Julian Borger – The Guardian Apr 14, 2024
The prospect of a major regional war in the Middle East hangs in the balance on Sunday morning, when Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet is due to meet to decide Israel’s response to Iran’s drone and missile attack.
Netanyahu’s ministers voted in the middle of the night to delegate that decision to the tiny war cabinet, comprising Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, a Netanyahu opponent who joined the government as minister without portfolio after the Hamas 7 October attack, which began the spiral of violence that has brought Israel and Iran to the brink of war.
These three prickly rivals will decide the next step, with the fate of the region now resting in their hands.
In the nervous hours leading up to the war cabinet meeting, Netanyahu and Biden spoke by phone for 25 minutes, during which, according to some reports in the Israeli media, the US president urged restraint.
Biden issued a statement minutes after the call in which he gave no explicit advice to Netanyahu but he noted that with US help, “nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles” had been brought down.
That “remarkable” defensive capacity, Biden argued, was by itself “a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel”.
As of early Sunday morning, the only reported casualty from the aerial onslaught was a 10-year-old boy in Israel’s southern desert, from the country’s most marginalised community, the Bedouins. A southern military base was lightly damaged.
In the run-up to the expected Iranian assault, US officials had hypothesised just such an outcome: that Iranian projectiles would fall in the desert and not cause significant casualties. In that case, the officials predicted, Washington would urge strongly against a rash Israeli response.
Iran is clearly hoping for such a muted response. In a message delivered through its mission at the UN, Tehran suggested hopefully that in the wake of its retaliation: “The matter can be deemed concluded.”
Both Biden and the Iranians are well aware that Netanyahu would ideally like to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, which he has long seen as an existential threat to Israel. Reducing them to rubble would be very hard without US help, but it is possible that he and other Israeli hawks could try seize this opportunity to deliver that ambition.
NBC News reported on Saturday night that some top administration officials are “concerned Israel could do something quickly in response to Iran’s attacks without thinking through potential fallout afterward”.
The report said Biden had privately expressed concern that Netanyahu is “trying to drag the US more deeply into a broader conflict”, citing three people familiar with the president’s comments.
Administration officials are well aware that Netanyahu has an incentive to keep hostilities going, as it fends off the collapse of his coalition and new elections.
While the damage to Israel was minimal, Israeli officials could argue that was no thanks to Tehran, but to the reliability of Israeli air defence and its allies, most notably the US, the UK and Jordan. Jordan risked being lambasted in the Arab world for intercepting some of the Iranian drones as they crossed its airspace.
That joint action, prepared in the week before the Iranian attack, almost certainly saved lives and may have fended off a wider war. It could also serve as a reminder of Israel’s dependence on the US to keep Israelis safe.
In the short term, Washington can draw comfort from a few signs any Israeli response will not at least be immediate. Israel has called for a UN security council session on the attack, which will happen at 4pm New York time on Sunday. It would be surprising if a counter-attack was launched before that session.
Another possible sign that the response could be muted was Gallant’s conversation with his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, after the attacks. According to the Israeli defence ministry, Gallant “emphasised that the defence establishment is prepared for any further attempts to attack the state of Israel”. His comments made no mention of Israel striking back.
A third positive sign in the early hours of Sunday was a reassurance from an Israeli official cited by the New York Times that “Israel’s response would be coordinated with its allies”.
Washington is likely to remind Israel in the coming hours and days of its gains from having withstood Iran’s fury, largely unscathed.
The attack has for now distracted global attention from Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. Furthermore, the Iranian attack is also likely to dispel murmurs in the US Congress about curbing weapons supplies to Israel because of Gaza. Now such restrictions can be cast by Israel’s supporters as leaving America’s leading ally in the Middle East defenceless in the face of the proven Iranian threat.
OMG, The Guardian is having a good day on here with mostly pre written, as in, before Iran attacked.
Now I think it’s clear. Israel is not setting the agenda. Nazi Amerika wants another war, just as I said yesterday.
The tail isn’t wagging the dog, and this proves just how desperate the Nazis are.
The Joos can’t beat Hamas, or Hezbollah, and neither can the US, unless they take lots of body bags. Much easier to damage Iran.
Iron Dome doesn’t work. This proven by using aircraft as a major line of defence. We simply don’t know what the Iranians have managed to hit, but it doesn’t appear as if they’ve used their big missiles, and if this is the case, a big mistake.
Biden’s controllers now have the pretext to get involved, so we wait and see. Keep in mind that both Russia and China will have been informed, and probably given the nod to Iran’s response.
While we’ve heard of Iran’s attack and western weaponry that seems to have repelled it, we’ll not hear of the actual effects and what Israel and the west really make of it all. How close did the missiles come to hitting their targets? How many came in from different locations, altitudes and speeds? How many AD missiles did it take to shoot down each incoming missile? Did any warheads survive the missile being struck? What damage did they do after hitting the ground? These things matter.
Maybe Iran was just testing the defences. Next one’s the biggie?
In one target alone at least 4 iran ballistic missiles get through. I think Iran have proven their capability.
Anybody else think this Iranian response was fishy??.
They largely bombed a desert area…..waste of time.Therefore the attack was highly suspicious.
After all Jewish attacks on Iranian scientists has cost Iran a lot of expertise.
Why didn’t Iran target Israel’s desalination plants or built up areas (like Gaza!)
So all in all highly suspicious given other examples of jewish treachery….running both sides of ww2 for example.
The Zio-media is STILL duping the American public trying to convey the impression Biden is running the show….RI-FUCKING-DICULOUS….
Israel attacking an Iranian Embassy in Syria……. A defensive act.
Iran retaliating…………… an act of war!
Yeah, makes sense to me!
Firstly all of Iran’s ballistic missiles have hypersonic warheads. The term however refers to missiles that are hypersonic throughout the entire flight. This means while the warheads were hypersonic, Iran did not use Fattah-1 or Fattah-2 or Khoramshar-4 which are true hypersonic missiles, these also have exoatmospheric maneuvering capability with Fattah-1 being the fastest specially in terminal phaze claimed to reach mach 23 which is crazy fast, about 7889 m/s or ~8 KM per second! Warheads of other missiles like Dezful, Emad, etc… also reach mach 6 or 7 upon impact and their fins burn and glow, but FATTAH appears like a glowing shooting star that from re-entry to impact might take less than 3 seconds even if you consider it drop from stratosphere. What we saw in the videos were more like the standard ballistic warheads.
Another point is that last night missiles hit their targets from the same angle mostly parallel to one another. If it was Fattah-1 for instance you’d see them arrive on the same target or targets near one another from deferent sides and angles.
Iran also did not use Arash-2 drones and relied on the same Shahed-136. But it appears that some of the missiles had cluster warheads (not bomblets).
Zion arguably has the best and most dense multilayered air-defense on Earth. Occupied Palestine is not vast and such a formidable air-defense can easily cover its relatively small area, besides that US bases in various countries along the way keeps track of everything. It was the dream of General McKenzie former head of CENTCOM to create this regional Networked multilayered Air-Defense which would include Saudis, Jordan, Turkey, other artificial Arab or Turkic (Baku) states and many US bases to share live radar feed. Add to that continuous satellite surveillance of Iran and monitoring position of launchers!
And Iran also had to make sure the attack is painful and yet limited (a “slap” as Khamenei said) to avoid escalation but clarify Iran’s tough stance to deter Zion in such a way that even if Netanyahu decides to push for further escalation his own generals shut him up!
Once again the resistance axis is not in a hurry and has all the patience to grind and slowly drain and rough up Zion. It is Zion that is impatient and believes in Armageddon.
As it is clear only Shia is defending Sunni Gaza and fighting Zion. Axis of Resistance is led by leaders who wear black turbans (Shia) and so if you see things through the nation-state world order then you ask why Iran did not attack directly, but if you if ditch nation-state world order, does it matter from where Resistance Axis is attacking?!
Now as one former IRGC commander explained: In the wildlife and animal kingdom, Hyenas attack in packs, while they distract the victim one Hyena is tasked to bite the testicles of the male victim and grab by the ball! This way they easily kill their prey even if it is the mighty Buffalo! The only animal that knows this is the male lion! When they are attacked by Hyenas they sit and fold their ears and only fight the Heynas in front of them in the seated position, they keep this position until the female lions arrive and help them! He then said Iran is like this and this is the way to fight global hyenas and vultures as they want to grab Iran by the ballz from behind! HAHAHA
Anyways, the attack on Zion set a Guinness World Record: The largest and longest combined drone attack in history!
The attack was successful, as if the panic inflicted on Zion for days was not enough, Novatim airbase was put out of order however likely F35s were moved away, also among various other shiny things they had 103 Super Hercules transport planes that help keep Zion going and if you consider the Red Sea and now Persian Gulf blockade, if these hangars were destroyed last night as claimed then Zion is even in deeper manure. Also another Intelligence/surveillance/listening base on the border with Syria on Golan heights was also destroyed, likely that base on that mountain!
I may be wrong by it appears that Zion is standing down, won’t retaliate against Iran and won’t go for Rafah either, we’ll see.
my two tomans
Putin Exposes the Truth About the “Fake” Moon Landings
https://rumble.com/v41zffv-putin-exposes-the-truth-about-the-fake-moon-landings.html
there were moonlandings + those deniing it
listen only to communist propaganda Putins !
NUKES EXIST EN MASSES + earth is a globe !