Hello everyone, I'm Lao Ding.
Israel's response comes today, some five days after Iran launched a massive drone and missile attack on Israeli territory in retaliation for its previous Israeli air strikes on its Syrian embassy.
What surprised Lao Ding even more about this retaliation was Israel's final decision to do so than Iran's claim that it had a successful interception rate of attacks from Israel. According to Iranian state television, senior Iranian military officials said that "the night attack did not cause any damage, and the sound coming from Isfahan was due to the air defense system targeting 'suspicious objects.'" Here is a brief introduction to Isfahan, an inland city in Iran, which is not only an important industrial center in Iran, but also one of the important military production bases in Iran, and has several nuclear research sites.
According to another report, a spokesperson for Iran's official space agency not only directly denied that a missile had launched an attack through Iranian airspace on social platforms, but also said with disdain that Israel "only made a failed and humiliating attempt to fly a quadcopter, and the quadcopter was also shot down."
In other words, Iran has succeeded in intercepting an attack from Israel 100 percent? Perhaps you will remember that in the Iranian attack on Israel 5 days ago, Israel shocked the world with a success rate of 99 percent in the face of 185 unmanned aerial vehicles, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles launched by Iran.
But Israel's 99% pales in comparison to Iran's claimed 100 percent. Even if it is infinitely close to the "perfect score", 99% can still only be called "100 dense and one sparse", and 100% can be "360 degrees without dead ends". Moreover, behind Israel's 99% interception rate, with the strong support of the United States, Britain, France and other strong reinforcements, or even direct action, Iran seems to be standing on the "top of the mountain" of 100% on its own.
You say, this is not called far ahead, what is still far ahead?
But is this really the case? After all, expressions such as "completely safe" and "no damage has been caused" are basically from the Iranian side. And common sense tells us that when we hear a statement that is too absolute, it is better to have a skeptical attitude first, especially if it comes from the mouth of a relatively weak party. Based on this, in Lao Ding's view, there are generally the following two directions for thinking about this matter:
First, as with previous Iranian attacks, Israel's response this time was symbolic. In any case, in the confrontation between the Israeli air strikes on the Iranian embassy in Syria and the Iranian attacks on the Israeli mainland, Israel can be said to have the upper hand in terms of actual results, killing seven members, including senior Iranian generals. Iran's retaliation, while seemingly lively, turned out to be a bit of a reality: a 10-year-old Israeli boy was wounded in the attack, and the infrastructure at the IDF base in South Israel was slightly damaged.
In the final analysis, Iran's retaliation five days ago was nothing more than another exercise of the "extreme balancing act" of "showing attitude and controlling posture", which was also used against the United States after Soleimani was "beheaded" in January 2020. Before launching this attack on Israel, Iran also kept all kinds of "early warnings" and "communication" on the table. Or because of this, when US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone after Iran's retaliation, he not only told the latter that "you won", but also said that the United States would not support Israel in launching any counterattack against Iran. Now that the "big brother" United States has made it clear that it does not support it, it may also let Israel accept the heart of "making a big fuss".
Second, Iran is "knocking out teeth and swallowing blood" this time, according to a report from the scene today by Qatar's Al Jazeera correspondent in Iran, Iranian state media is clearly downplaying the incident. In other words, to zero the damage caused by this attack is to lay the groundwork for not continuing to fight back against Israel and ending the matter. After all, at yesterday's military parade on Iran's Army Day, the country's president said in no uncertain terms that "if Israel launches even the slightest attack on Iranian territory and national interests, Israel will be punished with the harshest and toughest punishment by Iran." ”
In addition, zeroing out the losses from Israeli attacks can create an atmosphere of "one victory to another" for Iranians in particular. I still remember that when the attack on Israel was launched five days ago, a large number of Iranian people took to the streets late at night to watch the scene of the missile launch, as if watching a "cool movie" of war that was being screened. Coupled with the internal propaganda of "no loss caused", can the effect of "export to domestic sales" be said to be full and in place?
What do you think about this?