Iran faces difficult choices when it comes to deciding how to respond to Israeli attacks

JERUSALEM – It’s Iran’s move now.

How the Islamic Republic chooses to respond to Israel’s extremely public air attack on its homeland could determine whether the region slides further toward total war or continues at already devastating and destabilizing levels of violence.

In the coldly calculating sphere of Middle Eastern geopolitics, a strike of the scale that Israel carried out on Saturday was usually met with a strong response. A likely option would be another round of missile barrages, which Iran has already fired twice this year.

Military retaliation would allow Iran’s cleric leaders to show strength not only against their own citizens but also against Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, militant groups fighting against Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance.

It is too early to say whether Iran’s leaders will follow this path.

Analysts say Tehran may choose to refrain from retaliating directly for now, not least because it could expose its weaknesses and encourage Israel to respond more forcefully.

“Iran will downplay the impact of the strikes, which are actually quite serious,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London-based think tank Chatham House.

She said Iran was “constrained” by military and economic constraints and uncertainty caused by the U.S. election and its impact on U.S. policy in the region.

Even as wars rage in the Middle East, reformist Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is signaling that his nation wants a new nuclear deal with the U.S. to ease crushing international sanctions.

The Iranian military’s carefully worded statement on Saturday evening appeared to give the Islamic Republic some room to maneuver to withdraw before further escalation. She suggested that a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon was more important than any retaliation against Israel.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s final decision-maker, also faced criticism in his first comments on Sunday’s strike. He said the attack “should not be exaggerated or downplayed” and stopped short of calling for an immediate military response.

According to the Israeli military, Saturday’s attacks targeted Iranian air defense missile batteries and missile production facilities.

Israel thus exposed the weaknesses of Iran’s air defenses and can now more easily intensify its attacks, analysts say.

Satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press show the Israeli airstrike damaged facilities at the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran, which experts have previously linked to Iran’s one-time nuclear weapons program and another base linked to its ballistic missile program.

However, current nuclear facilities were not hit. Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed this in X, stating that “Iran’s nuclear facilities were not affected.”

Israel has aggressively engaged the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, killing its leader and targeting operatives in a daring pager attack.

“Any Iranian attempt to retaliate will have to face the fact that Hezbollah, its most important ally against Israel, has been significantly degraded and its conventional weapons systems have been largely repelled twice,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, which expects Iran to hold fire for now.

This is true even if Israel held back, which appears to be the case. Some prominent figures in Israel, such as opposition leader Yair Lapid, are already saying the attacks do not go far enough.

Regional experts have suggested that Israel’s relatively limited list of targets was deliberately calibrated to make it easier for Iran to disengage from escalation.

As Yoel Guzansky, who previously worked for Israel’s National Security Council and is now a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, put it: Israel’s decision to focus on purely military goals allows Iran to “save face.”

Israel’s target choices may also reflect at least some of its capabilities. It is unlikely to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own and would require U.S. assistance, Guzansky said.

Moreover, Israel still has the advantage to take on higher-value targets if Iran retaliates – especially now that its air defense nodes have been destroyed.

“You keep all kinds of contingency plans to yourself,” Guzansky said.

Thomas Juneau, a University of Ottawa professor of Iran and the broader Middle East, wrote in X that the fact that Iranian media initially downplayed the attacks suggests Tehran may want to avoid further escalation. However, he is stuck at a difficult point.

“If he retaliates, he risks an escalation in which his weakness means he loses more,” he wrote. “If he doesn’t retaliate, it will be a signal of weakness.”

Vakil agreed that Iran’s response was likely to be muted and that the attacks were intended to minimize the potential for escalation.

“Israel has once again demonstrated that its military precision and capabilities are far superior to Iran,” she said.

One thing is certain: the Middle East is in uncharted territory.

For decades, leaders and strategists in the Middle East have speculated about whether and how Israel might one day openly attack Iran, just as they have wondered about direct attacks by Iran rather than by proxy militant groups.

Today it is reality. However, the manual on both sides is not clear and may still be written.

“There appears to be a major discrepancy both in terms of the sword each side wields and the shield each side can deploy,” Vaez said.

“Even though both sides have calibrated and calculated how quickly they are climbing the escalation ladder, they now find themselves in completely new territory, where the new red lines are hazy and the old ones have turned pink,” he said.

Adam Schreck, the Associated Press’ Asia-Pacific news director, has covered the Middle East for years and has added reporting from countries across the region, including both Iran and Israel.