Iran and Israel won’t stop fighting, but World War Three has been averted – for now

Iran’s surprisingly solemn response to Israel’s retaliatory airstrike could be seen as a hopeful sign that points to an end to the tit-for-tat escalation – or something far more foreboding, says Mary Dejevsky

Iranians protest in Tehran after Israel’s ‘limited’ attack on a strategically important military air base in Isfahan (AP)

From the early hours of this morning, a blizzard of reports spoke of an attack on an airbase near Isfahan, in central Iran. Such an attack was hardly unexpected. For all the appeals, from the US, the UK, and many others, Israel had left no doubt that it would mount a military response to Iran’s failed assault the week before.

What appeared to be a finely targeted raid on a complex believed to have been involved in Iran’s attack – a raid, what is more, carried out on the Iranian Supreme Leader’s birthday – could well have been it.

Except that, in the cold hard light of day, Iran denied there had been any attack at all.

That Israel, for its part, said nothing, was not unusual. For instance, it has never claimed the 1 April attack on Iran’s consular building in Damascus that led to Iran’s unprecedented direct attack on Israel, and it is standard Israeli practice to let others draw their own conclusions. It applies the same silence to its nuclear programme – another example of so-called “strategic ambiguity”.

Such silence has generally not been Iran’s practice, however. And it has to be a very strange situation where the chief question left hanging on the morning after the night before is not where was the strike, nor whether there were casualties, nor yet how much damage, if any, was done, but whether the reported attack ever happened at all.

Let us accept – as we surely must – that there was one or more attacks on Iranian territory on the night of 18-19 April. News reports as a general rule do not just come out of nowhere, and these came initially from the United States. Iranian media also reported flashes and explosions in the vicinity of what were well-known military installations, also associated with its nuclear programme.

Could they have been the result of an accident? Perhaps. Or a deliberate, diversionary tactic, by Iran, as a pretext perhaps for a new military response? Again, perhaps. But given Washington’s official opposition to an attack and the additional coincidence with Ayatollah Khamenei’s birthday, it seems improbable that there was no attack, or that whatever happened was not the work of a malevolent hand.

Which is why Iran’s denial – so far, at least – could be seen as a hopeful sign pointing to an end to the tit-for-tat escalation with Israel. Because if there was no Israeli attack in Iran’s eyes, then there is no need for a military response, and the direct confrontations – that began with Israel’s raid on Iran’s consulate in Damascus – can stop here. This is not impossible. Tehran itself had appeared to hope its air assault on Israel last week would be the final word, even after it had clearly failed.

In that event, the conflict between Israel and Iran could revert to what it was before, waged primarily by Iran’s proxies – in southern Lebanon, in Syria, by the Houthis in Yemen – operating at varying degrees of arm’s length, and with limited power.

This might also provide an extension of the – surprisingly – benign climate in which Israel has been able to wage its war in Gaza. For all the condemnation coming from allies and adversaries alike, there has been little enthusiasm in the region itself to confront Israel militarily.

No neighbouring country exploited the breaches in Israel’s security so notoriously exposed by Hamas on 7 October. There was no uprising in the occupied West Bank, although settler attacks on Palestinians have increased. Hezbollah attacks from southern Lebanon have remained at roughly the past simmering level. There have been relatively small attacks – by Iran – on dissident groups across its borders, including in Pakistan, reflecting Iran’s own local interests, but until the attack on its Damascus consulate, it had not only launched no direct attack on Israel, but stated for record at the outset that it had no such intention.

The reluctance either to trigger or become embroiled in any wider conflict was not confined to Iran. The bigger regional states – Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – have remained on the sidelines, with Jordan reported to have helped shoot down Iranian drones on their way to Israel. The smaller states, in particular Qatar, have been trying to mediate a ceasefire that would spare the population of Gaza further suffering and lead to the freeing of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Those efforts have not so far produced the desired effect, but they have not completely collapsed either, nor has their periodic failure led to any noticeable increase in tensions.

As to why there was no widening of the Israel-Gaza war before 1 April, one explanation may well be the weakness of pretty much every state in the region, the fact that other big powers – Russia and China – are otherwise engaged, and domestic pressures on the US administration in this election year. Indeed, one of the more remarkable aspects of recent months has been the evolution of the US position on the Gaza war – from all-out support for Israel to joining calls for an immediate ceasefire.

All these factors mercifully militate against a wider conflagration. But there are two compelling arguments against anyone dropping their guard. The first is that accidents happen, and Israel’s ill-considered raid on Iran’s diplomatic mission in Syria was an inflammatory act that left Iran with little choice but to respond.

That Israel may have seen it as part of its fight for survival, does not alter the fact that for Iran, as for most other countries, this constituted a violation of a cardinal diplomatic rule with implications for all if left unpunished. And the more such incidents happen, the greater the risk of miscommunication, over-reaction and direct clashes liable to lead to all-out war.

The second is that the direct military confrontations between Israel and Iran – although limited, so far – are a reminder of the profound sense of insecurity each inspires in the other, to the point where it is hard to see even the wider region as big enough for both of them. Israel still believes that Iran wants to wipe it off the map, while Iran sees Israel as the main reason it needs to be a nuclear power.

Ideology, psychology, territory: this is the sort of conflict that ends up in military conflict, with allies and proxies, with their added potential for causing accidents, lined up on either side. This is why, even if outright war has been averted for the moment – whether because of US pressure, Iran’s tacit acknowledgement of its own weakness, or other powers being preoccupied elsewhere – the same may not be true next time around.