teams under the auspices of Reichman University and with the help of Professor Boaz Ganor, who currently serves as University President. The teams dealt with five main components of national security: security concept, ground forces' readiness for war, home front readiness for war, IDF readiness in defense and attack from enemy missiles, and rockets and drones, including the organizational culture in the IDF that needs to be put on the right path. To these, we added two appendices – logistics and maintenance capability in war and quality of career personnel. The problems, and more importantly, the solutions, are concentrated in an 80-page document titled ‘Recommendations for the Next Five Years and Israel's Preparation for War.’

The report was submitted and presented a year before the war to all decision-makers, including the prime minister, ministers, 12 National Security Council division heads, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman, Defense Minister Gallant, and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. 

Everyone received the report and its recommendations. Defense Minister Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi incorporated the solutions we recommended as part of the Defense Ministry and military work plan. But to my great regret, throughout all the fighting that has continued for more than a year, and even though the Defense Minister and Chief of Staff decided to implement our recommendations in the report – nothing has been done. 

There is mental and practical fixation, and the IDF is unprepared for future challenges.

In conclusion, what we need is not a large budget increase; instead, we must balance American economic and military aid of tens of billions of dollars between all the needs mentioned above, and not invest most of it only in aircraft, with the rest receiving scraps – as is done today.