Status Report: Iran Attacks Israel

In a chilling historic first, Iran directly attacked Israel with a barrage of drones and missiles. What led to this, what it means, and where do we go from here?

An antimissile system targets an Iranian aerial attack on Israel early Sunday. Photo: Amir Cohen/Reuters

I was on a plane heading to San Diego when I foolishly decided to purchase internet access and have a peek at what the world was up to. The first thing that popped on my screen was a news alert that Iran had launched an attack upon Israel.

I had two immediate reactions, beyond hoping that there would not be mass casualties from such an assault.

First, and sadly, I was not completely surprised. Iran had been promising retaliation for Israel’s bombing of its embassy in Damascus, which killed high ranking Iranian officials. When Israel did that, my concern then was that Prime Minister Netanyahu had been intentionally provoking the Iranians and would wind up dragging the U.S. into a broader war. In Bibi’s mind, I figured, so long as the war continued, he could use it to justify staying in office longer.

Second, I was very concerned, along with most of the world I imagine, with where things would go from here. Would the conflict escalate, given that Israel is unlikely to allow such an attack to go unanswered? And might this finally shake loose GOP resistance to the stalled aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan? After all, Russia is Iran’s biggest backer, and our failure to act due to our broken politics is plainly emboldening the enemies of democracy around the globe.

In today’s Status Report, I explore these two subjects a bit more. Like so much of our current situation, there is both bad news and good news, danger and opportunity. 

A proxy war becomes a direct conflict

Israel and Iran are now in uncharted territory. For years, there has been a simmering conflict that has occasionally boiled over into selective attacks. But those have always been upon other soil and against or by proxy militias. Yesterday was the first time in history that Iran attacked Israel directly using weapons launched from its own territory.

As the New York Times noted in a summary of recent conflicts between the two nations,

Iran has largely used foreign proxies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia to strike Israeli interests, while targeted assassinations of Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists have been a key part of Israel’s strategy.  

Here’s a quick and dirty list:

• In 2019, Israel attacked preemptively to stop an arms supply line through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, saying it would not tolerate smart missiles arrayed along its border.

• In 2020, on Trump’s orders, an American drone assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards. Iran retaliated by striking U.S. bases in Iraq, injuring over 100 U.S. servicemembers. (Trump’s claim yesterday that Iran would never have dared do this under his watch is belied by this history.)

• In 2021-22, Israel struck targets inside Syria, and an Israel-managed oil tanker was struck off the coast of Oman by what appeared to be Iranian drones, killing two. Israel also assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist in Nov. 2021 and a Revolutionary Guards commander in May of 2022.

• In 2023, Iranian-backed militias increased attacks upon Israel in response to the IDF’s relentless and deadly bombardment of Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacres in Israel. Israel is believed to have assassinated an Iranian military commander in Syria who was overseeing the supply of arms to Hezbollah.

• In 2024, Israel targeted a Beirut neighborhood in Lebanon and killed a top Hamas leader. Hezbollah responded with increased attacks, and Israel returned fire. Another Israeli drone strike in Lebanon killed a deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit this spring. Israel also attacked Syrian territory, killing 36 of its soldiers along with seven Hezbollah fighters.

But it was the recent attack by Israel upon the actual Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus that precipitated this response from Iran. Israel killed seven in that attack. 

The U.S. was reportedly dismayed that there had been no coordination or advance notice of the attack upon an actual Iranian embassy, which amounts to an act of war. According to the Washington Post, “Three U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior defense officials believed Israel should have informed them ahead of time because of the strike’s implications for U.S. interests in the region.”

Here’s where it becomes quite thorny. Israel has a right to defend itself against an aggressive Iran bent on Israel’s destruction. But if it directly attacks Iranian soil or sovereignty (like an embassy compound), that risks a huge escalation of the conflict. 

Add to this the fact that Netanyahu is battling to save his political career. He is deeply unpopular at home, and there have been widespread calls and street protests calling for early elections. Bibi has rebuffed these calls, saying that to do so in the middle of the war would prove destabilizing. But that means that so long as the war drags on, Netanyahu can justify his staying in power. And if Israel is under direct attack by Iran, that could cause the Israeli people to rally around the flag and his continued leadership.

These considerations make it very difficult to parse whether Israel is acting legitimately in its own defense or whether Netanyahu is deliberately provoking a broader conflict in order to sow chaos, which serves him politically.

Zooming out, even if privately the White House has deep concerns over Netanyahu’s motivations and methods, it cannot voice those very publicly. Should the administration signal anything other than total, ironclad support for Israel, it would demonstrate to our enemies that the attacks work, at least in the sense of diminishing U.S. support for Israel. There is no choice, most security experts would now say, but to continue to show 100 percent resolve and support, at least for Israel’s right to self-defense.

What Biden and Netanyahu say to one another behind closed doors is another matter.

Risk of escalation

The attack by Iran was by any measure serious and intended to be deadly. While some argue that Iran launched a half-hearted attack intended to fail in order to signal that it was merely making a face-saving move, that is hard to square with the sheer scale of the attack. Devastation was only avoided thanks to the astonishing effectiveness of Israel’s “iron dome” defense system.

The attack by the numbers: Two senior Israeli defense officials reportedly provided some initial figures. There were 185 so-called “suicide” drones, 110 medium-range ballistic missiles, and 36 land-attack cruise missiles. Most of these were launched directly from Iran, while a few were launched by the Houthis in Yemen and Iranian proxy militias in Iraq. That’s over 300 airborne attacks, a sizable figure that was reported by the Washington Post as well.

Here’s a map of where the strikes occurred:

As you can see, there were only a handful of places where the attacks succeeded.  

Iran was very keen not to see U.S. involvement in any way. As CBS News reported,

Iran declared that their conflict was with Israel and warned the U.S. not to get involved as Iranian drones approached Israel’s airspace—indicating that it is not looking to further escalate the conflict.

That didn’t happen. The U.S. took an active role in destroying the 300 some incoming drones and missiles. 

According to an IDF spokesperson, 99 percent of the projectiles were intercepted, through a combination of defensive actions undertaken by Israel, the U.S. and the U.K. President Biden confirmed in a statement that the U.S. had helped take down “nearly all” of the drones and missiles.

Because the attack, though terrifying in its scope, caused relatively little damage (though one young Bedouin girl was reportedly seriously injured), the door remains open to possible de-escalation by Israel. Indeed, as the Biden Administration is quick to note, the astonishing success of the joint defensive measures is already something Israeli and U.S. leaders can celebrate.

As Axios reported, Biden spoke to Netanyahu following the successful interceptions. “I told Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks—sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel,” Biden said.

According to one source, Biden also told him, “You got a win. Take the win.”

As for retaliatory action by Israel, per Axios:

[W]hen Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood.

Further,

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke on Saturday with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant [sic] and asked that Israel notify the U.S. ahead of any response against Iran, a senior Israeli official said.

Whether Netanyahu does “take the win” or chooses to retaliate remains to be seen. For its part, Iran has signaled it considers the score even. In a odd, almost Trumpian statement, complete with a message in ALL CAPS at the end, Iran’s mission to the U.N. stated,

Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!

Biden has called for a meeting of the G7 leaders on Sunday to coordinate a diplomatic response. 

Now what?

The world’s eyes are upon Netanyahu to see if he hits back upon targets inside Iran, despite warnings from the U.S. that it will not participate in such offensive operations. But they are also upon the U.S. Congress, and particularly upon the GOP leadership, to see if it will finally allow a vote on an aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The Republicans’ second-in-command, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), released a statement indicating that some kind of action was coming:

In light of Iran’s unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable.

The House of Representatives stands strongly with Israel, and there must be consequences for this unprovoked attack.

It should be noted that the “previously announced legislative schedule” did not include critical Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid, but rather a series of bills around (checks notes) household appliances. 

At ex-president Trump’s urging, and under pressure from the Putin wing of the party, Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to bring the aid bill up for a vote despite the Senate having already passed it by a huge margin. 

The cynic in me is guessing that Johnson instead may seek to bring up Israeli aid as a stand-alone bill once again, leaving Ukraine out to dry as instructed, even though he now has sufficient political cover due to this attack to push the entire bill forward. By bringing up Israel alone, he could seek to force embarrassing “no” votes by Democrats who insist that the entire package be voted on together. In short, he could once again politicize critical aid, costing our allies precious time and more lives lost while he frets about his political future and whether Trump will still like him.

This is a stark example of the danger of politicizing our foreign policy rather than demonstrating national unity and resolve. Our enemies see us as divided and will exploit and leverage those who would undermine Biden, hoping to hurt him in the election. Traditionally, a crisis like this would have been precisely the wrong time to attack the White House because it would encourage bad actors to act even more badly in the hope of destabilizing us politically. Such bad actors include men like Netanyahu.

But that didn’t stop Johnson from blasting Biden this time. He tweeted,

I will continue to engage with the White House to insist upon a proper response. The Biden Administration’s undermining of Israel and appeasement of Iran have contributed to these terrible developments.

This is entirely counterfactual. It is Johnson who has held up aid to Israel by refusing to bring it to the House floor. It was Trump who pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement. And it is the GOP who is appeasing Iran’s biggest ally, Russia, and openly playing footsie with authoritarians. 

But more broadly speaking, our broken politics, and in particular the willingness of the GOP to undermine Biden to score domestic political points, are opening the door to more aggressive moves by our enemies. Our national security is deeply compromised by a party controlled by those acting in the service of Russia and strangling our ability to come to our allies’ aid. Even GOP leaders have begun to acknowledge that Putin’s talking points are reaching the House floor.

The American electorate needs to understand how dangerous and destabilizing this is, and it should be front and center as an issue in November.