The Israel-Iran rivalry continues since establishment of Israel and the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The blatant, horrific, cross border terror attack by Hamas on October 07, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking civilian hostages, triggered the ongoing war, initially as kinetic, contact war between Israel and Hamas, which has now escalated between Israel and Iran, along with its proxies like Hezbollah and militias in Syria and Iraq, across multiple fronts and expanded manifold in scope and dimensions in last one year.
Gaza Strip has experienced one of this century’s most destructive wars, killing thousands of civilians, highest No of children, UN staff and journalists in modern day war, a ground invasion that fuelled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948, innumerable instances of violation of international Humanitarian laws (IHL) and plunging at least half of the population into “famine-like conditions. Israel has conducted relentless airstrikes targeting infrastructure in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, while Iranian-backed groups/proxies too launched missile barrages and drone attacks on Israeli cities and military installations.
Changing Dimensions of War
Earlier Iran was comfortable with its proxies fighting contact, asymmetric war with Israel. The direct Israel-Iran contact, kinetic war was triggered by Israeli Attack on Iranian Consulate in Syria, followed by exchanges of standoff attacks through missiles and drones by both, intensified by assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (Covert War) and Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. The covert element through explosion of communication devices added the dimension of kinetic cyber-attack into the warfare.
The war has now spilled over into neighbouring countries Lebanon, Syria and Yemen causing regional instability. Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict have faltered, with both sides deeply entrenched in their positions, fuelling a broader West Asia (Middle East) power struggle. International actors like US has backed Israel by all available means in terms of military hardware, financial, political and diplomatic support within and outside UN, and Russia seems to have been drawn into the crisis, adding the political and diplomatic dimensions of war, thus complicating prospects for peace.
From military perspective, this is a typical asymmetric war, where Israel has complete air superiority over proxies of Iran, superior military hardware, strong air defence, economic muscles, superior intelligence, technology and most importantly tacit US support, which is lacking with Iran and its proxies. The manpower advantage of Iran is irrelevant as both countries don’t share the border and the countries in between are not keen to join war. The expansion of war from proxy to conventional war doesn’t suit Iran, but it suits Netanyahu’s political survival and fulfilment of some of the expanded aims of Israel. In last one year, amid changing dimensions of war, the strategies as well as application of Operational Art by opposing sides is analysed below.
Israel’s Aim, Strategy and Operational Art
Israel’s overall long term strategic aim remains to neutralize the influence of Iran and its proxies around it, which it sees as existential threat. Based on its strengths described earlier, its military strategy revolves around a mix of pre-emptive targeted precision strikes, intelligence-driven operations, and posing a credible deterrence. After 07 October 2023, as per Netanyahu, the Israeli’s stated war aim was complete destruction of Hamas, ensure that its citizens are never again threatened by an attack from Gaza and ensure release of all the hostages. He thinks that it can be done by brute military force. He also aims to prolong his political carrier by expanding/prolonging the war, avoiding people questioning his prior lapses, due to fog of war.
Netanyahu’s handling of war, use of disproportionately excessive force level and the scale of destruction caused in Gaza indicates that his undeclared strategy was to make Gaza unhabitable, force Palestinians out of Gaza, and enforce one state solution without declaring it as such. To minimise its own casualties, IDF has opted for mass destruction and pulverising targets/buildings alleged as hideouts by standoff attacks, reducing hand to hand fighting in built up area in Gaza as well as in Lebanon.
After Hezbollah joined the war and forced Israel to vacate Northern part, during later part of the year, Netanyahu’s strategic aim was enlarged to create buffer zone in Southern Lebanon by invading it and to degrade Hezbollah capability to make it ineffective to threaten Northern Israel, to enable his population to go back there. A series of successes in clandestine operations like explosion of devices, assassinations of leaders like Ismail and Nasrallah emboldened him to undertake ground operations including air strikes in Lebanon to exploit the tempo built by dislocation and disruption of command and control set up due to successful kinetic cyber attacks on communication systems and momentum so generated in favour of IDF.
While the intelligence agencies of Israel can be applauded with major successes in clandestine covert operations, the military operations per se haven’t helped Israel in release of hostages stated as one important war aim. Most hostages released so far were through negotiations and not by military pressure, but Netanyahu remains reluctant in ceasefire negotiations as it did not suit his political survival. He was smart enough to avert ceasefire despite internal and external pressures and entrap Biden administration into war expansion and continuation of support. Netanyahu’s acceptability in USA has increased in recent past after he has eliminated some terrorist leaders on the hit list of USA, to their advantage. Complete destruction of terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah is not a practical aim as it relates to ideology and longevity due to hatred generated out of heavy casualties. If USA couldn’t destroy Taliban & al-Qaeda in 20 years of war, it may not be easy for IDF to do so.
After Iran fired a barrage of missiles on to Mossad Headquarters, and two airbases, many hardliners in Israel and USA want to exploit the situation as an opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. This is the most risky option out of many available options. Strike on nuclear facility may not succeed without the kind of arsenal required to penetrate so deep to be undertaken by US bombers. An unsuccessful strike by Israel on nuclear plants will ensure that Iran goes nuclear much faster than US/Israel may anticipate. It will have global implications and in case of a nuclear accident wherein all neighbours may get affected adversely, which may be disastrous for Israel as well as USA for their future influence in West Asia. Attack on oil infrastructure will have global economic and energy fallouts leading to global criticism. Other targets include military assets, air defence, economic targets like harbour or covert assassination of any political leader. Israel’s next move will decide the future escalation dynamics of this war.
Iran’s Aim, Strategy and Operational Art
Iran, with long term strategic aim of establishing itself as a dominant power by building a strategic “Shia Crescent” that extends from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. It seeks to counterbalance U.S. and Israeli power in the region, as well as project strength against Sunni rivals like Saudi Arabia.
Iran knows that there is a wide asymmetry in conventional combat capability (including nuclear arsenal) of Israel backed by USA against itself along with proxies, therefore it was comfortable in fighting a proxy war through its regional proxies, instead of direct confrontation. Iran knows that an all-out war cannot give it any favourable outcome. Iran and Houthis don’t have a land access to Israel; hence, they have very little option other than launching standoff attacks through missiles, drones and rockets of varying intensity, magnitude and impact.
Iran now finds itself trapped into direct confrontation by Netanyahu, who has vowed to retaliate the latest barrage of missiles fired on Israel. Iran has developed a significant missile and drone capabilities. It seeks to undermine U.S. influence by dominating maritime supply lines through the region and controlling key land and air routes. Iran’s current strategy is to minimise the damages by potential strike by Israel and be ready for a counter-strike, if required, depending on the extent of damage. In the mean time it did launch some diplomatic offensive by getting all GCC countries agreeing to play neutral, managed some help from Russia in terms of Air Defence (S-400) and some other arsenal. Iran however carries a major handicap of not having a supporter of the kind as USA is for Israel.
Aim and Strategy of Hamas
The strategy of Hamas on 07 October was to pick up maximum hostages to be used as bargaining chip, embarrass Israel and provoke it beyond limits to respond disproportionately, causing heavy casualties to innocent Palestinians in Gaza, to put the Palestinian issue from back burner to forefront, besides inviting global criticism of Israel for human right violations, which seems to have worked during major part of the year.
Hamas also expected favourable reaction in their support from Arab countries, radical Islamic countries and organisations and drive a wedge in relationship of some Arab countries and others getting closer to Israel. This has not been fully achieved as Arab countries have voiced in favour of Palestinians (not Hamas, in context of its brutal assault violating human rights) and have not intervened beyond diplomatic and moral support.
After one year Hamas stands weakened, with its capabilities limited to some sporadic attacks, adopting the strategy of ‘force preservation’ to re-emerge at appropriate time. It retains approximately 100 hostages, which will continue to pain Israel internally, because with current escalation, the chances of getting back hostages alive are reducing and Netanyahu’s argument of continuing fight to get hostages back is not convincing to their relatives.
Aim and Strategy of Hezbollah
Hezbollah’s strategic aims aligns with Iran’s, to weaken Israeli influence and deter any direct Israeli threats to Lebanon and its own existence, with financial and material support from Iran and Syria. It also seeks to demonstrate its role as a defender of the Palestinian cause to gain legitimacy among regional Arab populations. Once known as strongest non state actor with conventional and asymmetric capabilities, exercising guerrilla tactics, rocket attacks, and psychological warfare, it had embedded itself deeply within Lebanon’s political system, making it difficult for external actors to isolate or neutralize it, without destabilizing Lebanon itself.
Hezbollah stands shaken up by series of assassinations of its leaders, disruption of command, control and communication systems and relentless effective air strikes by IDF due to lack of viable air defence in Lebanon. Under the given situation Hezbollah will now be reorganising its command, control and defence infrastructure and pursue calculated ‘Hybrid Warfare’ amounting to sporadic rocket and missile attacks on Israeli cities and critical infrastructure, small team actions in Lebanon or cross border operations to cause maximum attrition to IDF, using terrain friction to its advantage, avoiding large scale engagements.
The initiative and momentum is currently with Israel, but Hezbollah may adopt a war of attrition, seeking to draw Israel into a prolonged conflict that drains its resources, stretches its military, and increases political pressure at home. Hezbollah will attempt to maintain the capability for sustained low-level conflict, terrorising Israeli civilians with rocket attacks and small raids, holding back most of its full military power as a deterrent, utilising its minimum conventional capability in defensive battle, unless Israel makes full conventional war strategically inescapable.
Global Impact
Israel-Iran war has immense potential for escalation, depending upon the actions of various stakeholders. Any major escalation will push the world further under inflationary pressure. Red Sea as well as Persian Gulf may become more risky for shipping. A disturbed oil flow may further cause price rise and turbulent economic environment. From Indian perspective initiatives like I2U2 and India- Middle East Europe Economic Corridor may get postponed indefinitely. The global power blocks with Iran-Russia-China-North Korea and Syria getting closer to oppose USA, Israel and their Western Allies is a possible outcome. Most importantly Iran’s chances of going nuclear may increase much more, which may not be a good news for the region.
Irrespective of the well-advertised gains by Israel, the outcome doesn’t give much hope to hostages, the Iranian proxies will not get wiped completely to resurface again in future, Israel-Palestinian rivalry will continue, the threat to Israel will remain regionally and some actors might be held to account for unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe caused out of escalation.