Making an Iranian attack Tehran’s worst option

In the coming days, perhaps even hours, Iran may orchestrate an attack like the one it executed in April, in which it fired over 300 projectiles – a mix of one-way UAVs, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles – directly at Israel. That attack was unprecedented, as Iran had until then sought to degrade and attrit its enemy Israel using the proxy and partner militaries at its disposal in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Until recently, most Iran watchers would never have anticipated Iran firing directly on Israel, and certainly not without first establishing a nuclear deterrent. Now, it appears Iran is about to do it for the second time in four months. US President Joe Biden has been stalwart in his efforts to avoid a regional war, beginning with his “Don’t” speech in October, followed by his ordering of a massive and persistent presence of US military assets into the region. But looking back, violence has steadily escalated. US policy has slowed the rise of the region’s temperature but has not succeeded in stopping it. Absent a course correction in Washington’s approach, the frog is inevitably going to boil.

Reliance on US assets

The region seemed to approach the breaking point during the April attack. Thankfully, the combined defensive response from the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and regional partners succeeded in preventing almost all of Iran’s weapons from striking their targets. That, along with Israel’s carefully calibrated military response, succeeded in averting a regional war. This time, reports suggest Iran might launch a larger attack with greater coordination and more aggressive participation from the Houthis and Hezbollah.

The combination of missiles from Iran and, in particular, Hezbollah causes the greatest concern. Hezbollah has foreshadowed that it will strike deeper into Israel, dipping into its strategic arsenal of precision-guided missiles. With or without Iran’s participation, Hezbollah, responding to Israel’s successful targeting of its military chief Fuad Shukr, could launch a volume of weapons large enough to overwhelm Israel’s layered missile defense. Should Nasrallah choose to come heavy, Israel will likely have to focus its response on Hezbollah’s more accurate and deadly attacks. That will leave less capacity to deal with weapons fired directly from Iran, making Israel more reliant on US military assets, and those of Washington’s partners and allies who are willing to engage Iran’s salvos.

If this time, an Iranian warhead finds its way through and causes carnage on Israeli soil, an Israeli military response may follow that at best, brings war closer, and at worst, ignites a protracted and direct conflict between Israel, Iran, and Iran’s proxies, which inevitably draws the United States in, too. To avoid the risk of this scenario, and to arrest the steadily increasing levels of violence, the Biden administration should consider taking an informed risk of its own, based on an understanding of the Iranian regime’s decision calculus. While Iran is still determining the scope of its coming attack, the Biden administration should communicate to the regime that it is prepared to take pre-emptive action to disrupt any ballistic missile attack launched from Iranian soil.

Iran’s leadership is compelled to strike Israel (again) because Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, was very publicly assassinated in Tehran, while under the protection of the regime. Iran’s response is driven not by some great affection for Haniyeh, but rather by the appearance of the Iranian security apparatus’s public incompetence in not being able to protect him, in full view of the Iranian people. Public displays of the regime’s fecklessness within its own borders undermine its strength at home. Iran responds to these failures with significant demonstrations of regime power, to reenforce for the Iranian people that the regime is unquestionably in control. For example, after a terrorist bombing in January killed 84 people and wounded 300 more in Kerman, Iran fired ballistic missiles into three different countries, a performative display of military strength.

Damage to the regime

The Supreme Leader has ordered an attack on Israel to reinforce his appearance of control within Iran. However, what might it do to the regime’s domestic image if instead of launching missiles against the Zionist entity, the Iranian people witnessed the regime’s heralded missile arsenal destroyed on their launch pads before they could be fired? This would be far more damaging to the regime’s image of control than choosing a more performative response to the Haniyeh killing.

As of now, Iran’s decision-makers see a regional war as the only downside risk to a major attack, and increasingly, public reporting suggests Tehran believes it can weather that risk. The Supreme Leader will be less likely to launch a major missile attack if he believes the US military will preemptively strike to defang it. In Iran, the regime celebrated its April operation as a great victory for just having succeeded in launching the attack. It did not matter that 99% of the weapons never reached their target. The videos of the launches were enough material for the regime’s propaganda machine to bolster its domestic image of strength. If instead of having video footage of successful missile launches to compile into corny videos set to melodramatic music, what if all Tehran had was video of their beloved missiles exploding prematurely on their launchers? The damage to the regime would far eclipse that of Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, turning Iran’s best option into a catastrophic one.

President Biden has preemptively struck targets in Yemen and Iraq to protect maritime shipping and U.S. forces, respectively. To reverse the region’s steady march toward war, and to reduce the risk of a potential mass casualty event on Israeli soil, he should directly and non-publicly make clear to Tehran that he is willing to take preemptive military measures on Iranian soil, in full view of the Iranian people. And should he receive indicators that an Iranian missile launch is imminent, he must have the resolve to follow through with a targeted attack on Iran’s missiles before they leave the ground. In essence, at this moment of great consequence, he can and should shape Tehran’s decision calculus, by making it clear that a massive attack on Israel, drawn up by Iran’s military planners to shore up regime control, would end up having the opposite effect. At this moment, Iran calculates an attack on Israel is its best option. It is incumbent on President Biden to make it its worst.