Overnight on 13 April, the Middle East entered unchartered territory.
Never before had the region seen a direct, publicly acknowledged Iranian attack against Israel. Never before had the region seen hundreds of drones and missiles being launched in a single wave. How Israel reacts will determine whether this is the only “unprecedented” attack the region will see.
Until the recent escalation, the latent conflict between Israel and Iran had been kept in the ‘shadow’, for a simple reason: it suited both parties.
By not acknowledging the de facto state of war that existed, neither side backed the other in a corner. There is a certain wiggle room there: by not using the word "war", it meant there wasn’t one. There was always room to manoeuvre and space to de-escalate.
For Israel, the “campaign between the wars”—as the strategy used against Iran is often referred to—was an efficient way to take shots at Iran and interdict some of the most worrying capabilities while still avoiding a full-scale conflict. The goal of the “campaign between the wars” was to weaken Iran and its proxies without actually triggering a full-scale war.
Beyond the military aspect, the Iranian threat has also served as a solid door-opener in the region, helping boost Israeli-Arab normalisation at times. In many ways, Iran has been Israel’s best salesman.
At the same time, by building its regional ambitions around the claim that it was “resisting” Israel and "fighting for Palestine", Iran has also built itself influence and manpower across the region. It was especially convenient that the fighting took place mostly outside of Iran's borders and rarely against Israel.
Even as it fired missiles at the city, Iran’s Supreme Leader claimed it was working to “liberate Palestine”. And per all of Hezbollah’s death notices, any member of the group killed by Israel died “on the way to Jerusalem”—though most have also taken a slight detour in Syria’s Aleppo or Qusayr.
The recent exchange of violence has seemingly killed this uneasy dynamic—either for good or just for a time—raising the stakes dramatically. Israel’s strike in Damascus was viewed as crossing a red line by Iran, while Iran’s response is also deemed as a line-crossing attack.
Setting the rules of a new “equation”
The fact that the recent blows Iran and Israel traded are all setting precedents is exactly what makes them dangerous. Neither side is simply thinking about the best way to respond now but also how this will affect the future dynamic of a conflict that has, up until now, been waged in the shadows.
In other words, when Israel thinks about how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented attack, it is not simply calculating the cost and benefits of a response (or absence of one), but also gauging how this will change the dynamics of future rounds of violence.
Both sides are reexamining the proverbial “equation”—a term Iran and Israel often use to refer to the conflict's set of unwritten rules.
The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps himself said that, with its unprecedented attack, Iran had “changed the equation” and would now respond directly from Iran to any attack against Iran’s territory, assets, or citizens.
Whether he meant it or not, this phrase is another argument convincing segments of the Israeli leadership the attack simply cannot go unanswered.
The other is the nature of the attack itself: Iran did not simply launch dozens of slow-moving drones; it also fired more than 100 ballistic missiles, making its assault one of the heaviest such barrages in history.
While Iran did not use the full range of its capabilities, including Hezbollah, its most potent proxy, it also did not just carry out a symbolic attack.
It sought to achieve hits on three different Israeli bases and possibly on Jerusalem. Sure, Iran telegraphed its intention to hit Israel ahead of time, knowing this would help Israel prepare.
