Would Iran Really Attack Israel?
Incredible as it may seem, the beleaguered Islamic Republic regime has more to worry about from Israel than from Trump
As Team Trump weighs ordering military action against Iran — with officials from both sides scheduled to meet Friday to pursue a diplomatic resolution —Tehran has issued a familiar warning: Attack us, and we will strike Israel.
Although this makes little sense – Israel is not responsible for Iranians’ miseries, nor for any American attack, and the Iranians know it – history suggests the warning is credible. The longstanding logic is that a Muslim country can turn any confrontation with America into one with Israel, hoping to fracture a regional coalition backing Washington by shifting the narrative to one of “resistance.”
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Saddam Hussein attempted exactly this in 1991. Facing a broad US-led coalition that included Arab states, he fired Scud missiles at Israel (in those quainter times it was shocking). If Israel had retaliated, Arab partners would have been forced to choose between coalition discipline and hatred of Israel, and the coalition might have collapsed. Israel, urged by the US, showed extraordinary restraint, absorbing the attacks without response. Saddam’s gambit failed and he was booted out of Kuwait.
But much has changed. Israel is angrier now and its leadership less cautious, and its accounting with Iran is overdue despite the 12-day war in June. The Islamic Republic is explicitly committed to Israel’s destruction and has spent decades constructing a “ring of fire” around it — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank, the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Syria and Iraq, precision-guided munitions aimed at Israeli cities.
That, combined with the very bizarre Trump factor, could make for a dangerous combination.
Let’s look at the surprising landscape — basically unimaginable just a year ago — and at the reasons why an Iranian attack on Israel may spectacularly backfire.
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