On October 7, 2023, a day that will forever live in infamy, Hamas, a client of Iran, attacked Israel, murdering in cold blood some 1,200 people, virtually all civilians. They also took about 240 hostages.
Israel vowed three things in response. One, to obliterate Hamas as a fighting force. Two, to recapture the hostages. Three, to follow to the ends of the earth if need be, the leaders of that terrible day's events, whoever they may be, wherever they may be, and assassinate them. There was no exception made in the case that these guilty parties were hanging out in Iran, or Yemen, or anywhere else in the world.
There was precedent for this third obligation: the members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group that murdered the Israeli Olympic Team in 1972, all subsequently met this fate in the Israeli operation Wrath of God. They, too, were hunted down in whatever rat holes they were hiding.
Israel made these vows first for revenge, a human reaction. Second, it did so for self-defense purposes. It is located in a "tough neighborhood," and if it stood idly by after October 7, 2023, it would have invited many repeats of that barbaric day. Third, it was deemed the only way to bring back the hostages, apart from pretty much totally emptying its prisons of Palestinian murderers and rapists, and thus inviting more of the same from that quarter.
At the time of this writing, Israel has had only partial success in these three areas of endeavor. A pitiful few of the hostages have indeed been released. Hamas has been very much weakened but is still alive as a fighting force. On April 1, 2024, Israel made a bit of a down payment on its third promise to itself: it attacked the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing two Iranian generals and some half dozen other high-ranking members of its military, all of whom had been involved in planning the unconscionable Hamas attack.
The Iranian government took serious umbrage at this Jewish reprisal. It maintained, correctly it must be admitted, that the pulverization of its Syrian embassy was not only akin to, but in actual fact an attack on part of its sovereign territory. It was as if Israel had bombed Tehran itself, in terms of international law.
Iran also took a second position: that Israel, perhaps, maybe, possibly, conceivably, may have been justified in attacking Gaza to root out Hamas (none of this was actually stated, all if it is me reading between the lines) but that a direct incursion into Holy Iranian territory was completely beyond the pale, crossed a red line, was totally unjustified, and that Israel would pay a severe price for its action. The Ayatollahs were highly indignant at this supposed rights violation and totally outraged.
It is as if they were channeling the children's game which provides that once a player reaches home base, he is safe from being tagged, and thus removed from the contest. Or perhaps the leaders of Iran had in mind American football, wherein once the ball carrier was tackled to the ground no one else was allowed to jump on top of him in a pile-on. In a word, what the Israelis did was simply not cricket, in their considered opinion.
Let us try this on a different corner of the world. Suppose that marauders from countries surrounding Iran such as Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, and Oman came to its country, murdered a few civilians and raped a few others, and then high-tailed it back to their countries of origin. Iran objected, strenuously, to the governments of these nations. It demanded that these miscreants be strongly punished. They either ignored this plea or told Iran to go pound sand. Iran turned to the United Nations for relief but met the same fate there.
Would a powerful sovereign nation such as Iran blithely accept such treatment? No. they would either send assassins in teams over to these countries to deal with those responsible and if that did not suffice, declare war on them. On all of them. That country might lose, it might not. But under the present situation I have concocted for Iran, that nation would certainly be conquered. Better to go down fighting than to go down not fighting if matters come to that choice.
On April 6, 2024, Iran did physically react to what it considered an unjust attack on its sovereign territory located in Iraq. From one perspective, it was a very measured incursion. The Persian country, reportedly, went out of its way to aim at non-civilian targets. Its army, presumably, gave timely notice of its launching, used weaker munitions than were available to it, and was not behindhand at broadcasting these facts. And to top it all off for this unusual attack the nation's leaders announced that as far as they were concerned, this matter was now concluded. On the other hand, this was the first time there was a direct attack upon Israel from Iran; previously, the latter had contented itself to violate the rights of the former via its proxies. Further, they launched at Israel hundreds of projectiles, any one of which could have done serious harm. Very few of them did. One injured a seven-year-old Bedouin girl, and a few others damaged some Israeli property. Thanks in part to the Iron Dome, and to the efforts of Jordan and the United States, more damage was not inflicted.
If at this time Israel did not respond, Iran promised, in effect, it would not escalate matters any further. This was even more unusual in matters of this sort.
Why did Iran adopt this course of action? Why not do absolutely mothering, themselves, in response to Israel's dispatch of several of their military leaders on April 1? This can only be speculative, but perhaps they needed to make some sort of show of force for domestic purposes. Yes, they are dictators, but dictators, too, can be overthrown, particularly if they are regarded as weak.
Why not, then, occupy the opposite end of this particular spectrum and deal Israel a very serious blow, with no warning whatsoever, targeted, as is the won't of Israel's enemies, on its civilian population? That course of action was not chosen because, although the Ayatollah and his minions are to be sure evil, they are not totally stupid. They know full well that Israel is far more powerful than they are, and that if they did any such thing Iran would cease to exist. The rubble that is now large parts of Gaza would be nothing compared to what would have occurred in Persia.
So, what should have Israel done in response to what many regard as only a slight slap on the wrist imposed upon it by its neighbor to the north? A lot of the decision in this regard rested upon exactly what its leaders meant when they broadcast the message that as far as they were concerned, the matter was concluded.
Did they mean, only, that insofar as unprecedented attacks directly from Iran to Israel were concerned, they, alone, would cease? In this case, the continued pin-pricks administered by Iran's three H proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi) will long continue. Or are they asking for full peace? Here, not only would Iran not be launching any more missiles directly at Israel, but, also, HHH would cease operations, Hamas would surrender and release all hostages, and all the Iranians guilty of working with Hamas for October 7 would be punished.
If the latter, Israel should of course accept this full peace offering. If the former, Israel should do what Iran or any other self-respecting country should do, in response to the continual pinpricks it has hypothetically received from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, and Oman
In the event, no such peace offering was on the table. There were no more direct attacks from Iran to Israel, but the pin-pricks from the three H's did not cease for a moment. Israel was, then, totally justified in the wrist-slapping it imposed upon Iran on April 19. If truth be told, Israel would have been entirely in the right had it done more, far more, not only to Iran, but, also to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Their continual barrages should be halted in their tracks.
