Judging from the first leg of the confrontation between Iran and Israel, Iran won! Because this is the first time that Iran has attacked targets in Israel in the decades of Iran's hostility with Israel, and since then, Iran has taken off the hat of "ninja." Therefore, the Iranian people have taken to the streets to celebrate this major "breakthrough".
However, Israel also declared itself a winner. Because, the 99% interception rate and the cost of only one person injured not only demonstrated Israel's impressive defense capability, but also effectively protected the lives of Israelis. The main thing is that it has also created a "pretext" that will be ready to strike targets in Iran at any time in the future. So, Biden said to Netanyahu: you win, accept this victory.
In fact, the United States, as a "special party" to the Iran-Israel conflict, seems to have won. Because, judging from Iran's "limited retaliation", it shows that Iran is unwilling to escalate the situation, and the United States does not have to worry about being drawn into the quagmire of war. So, in accepting Biden's congratulations, Netanyahu responded that this is a victory we have achieved together.
A military operation not only did not have a "loser," but on the contrary produced a "win-win" situation, which is strange enough, right? However, if we ponder it carefully, it is not difficult to find that behind this tacit "plot" there are three problems that can be associated: First, it is difficult to fight a major war in the Middle East. The second is that someone may be disappointed. Third, even if a war breaks out in the Middle East, it may not be Israel that will be "beaten" by the masses.
Iran itself freely admits that 72 hours before the attack, it had notified the relevant countries that the drones and missiles needed to fly along the way, namely Jordan, Iraq and other countries. This is tantamount to "spreading the word". Therefore, Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom have long been "ready for battle".
According to the analysis of relevant experts, the straight-line distance between Iran and Israel is more than 1,000 kilometers, and the weapon launch distance is about 1,800 kilometers. So, the flight time of a ballistic missile is about 15 minutes, the flight time of a cruise missile is about 1 hour and 30 minutes, and it takes at least 5 hours for a drone to reach Israel.
From the perspective of military common sense, Iran should launch ballistic missiles and cruise missiles first to achieve the effect of a surprise attack. However, the Iranians have come up with an ingenious reverse operation, that is, an alternative "field bogey horse race". The order in which they are launched is UAVs, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
Based on the "unique" launch sequence of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the following scenarios and results emerged: all 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles were intercepted outside Israel, only a handful of 120 ballistic missiles fell into Israel, and only one Israeli girl was scratched by her own anti-missile film.
Someone calculated the time, presumably when the drone was still in flight (perhaps lost), and the Iranian permanent representative to the United Nations said: "It can be considered the end of the military operation." Since then, the Iranian side has officially stated that this round of military operations has ended, and if Israel has committed any more "crimes", it will be punished more severely.
It is clear that Iran does not want to go to war and does not want to escalate the situation. For the United States, it also seems that it is "in the right place". After all, the United States is now worried that it will get bogged down in a war in the Middle East. Based on this, the United States will certainly have some restraint on Israel. Judging from this, as long as there is no direct intervention of foreign countries, it will be very difficult to start a war in the Middle East.
Objectively speaking, there will be no big war in the Middle East, and it is inevitable that some people will be disappointed. As for the reason, everyone knows. Because, if a big war breaks out in the Middle East, it will inevitably spill over into another war. That is, one of the parties in another war will certainly reduce the pressure at the strategic level as a result. To put it bluntly, this is the inevitability of strategic games, and there is nothing wrong with it.
All kinds of indications show that even if the Iran-Israel war breaks out, no countries in the Middle East will intervene in the "name of the state," and naturally there will be no situation in which the "group attack on Israel" that is often said in the field of public opinion will not take place.
In recent years, there has been a relatively "marketable" view in the field of public opinion, that is, if a war breaks out between Iran and Israel, a situation will be formed in which Arab countries in the Middle East will "attack Israel en masse." Logically, such a situation will not be formed.
First of all, Iran is not an Arab country. So, conceptually, the Iran-Israel war was not a war between the Arab countries and the Jews. Even with the involvement of Hamas, Allah and the Houthis, these "local organizations" do not represent their respective governments.
Second, in terms of bitterness and intransigence, the war caused by the 2,000-year-old "Shia vs. Sunni" dispute is far more dangerous than the Middle East war between the Arab countries and Israel. And the irreconcilability is no less than the contradiction between the Arabs and the Jews. Based on this, once a war breaks out between Iran and Israel, the probability that Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates will help the Shiite country Iran fight the war is extremely low.
Moreover, as far as "reality" is concerned, if Iran and Israel go to war, few countries in the Middle East will participate in the "siege" of Israel.
For example, in the first round of the confrontation between Iran and Israel, most Arab countries in the Middle East did condemn Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate building in Syria, but in this round of Iranian retaliation, no Arab country except Syria expressed support. The main thing is that their actual reaction is essentially unfavorable to Iran.
Jordan actually participated in the "interception" during the overflight of Iranian drones, and the governments of Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon also expressed their dissatisfaction with the "passing" of Iranian missiles and closed their airspace. To put it bluntly, they have no intention of supporting Iran, because no one wants to set itself on fire.
In fact, from the analysis of comprehensive factors such as geopolitics, international games, power comparisons, and historical contradictions in the Middle East, if Iran and Israel fight in a big way, not only will it not form a situation of "beating Israel en masse", but on the contrary, Iran's situation may be even worse.
If Iran and Israel officially go to war, there will be no second country in the Middle East that will enter the war in the name of the state, except for Syria. Saudi Arabia will not, Egypt, which has learned enough lessons from history, will not, and Turkey, which is bound by NATO and the United States and has geopolitical rivalries with Iran, will not enter the war.
Extraterritorially, in this Iranian operation, both the United States and Britain were involved in the interception of Iranian missiles and drones, which, to put it bluntly, is tantamount to "entering the war". It is almost certain that if Iran officially starts a war, it is very likely that the United States, Britain and other Western countries will also take the opportunity to participate in battles other than ground warfare.
On the contrary, if the Iran-Israel war breaks out, it is unlikely that any foreign country will directly enter the war for Iran. To put it bluntly, Russia is already too busy to take care of itself, and even if it has that heart, it doesn't have that ability.
And other countries outside the region will not gamble their "future and fate" for a war that has nothing to do with them and the outcome is unpredictable. Therefore, Iran, on the contrary, will be "very lonely". This may be the fundamental reason why Iran does not want to escalate the situation and does not dare to fight hard.
To sum up, judging by the first leg of the confrontation between Iran and Israel, the likelihood of a major war in the Middle East is very small. If war breaks out, the "lonely one" will not be Israel. Therefore, there seems to be no suspense about the outcome of the war.
Moreover, since a major war in the Middle East cannot be fought or there is no suspense, the spillover effect on another war will naturally be minimal. Therefore, at the strategic level, there should be no suspense about the outcome of another war in Eastern Europe.