By Walt Zlotow
While Israel inflicted significant death and destruction on Iran in its two-week bombing campaign, it achieved nary a war objective.
Tho likely severely damaged, It didn’t eliminate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. It didn’t topple the apparently-hated Iranian regime. It didn’t demolish Iran as a powerful hegemonic rival to Israel in the Middle East.
Then why did Israel fold its missile launchers, ground its planes and agree to a ceasefire without a whimper?
Simple. Israel took an unprecedented pounding from Iranian missiles it could not shoot down. Indeed, it was running out of defensive interceptors because it took multiple such missiles to shoot down a single incoming missile. Israel’s modern air defenses still ‘allowed’ 10 to 15% of incoming missiles to strike.
While little info of substantial Israeli damage emerges from heavily censored Israeli media, the impact on was significant.
The war comes with a price. Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich estimates the war has cost $12 billion. The economy has virtually stalled and non-essential schools and businesses have been shuttered. The Weizmann Institute of science, a main Israeli research facility and its largest refinery in Haifa were both badly damaged.
Israel may have more offensive and defensive firepower than Iran, but it quickly realized it had no ability to stop the bleeding which could have become catastrophic if its interceptors become depleted.
The one-off US attack did not achieve any of the three Israeli goals. Only all out US war to obliterate Iran can do the job which Trump appears unwilling to initiate even for his Israeli puppet masters.
We can hope that the quickly agreed upon ceasefire will hold. It could of course collapse, especially if Israel becomes self-destructive from its humiliation of not achieving a single war objective. Israel has a history of breaking ceasefires, most notably their blowing up the March ceasefire in Gaza so they could continue their genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians there.
But breaking the Iran war ceasefire is likely a bridge too far compared to the defenseless Palestinians Israel slaughters daily at their pleasure.
Hopefully, the missiles that rained down on Israel in their failed two-week war may motivate Israel to pivot to peace instead of resuming an unwinnable and pointless war to destroy Iran.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL
Also by Walt Zlotow:
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An interesting perspective. Perhaps the ceasefire I came too soon, before Iran really had time to smack Israel in the eye and by extension the US. I would love to have seen that.
The way I was reading it was that the IDF engineered a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on Iran essentially to provoke an Iranian response which Netanyahu figured would allow him to encourage the US to mount an attack which could then be classed as ‘self defence’.
Trump was dying to use his B-2 Bombers with their bunker busters but he was not prepared to go beyond that so he insisted on a multilateral ceasfire,
The Iranians must be confused : first they are attacked by Israel then when they act in self defence they are attacked by the US and then they are told to abide by a ceasefire proposed by one of their attackers.
I think they folded when Trump realised that Israel had manipulated him, conned him and made him look the fool, the Netanyahu government had to fold or they wouldnt be gettingany more weapons from the yanks.
@RomeoCharlie: Agreed.
The current evidence confirms the hypothesis that the GAZA GENOCIDE IS A DELIBERATE ZION@ZI GENOCIDE to displace & dispossess the Indigenous Palestinians so that the post-”war” reconstruction may re-build new residential premises benefiting fresh ZION@ZI colonist settlers continuing the present apartheid, misogynist ZION@ZI state.
The whingeing by ZION@ZI supporters obfuscates the reality that the IDF are among THE LEAST MORAL MILITARY FORCES IN THE WORLD thanks to years of indoctrination with ZION@ZI propaganda.
The ZION@ZI propaganda asserting continuous occupation of Palestine by elements of the Judaism faithful does not bear historical scrutiny, even with Biblical sources.
In keeping with American foreign policy, the USA (United States of Apartheid) are fighting a proxy war for the benefit of US armaments manufacturers, a replacement for this bountiful political handout being the demand by TACO Trumpery that western world governments ”contribute” 5% of national GDP to military hardware purchases ….. preferably built in America.