In the early hours of this morning, after repeated warnings from the US intelligence system, Iran's military retaliation against Israel "came as scheduled."
My use of the word "as promised" was deliberate, because Iran's retaliation did not have any "surprise" component, and not only the United States and Israel, but also Britain and France and their Middle Eastern neighbors "cooperated with the show according to the agreed process".
According to reports in the international and Iranian media, Iran's retaliation began with the launch of several hundred to a thousand drones, which took six or seven hours before entering Israeli airspace.
Subsequently, Iran launched ballistic missiles at military facilities in Israel, with a range of more than 1,500 kilometers, which is considered to be Iran's relatively strong bottom cargo.
And judging from the video of the attack released by Iran and international media reports, although the US and British military intercepted a large number of drones outside Israel, Iranian ballistic missiles still broke through defenses and also broke through the protection of some Israeli air defense systems and hit military facilities.
The attack was another retaliatory attack in which the parties "presented themselves as victorious".
At the Iranian level, the Israeli military base bombed by missile retaliation is the departure base of the military plane that bombed the Iranian embassy two weeks ago, so the successful bombing of the base belongs to the reciprocal retaliation of "the unjust debtor and the owner".
At the Israeli level, the proclaimed victory was that Iran's retaliatory attack resulted in no fatalities and only a few minor injuries.
In a phone call between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he claimed that "U.S. and British warplanes intercepted almost all drones outside Israel," and he called the successful interception a victory in preventing Iranian retaliation.
Although the actual damage caused to Israel by the missile and drone retaliatory bombing launched by Iran is not large, it is the first time that Iran has attacked targets in Israel, and the significance of "breaking through the scale" is even more obvious.
The most discussed point among domestic netizens today is that Iran's retaliation has been done, will the United States and Israel continue to escalate their retaliation and drag the Middle East and even the world into a death spiral?
Let's look first at Iran's attitude.
After the drone was released and the ballistic missile was launched, before the full results of the attack were fully revealed, Iranian officials at the United Nations publicly stated: "The international community can consider Iran's retaliation to be over." ”
Iran's attitude is very clear, in response to Israel's bombing of the Iranian embassy, Iran's retaliation is this round of missile and drone air strikes, as long as Israel does not continue to attack Iranian mainland, Iran will not have any more military action.
After Israel bombed the Iranian embassy, the whole world was watching Iran's reaction, whether it would respond militarily or not, and how intense the response would be, and the pressure was all on Iran.
Now that Iranian missiles have bombed Israel's own military bases, the world is waiting for Israel's response, and the pressure is on the United States and Israel.
After the start of Iran's retaliation, the Israeli security cabinet convened a meeting and announced the creation of a "three-man military cabinet" led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A three-member military cabinet, in addition to Netanyahu, the other two are defense ministers and opposition leaders. While Israel's opposition leader has been at odds with Netanyahu at home and has repeatedly called for early elections, he has been equally aggressive in his stance on military action in Gaza and in his tough response to Iran.
Therefore, Netanyahu's goal of centralizing his military power by provoking Iran and forcing Iran to fight back has been achieved, and the three-member military cabinet has fewer constraints and mobilized more war resources than the original huge security cabinet.
On the other hand, before the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian embassy, Israel, with a population of less than 700,000, had more than 100,000 people rallying on the streets to demand Netanyahu's resignation.
Netanyahu has long been embroiled in corruption scandals and related lawsuits, and he knows that if he is ousted from power, he will likely face an investigation and end up in prison.
Therefore, maintaining Israel's wartime status for a long time and always leading the wartime cabinet is the best way for him to avoid stepping down, so although Iran has made it clear that Israel will not retaliate, the matter of the empty embassy will be turned over.
But there is a high probability that Israel will not turn the page, Netanyahu will definitely respond militarily and ensure his wartime leadership, the only difference is to escalate retaliation and drag the United States into the water to fight a big war, or like Iran, reciprocal symbolic bombing to maintain a state of "war confrontation", but never escalate the showdown war.
At present, in the tripartite game between Iran, Israel, and the United States, it seems that Iran and Israel bomb each other, and the initiative of counterattack and escalation returns to Israel's side, but among the three countries, the most uncomfortable and difficult choice is actually the United States.
After Israel launched air strikes and ground attacks on Gaza, the United States, on the one hand, "verbally dissuaded" it, and on the other hand, continued to support its Jewish father with weapons and ammunition.
Unlike Israel's wanton abuse of Gaza, the ambitions of the United States and Israel to attack Iran have long been dissuaded and even suppressed.
Against this background, Israel's bombing of the Iranian embassy was done in a way that "cut first and then play", and the bombers had already entered Syrian airspace, and even missiles were launched, before calling Biden in the United States.
Biden wanted to stop it, and what he heard was already the news that the Iranian embassy had been bombed and that some generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had been killed.
As long as the United States knew in advance, he would not let Israel risk starting a war with Iran, because the United States really cannot afford to be involved in a "personal end" war in the Middle East.
In the past two years, the United States has spent trillions of dollars on the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine and provided a large amount of weapons and equipment to barely maintain Ukraine's current defense line against Russia.
After Israel started its military operation against Gaza in October last year, the United States was forced to support both Israel and Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, and the Zelensky government has repeatedly publicly stated that Western support for Ukraine has shrunk significantly in the past six months.
Seeing that Russia is very likely to exert force on the battlefield in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian front is about to collapse, the United States can still only give a large amount of congressional funds and weapons aid to Israel.
After all, Ukraine is a consumable for the United States, and Israel is the Jewish father.
However, the Biden administration's limit to Israel's military action, Biden has publicly stated that it will only help Israel defend itself and will never participate in countering Iran.
The reason why the Biden administration is so sluggish and shrinking in the Middle East battlefield is that in addition to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, another major game arena is the South China Sea.
At the just-concluded summit between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines, the president of the Philippines took the initiative to provoke trouble and act as the vanguard, while the United States and Japan were willing to stoke the fire behind them, and the three sides seemed to be prepared to expand the conflict in the South China Sea and drag the mainland into a conspiracy of geopolitical hot war.
That is to say, the current United States is facing a three-front war between Russia and Ukraine, the Middle East, and the South China Sea, whether it is the mainland or Russia, the United States is completely inferior in the context of not sending the main force to participate in the war for the whole country, relying only on proxy wars.
Therefore, from the position of the United States, fighting on three fronts, the hegemony is really going to collapse in advance, so whether it is dissuasion or threat, it is hoped to suppress Israel's ambition to escalate the war.
Iran's counterattack is expected to be severe, and whether the United States will be swept off the battlefield next, shaking the global hegemony in advance, and the control is now in Netanyahu's hands.
And Netanyahu, of course, hopes that the war will continue until the good friend understands the king and makes a comeback!