"The Iranians have asked us to say 'do not mess with us,'" some experts say, while others say Iran has no interest in a large-scale conflict. • Israel has proven it can deter Tehran, but if it is a new conflict, it will have to convince its partners that the fight against terrorism is global.
An Iranian ship in the Gulf of Oman
Photo:
IPI
In the defense establishment, a not insignificant debate has erupted in the past week.
Was the attack on an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman a solitary event, within the framework of the rules of the game, or perhaps it opens up a new arena and space for the never-ending confrontation between the State of Israel and Iran.
The answer to this debate will be given if and when the Iranians carry out another attack.
Then Israel will know that a broad, borderless campaign has been launched, in which any Israeli interest anywhere on the globe will be a goal.
This requires a complex, mostly defensive deployment, which also has quite a few questions.
For example, is any direct or indirect interest of Israelis a reason for which the state should respond and risk escalation.
The Minister of Environmental Protection, Gila Gamliel, claimed on Tuesday that the ecological disaster that recently hit the shores of Israel was also Iranian terrorism.
The defense establishment was surprised by the things, and determined that they stemmed from political motives and in reality have no proof.
Apparently, the bodies in charge of dealing with terrorism in the State of Israel - the GSS, the IDF and the Mossad - are not involved in the investigation of the affair.
As for the latest attack, the prevailing opinion is that it is a reaction of the Iranians to the assassination of the nuclear projector Muhsin Fahrizadeh.
Since being assassinated last November on the outskirts of Tehran (in an activity attributed to the institution), the Iranians have been seeking revenge.
Their initial ambition was to launch armed UAVs from Yemen, and blow them up at targets in Israel. The
defense establishment identified the threat in time, and responded to it in several ways: increasing coordination (especially intelligence) with the Americans, in order to receive early warning to prepare and intercept the threat; In the battlefields and air defense; and sending secret and overt messages (to Iran, as well as to Yemen) that such an action would not go unnoticed. It
is doubtful whether the Houthis - the loyal emissaries of the Iranians in Yemen - have the operational maturity to carry out such a complex attack. Such teams have already been transferred to Yemen, but apparently in small numbers and they have not yet moved from full execution.
This process is very troubling to Israel because it opens up a new, distant and complex arena for it (geographical, intelligence and operational), in which the adversary already proves that he is completely uninhibited and willing to enslave himself without hesitation to the whim of his Iranian patrons.
The dispute between Cohen and Kochavi
in the discussions that took place immediately after the attack on the ship, was unanimous that the Iranians knew that it was Israeli-owned - and therefore attacked it.
This is a relevant question not only for the response (which, according to reports, came three days later in an attack by the Air Force in Damascus), but also for an understanding of the whole situation.
In 2019, the Iranians carried out a series of attacks on Western vessels - mainly oil tankers - in the Persian Gulf region.
That was one of their ways to take revenge on US sanctions that accompanied the departure of the nuclear agreement, which limited them in oil exports - the main income source of Iran. These attacks Iranians wanted to say: If we will export oil freely, nobody will do it.
The aggressiveness of this Iranian It ended then only after the Americans knocked on the table, and made it clear to Iran that their response would be difficult.Now, it remains to be seen whether this is a renewal of the same activity - meaning that any foreign ship is a target, as part of hardening positions towards nuclear talks - or a spot-on, surgical operation Israel
is convinced that it was a deliberate action, against a specific target. Although the ship sailed under a foreign flag, its ownership is under a chain of companies all registered abroad, but the end leads to the Israeli businessman Rami Unger, who owns dozens Ships that specialize in sailing cars.
The Iranians appear to have done meticulous intelligence work in gathering information about the ship and its movements;
It is not inconceivable that they also had people in the port of Damam in Saudi Arabia, from where she sailed to Singapore.
Real-time intelligence is critical to the success of such an operation, and it once again teaches about the widespread deployment of Revolutionary Guards in the region (and beyond).
There is no doubt that the Iranians did not want to sink the ship.
If they wanted to - they would succeed.
The intention was to harm her but not to kill people.
In the past, Tehran (and its emissaries) have been less picky, but she seems to have sought to go here outright: to respond, but not to launch a campaign that would jeopardize vital interests.
There has been a heated debate in Israel over the response.
His part was also expressed in the media.
The hawkish line, led by Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, argued that the Iranians should be treated "head on," in a harsh response that would deter them from operating again.
The moderate line, which Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi sided with, believed that it was better to respond in a measured way, not to risk launching a broad and borderless campaign that Israel is not interested in at the moment.
According to reports, Kochavi's position won - Iranian targets in Syria, Israel's most convenient playground - but not sure it was the right one at this time. not many sides, even from the military, believe that Israel was able to hold back and to leverage the event in terms of Diflomtit-mdinit to demonize the Iranians, but if you've chosen to react - it should respond with great force.
A year ago attacked Iranian cyber water infrastructure in Israel Although the attack caused only minor damage, it was claimed that Israel responded with relative force, and according to foreign publications, silenced for a few weeks some of the activities in Iran's main seaport, Bender Abbas, but those who hoped the message was received in Tehran were quickly deceived. "Iran has only intensified its offensive activity against Israel in cyber. It
is doubtful that this time too the message will be learned. The Iranians have learned to contain the attacks in Syria, and they did not go to war with them." What happens in Syria remains in Syria, "a senior official said. This week, it is with satisfaction that Israel has gone where it is convenient for them, and not where it hurts them. "
This matter is critical for the next round, if and when.
As mentioned, experts disagree as to whether the attack was a single incident, or part of a new and extensive campaign.
"We are in a new event, the first of its kind," says Brigadier General (Res.) Assaf Orion, former head of the IDF Strategic Division and currently a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies.
"It was a signal that Israel also has a soft underbelly, and it can be harmed around the world. The Iranians actually wanted to tell us, 'Do not mess with us.'"
Orion believes that Iran is conducting this campaign in isolation from the nuclear issue.
"The Iranians are multi-tasking. They run things in parallel."
On the other hand, Raz Zimet, one of Iran's senior researchers from the Institute for National Security Studies, believes that the Iranians are not currently interested in a large-scale confrontation with Israel.
"Not about that, not at this time, and not in front of this administration in Washington."
An ongoing state of survival
Tehran's main focus, Zimt says, is currently on the nuclear issue.
"They play hard-to-get even more than one might expect. Their basic position has not changed, and they will not return to anything or give up anything until the Americans actually do something."
This "something" is the removal of sanctions.
The West hoped they would bring Iran down on its knees.
That internal processes may arise in it, and perhaps even a change of government.
Zimt has previously estimated (including above these pages) that this will not happen.
That the Iranians are stronger and tougher than we estimate.
he was right.
The economic situation in Iran is bad, but it has learned to live with the sanctions, and even managed to increase its oil production from a low of 300-400 thousand barrels per day in the middle of last year to about a million barrels today.
This gap is the breathable air that allows the Iranian economy to stay afloat even if sanctions are not lifted soon.
The prevailing opinion in the West is that the Iranians are eager to return to the nuclear agreement here and now.
Not sure this is universally true.
Zimt says that there are now quite a few voices in Iran who believe that it should not return to the agreement framework, and that it would be better for it to remain in the status of a nuclear-threshold state.
Their logic rests on the fear that in four years the government in Washington will change again, and sanctions will again be imposed on them that will paralyze their country.
"They will want to make sure that does not happen," he estimates.
It is not clear whether this Iranian toughness is tactical, or strategic.
If it is intended to maximize achievements in negotiations in order to return to the original nuclear deal, or it expresses real change.
"If even then the Iranians do not give up, we will know that something fundamental has changed there."
Until then, the Iranians will continue in the current mode of survival and hardening of positions.
It serves the government in favor of accumulating assets for future possible negotiations (where they can give up enriched uranium, advanced centrifuges and more) but it also serves it at home: in three months the presidential election will be held in Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wants the next president Therefore, it is doubtful that he will want to give the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani, the grand prize of lifting the sanctions, and he may ask to extend the difficult economic situation to help his people win the election.
A security guard against state terrorism?
And back to the attack: even if Israel wants to, it has no real ability to defend any interest of Israelis in the world.
Unger's ships are registered under foreign ownership for economic reasons, but also to allow them freedom of navigation.
In the last decade, the practice of securing maritime traffic has increased significantly.
It did not happen because of terrorism, but as a result of piracy.
Quite a few factors realized that this was an easy way to make money, and began to rob ships, for their contents.
The world was quite indifferent to this process, until it came to life: people were killed, people were abducted and intervention was required.
Part of the problem was that according to the art of the old world, it was forbidden to carry weapons at sea.
The only exceptions (according to foreign publications) were ships that sailed under an Israeli flag, carrying weapons under the command of the GSS. Following the increase in piracy, various regulatory processes were carried out, which allowed weapons to be loaded on ships. Still, this remains a complex matter. Weapons in ports, and even the construction of floating weapons in several places in the world. Quite a few shipping companies have also hired security guards who accompany the voyages and are supposed to protect the ships.
"In the face of state terrorism no security guard will help," said Kobi Buharis, a former 13th Squadron officer. No merchant ship will install systems for detecting and detecting threats like there are on stilts. It's just not economical. The shipowners are old-school. They are very outdated and difficult. When the pirates started they were offered solutions, and they only started implementing some of them. Has become a requirement of insurance companies. "
Buharis says there are quite a few solutions to the current threats as well.
"Skimmers can be used for surveillance and scans, and divers can be used to make sure no mines are attached to the ship."
Such actions will reduce the risks, but will not eliminate them.
It will still be possible to hit any ship during the voyage in a variety of ways (from missiles to suicide skimmers), and as mentioned - no civilian ship will be equipped with means parallel to those of military ships.
The only solution, Buharis says, is military.
Intensive activity that will frustrate and deter, and if necessary will also punish.
This is what the Americans did in 2019, and that is what Israel should strive for now.
The question is whether Israel is able to do this alone, in the remote areas of the Persian Gulf and beyond.
In the past, it has shown that it can deter the Iranians, but if it is now a new, wide-ranging campaign, it will have to enlist the help of partners, and convince them that the fight against Iranian terrorism - just like nuclear - is not just an Israeli interest, but a global interest.
40-year obsession:
Iranian terrorism always in the background
The Israeli-Iranian struggle spans more than four decades, since Ayatollah Khomeini seized power, and the heated affair between the two countries has suddenly become a bitter enemy.
The essence of this struggle is concentrated on the nuclear issue, which Israel sees, and rightly so, as the most critical of all.
As early as the mid-1980s, intelligence indicated Iran's intentions to develop nuclear weapons, and from the first half of the 1990s the issue also became a central pillar on the agenda of the top political-security, and of the operational, intelligence and consequently financial priorities.
During this period, Israel carried out a huge amount of actions designed to thwart, disrupt and delay various processes related to Iran's desire to become nuclear.
Most of these actions were carried out in secret and only a few were published, and Israel also refrained from accepting responsibility.
The most notable exception to this policy was the nuclear archive that was stolen in 2018 and brought to Israel, and made it possible to reveal the extent of Iran's fraud in everything related to its nuclear program.
But this struggle also knew other sectors, unrelated to the nucleus.
Following the assassination of then-Hezbollah leader Abbas Mousavi in 1992, the organization set out to avenge the mission of its patrons in Tehran.
He used Iranian diplomats, Iranian intelligence and Iranian diplomatic weapons to carry out the attacks on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 (29 killed and 242 wounded) and on the building of Jewish communities in the city in 1994 (85 killed and 330 wounded).
The Iranian operational infrastructure around the world has tried to roll out similar attacks in the last decade as well.
After Israel was blamed for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, Iran tried to harm Israeli targets in Asia and some of the former republics.
The wife of the Defense Ministry envoy was injured in a bomb blast in New Delhi, and an Iranian squad that produced weapons was arrested in Bangkok shortly before it set out to hit Israeli targets.
Whoever was entrusted with this world-wide effort was Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, who was assassinated early last year by the Americans.
His absence is felt throughout the arena - from Iranian activity in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to terrorist terrorist acts, such as the failed attack last month against the Israeli embassy in India.