Summer Said and Benoit Faucon
WSJ, Nov. 3, 2024
“Today, Israel has greater freedom of action than ever before. We can go anywhere that we need to in Iran.”
Amid U.S. warnings against a counterattack on Israel, Iran is sending a defiant diplomatic message: It is planning a complex response involving even more powerful warheads and other weapons, said Iranian and Arab officials briefed on the plans.
It remains to be seen whether the Iranian threats are real or just tough talk. Israel’s punishing airstrike against Iran on Oct. 26 shredded the country’s strategic air defenses, leaving it badly exposed and sharply raising the risks to Iran if it follows through.
How the Israeli response plays out will depend on the size, nature and effectiveness of Tehran’s threatened strike. So far, Israel has refrained from hitting Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities, essential to its economy and its security, but that calculus could change, Israeli officials have said.
Iran has told Arab diplomats that its conventional army would be involved because it had lost four soldiers and a civilian in Israel’s attack, the Iranian and Arab officials said. Involving its regular army doesn’t mean its troops would be deployed but that the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that normally deals with Israeli security matters wouldn’t act alone in this case.
An Egyptian official said Iran warned privately of a “strong and complex” response.… [To read the full article, click here]