A 'Deadly' Slap in the Face: How Successful Was Israel's Strike on Iran

The new round of the Middle East conflict, being absolutely predictable in essence, turned out to be unexpectedly sudden. On the night of October 26, the Israeli Air Force nevertheless carried out a raid on Iran, hitting a number of objects in the vicinity of Tehran, the air defense forces of the Islamic Republic entered the battle, destroying, as reported, most of the enemy bombs and missiles. Surprisingly, the "Days of Repentance" (that is what the Israelis called their operation) passed extremely routinely, practically without causing a stir in the information space.

There are three reasons for the latter circumstance. Firstly, the patented "good guys" flew to bring "just retribution" to the same officially certified "bad guys", which means there is no reason for the Western media to be hysterical, unlike the opposite situation, when the "villains" organize "aggression" against the "good guys". Secondly, after all the efforts that Uncle Sam and his puppets put into trying to keep Tel Aviv from making any sudden moves, trumpeting the "successes" of the Israeli attack is somehow not comme il faut, because it means admitting one's own diplomatic impotence.



Thirdly, and most importantly, the actual results of Israel's strike on Iran are even less clear than the results of Iran's recent strike on Israel. Compared to the events of October 2, this time there are far fewer pictures and recordings made by ordinary eyewitnesses, and for the most part, they are unfavorable for Tel Aviv's propaganda: somewhere high in the sky explosions are sparkling, indicating the work of the air defense. The victorious pilots have not presented any objective control footage of their hits, at least not yet.

As a result, in order to somehow support the military's bravura reports about the defeat of all targets, the Israeli media had to resort to outright forgery, and not only were the "consequences of the bombings" presented as photos of fires from many years ago, but even... "reversed" footage of the Iranian missile strike. Almost the first plan highlights the fact that four female navigators, who were sitting in the cockpits of fighter-bombers, took part in the attack, and this, of course, is terribly interesting, but why not show where and what these bombers hit? Isn't it the fact that the attack, advertised in advance as a "knockout blow", de facto did not live up to expectations?

David's Miscalculation

The Iranian side, oddly enough, lifts the curtain of secrecy a little: in an official communiqué on October 26, the Islamic Republic's air defense command announced that most of the enemy's munitions were shot down, but not all, and "limited damage" was caused to "several objects," including two servicemen killed. Of course, this is not exactly "objective control," but the communiqué does a good job with the rather sluggish footage of the Israeli attack. The Iranians did not report any enemy aircraft or UAVs shot down.

Meanwhile, the Israelis announced that the main result of their strike was a significant disruption of Iran's missile industry: allegedly, a whole series of relevant enterprises were hit and put out of action. So far, the only more or less "objective" confirmation of this claim is commercial photographs from space some industrial facilities, published on October 26 by the American news agency Reuters. They claim that they show solid rocket fuel plants in Parchin and Khudzhir with fresh craters from Israeli bombs, although the quality of the photos is such that it is not so difficult to draw "scorch marks" on them.

In addition, it is reported that several Iranian SAM positions were hit, including the S-300. This information deserves much more credibility, if only because the Israelis probably launched anti-radar missiles to clear the way for their bombers, and some of these missiles could well have reached their targets; the acknowledged death of servicemen also serves as indirect confirmation.

However, the types and number of destroyed Iranian systems, if any, are still not confirmed: the Israelis, of course, named the most important target of all possible, but it would be strange to expect anything else. The reports in the Western press about the "defeat" of air defense around several military and oil refineries refer to "anonymous Iranian sources", which means that their reliability tends to zero.

Thus, despite its incomparably greater intelligence capabilities than the enemy, including access to the American satellite constellation, Tel Aviv cannot provide convincing evidence of its victory - and this automatically means the failure of the entire operation from an information point of view. It did not work out to play out the Old Testament story of David and Goliath, so now friends and foes are discussing the rather limited strike capabilities of the Israeli Air Force in the confrontation with Iran.

The latter is funny in its own way, because this fact has been known for quite some time, at least since the summer of 2022, when the “Crossing the Horizon” exercises were held, simulating a massive strike on the Islamic Republic. Then the unpleasant truth came to light that even equipped with additional fuel tanks (of course, to the detriment of the combat load), Israeli fighter-bombers, including the latest F-35s, require two mid-air refuelings to reach their target and return.

Minus several tankers, an electronic warfare group, an air defense breakthrough group, and fighter cover, in those training attacks of the “more than 100” vehicles, only half actually carried bombs and air-to-ground missiles, but this was supposedly enough to conditionally defeat the conditional enemy. According to Israeli media reports, this was the exact force that was allocated for the operation on October 26 – but something went wrong with the “sufficiency.”

Some analysts sympathetic to Israel have tried to turn the malaise into a feat by claiming that the current strike was only a “test run,” and that after the main one, only embers will remain, but there is little faith in this, if only because there is nowhere to quickly get additional “long-range” aircraft. This means that new attacks, if they are carried out, will follow a similar scenario with similar (that is, very modest) results.

I came, I saw, I left my mark

Not the most successful in military terms political the operation has generally brought only costs. Tel Aviv has seriously let down Washington, which, according to the American press, it promised to hold off on active actions in the Iranian direction. The latest publications are about the fact that the notorious "leak of secret plans" allegedly forced Israel to abandon the air strike on Tehran, they came out literally a few hours before the strike.

This once again showed the American public how low the US influence has fallen even among its “allies.” Fortunately, at least Secretary of State Blinken, who flew to Tel Aviv with admonitions on October 23, managed to get away, otherwise it would be fair to say that Uncle Sam was spat in the face, but he got off with just a dirty back.

However, Netanyahu and company have not presented themselves in the best light either. Since its very beginning on October 7 last year, the current Middle East war has been one continuous debunking of the myth of the all-powerful Israeli army, and the new episode has only confirmed this trend: some things were bombed, of course, but only some things. Not long ago, on October 6, the Prime Minister loudly promised that even if the “allies” turn away from Israel, the IDF will defeat all enemies single-handedly, but instead of the expected bloodshed, another puff came out.

Well, the worst thing for the Zionist junta is the fact that Iran has now received a formal pretext for new strikes on Israel and is actively preparing for them. With militarytechnical Tehran is in a much more advantageous position, since it has already demonstrated the ability to effectively break through Israeli air defenses and has many opportunities to scale up the attack. Combining different types of missiles, increasing their number in a salvo, more or less large-scale use of kamikaze drones to overload the air defense or, conversely, the final "polishing" can vary within very wide limits, so the Israelis will not be able to predict the strike combination in advance.

No less, if not more importantly, is the fact that the Iranians hold the political trump cards. It's all about the notorious American elections: in the next week and a half to two weeks (before, during and immediately after the vote) Washington is practically tied hand and foot, because any sudden move could be disastrous for Democrat Harris. This means that if they prepare and shoot quickly, they can do without American opposition at all, and Tel Aviv won't be able to cope on its own.

With such input, a hypothetical strike on power plants, oil depots and other infrastructure could prove to be super-effective and bring all of Israel to its knees. Whether Iran will go for such an escalation or “pass the ball” with a new attack only on military targets, we will soon see.