EXPERT INTERVIEW — The Israel-Iran conflict has intensified in unprecedented ways over the past year, since Hamas — one of Iran’s anti-Israel proxy militias — breached Israel’s southern border and massacred 1,200 people. The tensions have culminated in a series of aerial attacks (also unprecedented) by each country’s military against the other, the most recent being an Israeli assault early Saturday that reportedly killed five members of Iran’s military but no civilians, while doing deep damage to military targets.
Until this year, Israel’s attacks against Iran had been limited to clandestine operations against militant leaders, scientists working in Iran’s nuclear program, and others. For its part, Iran had never attacked Israel directly, choosing instead to use Hamas, Hezbollah and its other client militias to fire at Israel from their respective bases in Gaza and Lebanon.
In the current escalatory and highly dangerous back-and-forth between the two countries, officials in the region and beyond are increasingly worried about the possibility of all-out war, a conflagration that would take the region deeper into uncharted territory, and likely draw in the U.S. as well.
With all that as a backdrop, The Cipher Brief turned to Norman Roule, a former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at ODNI. Roule described what he called the “new normal” of the Iranian and Israeli strikes and counterstrikes, and what the future may hold for Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and for Iran’s battered proxy militias in the region.
Roule spoke with Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: What does Israel’s recent air attack on Iran tell us about its broader security strategy?
Roule: Israel’s military and security strategy is probably best understood within a broader context that includes its operations against Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government’s handling of cease-fire negotiations.
In short, Israel now combines actionable intelligence with overwhelming military power to remove the strategic threat posed by aggressors near and far. Israel – like all the region’s actors – seeks to avoid a war but now believes, like Iran, that a high level of military activity can be undertaken without sparking a conventional conflict. The broad spectrum of Israel’s political leaders, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, shares this strategy. Netanyahu has political and legacy drivers, but it would be wrong to view this strategy as solely due to his interests.
The timeline for the execution of this strategy likely began with the April 1 Israeli attack on the Embassy complex in Damascus that killed multiple Quds Force leaders; Israel’s operations have crippled traditional adversaries, eradicating decades of experience and organizational structure as they killed hundreds of commanders. This weekend’s air operations against Iran were also meant to reset strategic deterrence against Iran.
Iran’s battered proxies
As to the results of this new approach, its accomplishments have been historic, but its eventual outcome is unclear. In many ways, Israeli operations echo the initial U.S. success against Iraq in 2003. Israel has destroyed Hamas and Hezbollah as strategic threats.
Even if they survive, the organizations will take years to recover and will do so with leadership that this year's events will have scarred. But we shouldn’t discount the possibility that other groups will emerge from their ashes. Hezbollah’s birth following Israel’s destruction of the PLO in Lebanon remains a powerful lesson.
The U.S.-led coalition has neutralized the Houthis' strategic capabilities, but this pressure will end once U.S. forces depart. Syria and Iraq have also stayed out of this fight. The neutralization of Damascus represents a blow for Iran, given its years of investment in the [Bashar al-] Assad regime. One would have to look back to 1973 to find such a catastrophic, if costly, defeat of Israel’s adversaries.
This weekend’s air strikes represent a new phase. The Israeli air strikes were massive, complex, and reportedly surgical. Israel had no difficulty overwhelming Iranian air defense and operating with significant freedom of action. Air operations on this scale, sophistication, and consequence have not been seen since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Behind its bluster, the Islamic Republic’s military leaders will have a hard case claiming Israel cannot repeat such a strike at any time of its choosing. For Israel, so far, so good.
The way forward
But where does this lead? Without a political solution with Palestinians and with Lebanon, Israel faces future violence from each side of its border. Without U.S.-led multilateral political, economic, and security pressure that constrains the Islamic Republic or regime change, the lethal threat from Iran will remain.
The Cipher Brief: Damage assessments from the Israeli air attack on Iran are limited, but statements from Israel and the Biden administration say that the attack may have crippled Iran’s missile program. What do the attack and its target deck for this operation tell us about Israel’s goals in the attack?
Roule: First, we need to acknowledge the complexity of an attack that hit defended targets over a broad geography 1200 miles from Israel. The intelligence, logistics, refueling, and planning requirements for this operation were vast. More so, Israel developed and conducted this operation while executing operations in Lebanon and Gaza.
The operation involved three waves, around one hundred aircraft, and focused on at least twenty separate targets. In addition to targets in Iran, Israel reportedly struck Iranian radar sites in Syria and Iraq. The operation allegedly achieved its objectives. Israel’s aircraft and crews returned home safe and victorious. There are no reports of Iranian civilian casualties, but Tehran has admitted that at least five of its military personnel died in the attack.
The aircraft focused on two classes of targets. The first was air defense. Reportedly, Israel severely damaged or destroyed several of Iran’s most important air defense systems, the Russian S-300 as well as multiple other systems. The sites were located near energy, missile, and perhaps nuclear facilities. The second class of targets concerned missile production and logistics sites related to fuel, engines, and other technology. It is yet unknown whether Israel was able to damage missile launch or storage sites. Target selection suggests profound Israeli intelligence capabilities and an intent to achieve maximum impact on Iran’s ability to produce missiles for itself and others (including Ukraine, the Houthis and other proxies).
Now to the impact. This was a significant strike and will likely be considered the most severe damage to Iran’s security architecture in decades. Its air defense appears to have been severely hit. Russia will likely be unable to replace any of the S-300 systems, given its own needs in its war on Ukraine.
The extent of this devastation dwarfs the success of Iran’s April and October missile attacks on Israel. Once more, the attack carried echoes of the American-led attack on Iraq, which so effectively overcame Iraqi (and Russian-supplied) defenses. We will better understand this damage as commercial imagery and Israeli statements provide more details. Depending on the equipment destroyed in the attack, affected missile programs may have been set back for months, perhaps longer if foreign equipment is needed and sanctions enforcement or tough diplomacy with suppliers block its acquisition.
One last comment on this question: Despite the air and intelligence requirements of the Iran strike, Israel did not reduce its tempo of air strikes against Hezbollah. On the same day as the attack on Iran, Israel reported that its air force hit over seventy targets in Lebanon. Israel’s ability to undertake simultaneous complicated air operations in two countries against its historically most dangerous foes speaks volumes about the skill and power of Israel’s military and intelligence architecture. Finally, the potency of Israel’s U.S. aircraft has reinforced what the world has seen in Ukraine: U.S. and partner military technology has no match. Russian and Chinese military planners will study the Israeli attack with some discomfort.
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The Cipher Brief: The world has seen the success of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as the impact of US-led strikes on the Houthis. How do we measure success regarding Iran?
Roule: Iran itself is likely assessing the damage of the strikes, determining what opportunities may have emerged in the Israeli attack and its own recent missile strike on Iran. Iran retains a large missile and drone force, but it will likely take time to formulate a new attack strategy.
Tehran could expect the next phase of Israeli action to be a series of cyber or unconventional attacks. But success is measured in the absence of retaliation.
Iran’s rhetoric will have two elements. The absence of high-profile damage and civilian casualties will allow Tehran to downplay the impact of the strikes and exaggerate the success of its air defenses. The Supreme Leader’s first comments following the attack were accordingly muted. Diplomatically, Iran’s envoys will claim retaliation will take place, while simultaneously portraying Iran as interested in regional peace.
In any case, deterrence is never permanent. Tehran’s assessment of opportunities and adversary fortitude will define its lifespan.
The Cipher Brief: Let’s move deeper into Iran. How does this attack fit into their view of regional events?
Roule: Twelve months ago, Iran could claim significant successes. Its primary Palestinian proxy [Hamas] had delivered a powerful blow against Israel. Its proxies throughout the region launched routine attacks on Israel. Houthi operations in the Red Sea touched the global economy. The Arab rapprochement with Israel halted. Radical protestors in the U.S. itself parroted Iran’s narratives. The world was going its way.
The last six months have seen the initiative slip away. Israel eradicated the strategic capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah, killing hundreds of Iran’s most experienced partners, erasing decades of training, hundreds of millions of dollars of weaponry and treasure, and taking the lives of iconic figures close to the Supreme Leader himself. Quds Force losses in Syria and Lebanon have reached levels not seen since the high point of the Syrian civil war. Iran launched two major attacks on Israel but endured international embarrassment as U.S., Israeli, and partner defenses reduced these attacks to symbolic gestures.
Israel’s attacks in recent weeks, however, have undermined Iran’s entire regional security strategy to an extent that may not yet be appreciated. In particular, three pillars of Iran’s offensive and defensive narrative have been proven false.
First, Israel was able to destroy the strategic threat posed by Hamas and Hezbollah. The skill and speed of the Hezbollah operation must have been astonishing to those in Iran who believed their Lebanese allies would never fall so quickly. For Iran, the loss of these allies punctured the narrative that Iran would stand with these partners should they ever fall under Israeli attack, but also that Tehran could count on their support when Israel struck Iran.
Next, Iran has long acted as if its regional operations would never result in attacks by Israel against Iran itself. Tehran’s decision to attack Israel in April erased that red line.
The Israeli air strike on Iran was the first such attack on Iran since the Iran-Iraq War. Much like Iraqi attacks in the early days of that conflict, Iran’s defenses proved inadequate to the onslaught. At this point, evidence suggests Israel can strike any target it wishes in Iran at will.
For Iran’s Supreme Leader, this raft of catastrophic and unexpected news follows the death of President [Ebrahim] Raisi, and knowledge that support within Iran for the Islamic Republic is at a historic low point.
In the short term, the leaders of the Islamic Republic will have three tasks: determining whether retaliation against Israel can be conducted without threatening the regime itself, undertaking a diplomatic campaign in the region, Europe, and the United Nations to maintain pressure on Israel and prevent the formation of any new coalitions against Iran. The course of the U.S. election will be a concern in this regard, and then the third task will be supporting ceasefire talks in Gaza and Lebanon. It is paramount that Iran’s proxies survive to enable Iran to rebuild these organizations.
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The Cipher Brief: Iran has lost its proxy partners. Isn’t this the moment for Iran to move to build a nuclear weapon?
Roule: For several years, Iran has behaved like a country intent on building a nuclear weapons capability, and the world has responded as if it didn’t care. Its expansion of enrichment to sixty percent and refusal to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency would once have been seen as a casus belli. Now, these actions don’t even make the daily news reports. Iran is now only months from a nuclear weapon. The U.S. continues to declare that it will not permit Iran to build such a weapon, but this red line lacks credibility in a world where Washington has allowed so many red lines to turn pink.
The argument supporting the likelihood is as follows and is often argued by those sympathetic to Tehran, opposed to Israel, or opposed to U.S. military action against Iran: Iran needs deterrence against Israel, they claim. Look what happened to Libya and Ukraine when they gave up nuclear weapons. Compare that to what happened to North Korea when they retained nuclear weapons. Iran’s acquisition of a weapon could even prove to be stabilizing, much as the Pakistani and Indian programs have prevented conventional wars between these two countries.
These arguments gloss over many counterarguments, but if one assumes that they do drive Iran to weaponization, the question for Tehran’s leaders remains: can they get away with it? Israel has now demonstrated the capability and willingness to successfully attack Iran when it believes it necessary with conventional and – per press reports – unconventional tools of considerable destructive force and lethality. It has also shown a deep knowledge of Iran’s secrets. CIA Director Burns recently stated at the Cipher Brief conference that the U.S. is “reasonably confident that — working with our friends and allies — we will be able to see it (i.e., nuclear weaponization) relatively early on.” Even if Israel lacks the capacity to destroy every nuclear site absent U.S. offensive support, a decision to build a nuclear weapon would be a terrific risk, especially give the unpopularity of the Islamic Republic and the impending transition to a post-Khamenei world.
For these reasons, a decision to weaponize is unlikely but possible. Certainly, the conversation on this issue in and out of Iran will grow louder in the coming weeks and months. It is more likely that Iran will continue efforts to normalize its nuclear expansion and to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Cipher Brief: Should we expect Iran to counterattack soon?
Roule: The Iranian decision to strike Israel in April erased the red line of state-on-state attacks. That is now a new normal, although the frequency and intensity may vary. It is likely Iran will retaliate, but how and when will depend on its internal debate over the coming days as to how Israel might ratchet up its strikes in a counterstrike.
The Cipher Brief: How do current conditions impact the possibility of ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon?
Roule: Ceasefires remain unlikely, but conditions do support the possibility. A short ceasefire in Gaza may be the most likely case. It isn’t unrealistic to think that the new leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah will accept a ceasefire to survive. Iran would support this move. The terrible damage inflicted on Hamas and Hezbollah may allow an opening for the Palestinian Authority and Lebanese Armed Services to assert their authority. A ceasefire that will enable the return of hostages and thousands of Israelis to their homes in north Israel would be popular in Israel. Israel’s heavy military burden means that its leadership will seek to avoid being drawn into a long-term quagmire in Lebanon or the Palestinian Territories. Last, a ceasefire would allow Israel to repair its economy and to restart its rapprochement with the Saudis.
In light of Israel’s apparent new security doctrine and events to date, much would seem to hinge on Israel’s belief that a ceasefire won’t mean the return of a strategic threat from Gaza and Lebanon. It remains uncertain whether Hamas leadership in Gaza – likely fragmented – is capable, let alone willing, to accept a ceasefire. A ceasefire would require tough decisions by Lebanese politicians and serious reforms within the Palestine Authority. Given their poor record in both areas, the inability of the United Nations to execute its security mission, and Iran’s inevitable efforts to rearm its broken proxies much as it did Hezbollah post-2006, Israel is likely to insist on convincing evidence before it ends its military campaigns. We should expect intense diplomacy by Washington and our Arab partners. Unfortunately, success will likely prove elusive if one considers the many similar crises since 1982.
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