What Explains Israel’s Surprisingly Restrained Retaliation Against Iran?

It's becoming very difficult for Israel and Iran to balance their own hawks’ demands, domestic public perception, and the perception of their opponent’s policymakers (which include hawkish elements).

Israel finally retaliated against Iran on Friday for Iran’s own prior retaliation against Israel earlier this month, which the Islamic Republic carried out against the self-professed Jewish State in an attempt to restore deterrence, in the second round of their dangerous tit-for-tat that first began in spring. Unlike Iran’s retaliation against Israel, Israel’s retaliation against Iran wasn’t widely filmed. It was also surprisingly restrained despite lots of earlier hype and concerns about an uncontrollable escalation.

No critical infrastructure, including Iran’s sole nuclear reactor and its oil refineries, was directly targeted but the New York Times cited unnamed sources from both countries to report that Israel destroyed surrounding air defenses in order to leave Iran open to a more painful attack if it retaliates to this one. Axios also reported that Israel warned Iran about its attack in advance via third parties in an attempt to deter retaliation that could risk everything spiraling into a larger conflict depending on how it plays out.

Iran announced that four of its soldiers had been killed and reaffirmed its right to respond. A high-ranking source reportedly told Tasnim that Iran is ready to do precisely that, though Sky News Arabia cited an anonymous source to report that Iran informed Israel via third parties that it won’t do so. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel does indeed expect retaliation, but it might be carried out via Iran’s regional allies in the Resistance Axis. It’s therefore unclear what’ll happen next.

In any case, Israel’s surprisingly restrained retaliation deserves to be analyzed. Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu’s office denied reports that Israel changed its targets under US pressure to avoid an uncontrollable escalation like what could have followed if it hit Iran’s critical infrastructure. Even so, it’s difficult to imagine that the US’ resistance to this didn’t play a role in Israel’s retaliation. After all, in the event of a massive Iranian retaliation, Israel would depend on US support then and afterwards.

That’s why the US deployed one of its seven THAADs to Israel in the run-up to its retaliation, though that premier air defense system’s significance was assessed to be more of an escalation tripwire for deterring Iran than any truly meaningful tactical support since it could easily be overwhelmed by saturation strikes. Israel might have therefore reached an agreement with the US not to target Iran’s critical infrastructure during its latest retaliation in exchange for that deterrence-driven deployment.

If that’s what happened, then it would imply that Israel really doesn’t want to risk an all-out escalation with Iran due to its continued belief in the concept of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD). This teaches that Israel and Iran are capable of inflicting unacceptable damage to one another in that scenario, which is why they have a natural self-interest in avoiding it by responsibly managing their tensions. The problem though is that hawks on both sides still want to climb the escalation ladder.

It's becoming very difficult for both to balance their own hawks’ demands, domestic public perception, and the perception of their opponent’s policymakers (which include hawkish elements). Israel’s bombing of the Iranian Consulate on Damascus in spring prompted Iran to conventionally retaliate with a drone and missile salvo for the first time in the history of those two’s tensions. A minor Israeli strike against an air defense facility ended that escalation round until the latest one began over the summer.

Israel assassinated the Hamas chief in Tehran and then the Hezbollah one in Beirut a little less than two months later, thus prompting Iran’s second conventional retaliation earlier this month that in turn led to Israel’s own retaliation on Friday. Comparing these two escalation rounds, each began with an audacious Israeli attack, was followed by dramatic Iranian retaliation (though it’s debatable how much damage the two thus far were responsible for), and then responded to with surprisingly restrained Israeli retaliations.

What sets them apart though is the US’ THAAD deployment in the run-up to Israel’s latest retaliation, which is meant to deter Iran from retaliating due to the likelihood that this could serve as a tripwire for direct US involvement in what might be Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Iranian critical infrastructure. Israel therefore sent a message to Iran’s hawks by restraining itself yet again in spite of the much greater hype surrounding its latest retaliation and getting the US to have physical stakes in defending it this time.

The message is that Israel is still retaining its own hawks in the sense of holding them back from crossing Iran’s red lines that would dangerously put MAD to the test so Iran should appreciate and reciprocate this otherwise each side will risk the other inflicting unacceptable damage if Israel’s red lines are crossed. The subtext is that a “new normal” has arrived whereby rounds of controllable escalations along the lines of the earlier described model might become more frequently employed as pressure valves.

Each side is increasingly struggling to balance their own hawks, domestic public perceptions, and the perception of their opponent’s policymakers as the regional Israeli-Resistance War continues raging. There’s a lot of pressure on them to deal a decisive first blow to the other in spite of MAD as tempers flare and patience wears thin but this sort of thinking risks becoming a suicide pact. Their partners are also pressuring them to restrain themselves due to the collateral damage that this could cause.

Neither the US nor Russia correspondingly want Israel or Iran to take the plunge, though each of the latter two could always “go rogue” anyhow if their decisionmakers submit to their hawks, but the US might not defend Israel in that case while there was never any indication that Russia would defend Iran. The US and Russia disagree on almost everything nowadays with the notable exception being that they don’t want Israel and Iran putting MAD to the test due to how much that would destabilize the world.

The most that they’ll do is the US’ THAAD deployment to Israel and the possibility of Russia transferring air defense systems to Iran, each of which are driven by deterrence, not escalation. In the worst-case scenario of an uncontrollable Israeli-Iranian escalation, the US might directly intervene on Israel’s side, but Russia will not risk a hot war with Israel and possibly also the US in support of Iran. This assessment and Israel’s abovementioned message to Iran might convince Tehran to end this latest escalation round.