Irrespective of how Iran may choose to respond to Israel’s latest military assault, the Jewish state’s massive military attack against key Iranian bases could ultimately prove to be the final nail in the Islamic Republic’s coffin.
The ease with which the Israelis penetrated Iran’s air defences not only demonstrated the overwhelming military superiority that Israel enjoys over its Iranian adversary. It also showed that, despite the billions of dollars the ayatollahs have spent strengthening their armed forces in recent decades, the Iranian regime is little more than a paper tiger.
While Iran constantly boasts about fulfilling its ultimate objective of destroying Israel, its ability to do so is extremely limited.
The acknowledgement that Iran’s forces are no match for Israel’s superior firepower in a direct confrontation between the two powers has led Tehran to pursue the alternative policy of establishing an extensive terror network throughout the Middle East.
Groups such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – members of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” – have all been the beneficiaries of Iran’s military and financial largesse with the specific aim of posing a direct challenge to Israel’s survival.
But, as events since last year’s appalling October 7 attacks have shown, none of these groups have been able to withstand the Israelis’ overwhelming military strength.
In Gaza, the Iranians have been reduced to the status of impotent bystanders as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have eviscerated Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, killing key commanders, and destroying most of Hamas’s 24 terrorist battalions.
It is a similar picture in Lebanon, where the IDF has been degrading the formidable terrorist infrastructure Iran has developed through its alliance with Hezbollah. Apart from destroying weapons stockpiles, Israel has exposed Iran’s weakness by eliminating allied terrorist leaders.
Israel’s military assault on Iran yesterday morning served to expose the regime’s fundamental shortcomings in its ability to defend itself.
The latest Israeli attacks will have driven home to the Tehran regime the realisation that Israel’s overwhelming military superiority has now reached the level where the IDF has the luxury of choosing which targets to hit and those, such as Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, it can opt to ignore.
While Tehran’s immediate response to the Israeli strikes has been to vow revenge, the regime’s rulers are likely to be far more concerned with how ordinary Iranians will respond to the national humiliation they have suffered.
When the Iranian economy is in dire straits as a result of Western sanctions – with inflation at 45 per cent last year and youth unemployment at around 25 per cent – many Iranians will question the wisdom of the regime investing so heavily in constructing its expansive terrorist infrastructure when ordinary civilians are struggling to make ends meet.
Israel’s sustained assault on Iran and its proxies during the past year has certainly had a salutary effect on the regime, with reports emerging of a deep split between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s hardline supporters and the more moderate approach of the country’s recently elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
The regime’s belated realisation that its own survival is at stake if it does not find a way to end its confrontation with Israel is evident from Tehran’s willingness this month to engage in a diplomatic rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, its bitter regional rival.
Having supported Yemen’s Houthi rebels against the Saudi-led coalition in the long-running Yemeni civil war, the Iranians are desperate to work with Riyadh to implement ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.
For Tehran, ending Israel’s relentless assault on Iran’s proxies in the Middle East is about the only hope of safeguarding the Islamic regime’s own survival.
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