Iran’s Failed Aerial Attack on Israel Revealed Its Big Regional Quandary

The completeness of Iran’s failure to land significant blows on Israel in its status quo-breaking direct attack of April 13 has led some to question whether the entire affair is being stage-managed by Iran for propaganda effect. But more likely, Israel’s diplomatic breakthroughs via its bilateral peace agreements and the Abraham Accords have increased its defense capacity—and pulled back the curtain on the challenges Iran faces in its regional ambitions.

Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says the scale of the bombardment and the intended targets, including the shots that landed, show the attack was not for show. Moreover, the actions of Jordan and reportedly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates show that Iran’s difficulties have intensified as Israel normalizes relations with its neighbors.

“It’s important to know these weapons and know how these weapons get tasked,” Karako said, referring to targeting and plotting routes of transit. “You need some sort of, I would say, permissibility for some of these categories of weapons to get through the airspace that they’re transiting.”

You can funnel only so many cruise missiles into Israel through the permissive Iraq-Syria corridor that is keenly covered by Israeli air defenses. Ideally, Iran would like to put weapons over Jordan and Saudi Arabia without interference. The results of April 13 suggest that’s not going to happen.

The question is, what practical help can Israel’s friendly neighbors provide against an Iranian attack if they choose to?

Nature of the Beast

To answer this question, it is important to first understand the nature of this recent aerial blitz Iran launched against Israel. Four broad categories of weapons were involved, with each posing different challenges and different strategies for engagement, as well as opportunities for cooperation with regional partners.

Ballistic missiles. The top threat is posed by Iran’s family of what during the Cold War were classified as theater-range ballistic missiles. These rocket systems leave the atmosphere on suborbital trajectories and release a reentry warhead toward a target at hypersonic speeds. Examples include the Scuds fired by Iraq at Israel and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990-91. Both Iraq and Iran used them against each other in their war of 1980-88. Countering ballistic missiles requires highly sophisticated ground- or sea-launched missile interceptors such as Israel’s Arrow and certain versions of the U.S. Patriot and Standard missile systems.

Ballistic rockets. Basically much smaller versions of ballistic missiles, these typically don’t leave the atmosphere and are relatively short-ranged. Rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza and Hezbollah from Lebanon fall into this category. They have explosive warheads and, other than their inertial trajectories, are unguided. They can be countered with integrated air-defense systems, such as Israel’s Iron Dome. It’s worth noting that so-called ballistic anti-ship missiles supplied by Iran and used by Houthis against targets in the Red Sea are similar rockets but with an optronic seeker for homing on targets and can maneuver somewhat to hit ships under way.

Cruise missiles. Iran produces a family of cruise missiles of varying levels of sophistication. In general, Iran’s weapons are ground-launched and have rocket motors that propel them like aircraft at low or medium altitude. Good cruise missiles can fly a flight path that enables them to avoid obstacles and stay below ground-based radar. They can be countered by anti-aircraft missile and air-defense artillery systems and also by fighter planes.

Attack drones. The term “drone” is so broadly applied in the media to a vast range of different systems that the term is almost meaningless. For our purposes, drones are slow, inexpensive, less sophisticated cruise missiles that are generally propeller-driven. They deserve their own category here because their low-speed, low-altitude attack profiles introduce some complications from the defender’s perspective. Also, some drones are controllable from the ground. They can be engaged and shot down by a wide range of air-defense systems.

Iran used all of these four weapon types in its recent attack on Israel. The BBC reports that 30 cruise missiles, 170 drones and 110 ballistic missiles (it doesn’t differentiate between medium- and short-range rockets) were involved. While analysis of the strikes is ongoing and information is trickling out, Iran certainly launched its sophisticated ballistic missiles from its own territory. Other weapons were launched from Iran and from territory controlled by its regional proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

Defense in Depth

One of the problems with coordinating such an attack is that the launches have to be staggered to account for transit times so that the weapons all arrive around the same time, creating the best chance of overwhelming air defenses. In this case of Iran’s aerial attack, the slower weapons—cruise missiles and drones—were in the air for hours before the ballistic missiles, which take mere minutes to reach their targets, were even launched. Thus, Iran telegraphed the scale of the attack and even its strategy to the Israelis long before the blows were scheduled to land.

Early reports suggest that all cruise missiles and drones were shot down before entering Israeli airspace. Some of the ballistic missiles got through, landing a number of hits on an Israeli airbase, although apparently to little effect. In addition to the Israeli Defense Forces, U.S., U.K. and Jordanian units were actively involved in shooting down incoming weapons.

U.S. aircraft reportedly shot down a number of drones and cruise missiles. U.K. fighters based in Cyprus did the same. Standard missiles from a pair of the U.S. Navy’s indispensable Aegis destroyers are credited with intercepting several ballistic missiles.

However, Jordan’s participation is perhaps the most important—and fascinating—element of the engagement. The role of F-16s from the Royal Jordanian Air Force in engaging Iranian drones and cruise missiles transiting the nation’s airspace spotlights the practical effects of Israel’s new era relations with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan dates to 1994, and while the latter is often critical of the former’s policy toward the Palestinians, including the ongoing war in Gaza, it nevertheless added its voice to condemnation of the Iranian attack on Israel. While it was able to characterize its interception of Iranian weapons bound for Israel as an act of self-defense, it shows that there are deeper forces at work.

In practical terms, Jordan’s actions in what amounts to Israel’s defense demonstrates how constrained Iran’s options are in a direct confrontation with the Jewish state. While Tehran loves to telegraph how completely it has encircled the “Little Satan” with its proxy armies, the actual performance of these forces in direct combat must come as a disappointment. Certainly, the defeat of a major attack launched directly at Israel must rank as a humiliation of the first order. Indeed, the active participation of a “front-line” nation in thwarting its attack on Israel should send a chill down its spine.

Neighborhood Watch

With ballistic missile interceptors in Israel proper and the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean, fighter protection coming from Israel and allies all over the map and facing perhaps the world’s most comprehensive missile defense system in Iron Dome and Arrow, Iran is in a quandary. It has invested heavily in relatively cheap missiles and drones to assert its foreign policy in an age where air-defense systems are ascendent. As the CSIS’s Karako points out, the main issue is the amount of ammunition each side has on hand. Admittedly, this is a problem unto itself.

What really must keep Iran’s leaders up at night now is not just how their missile assault strategy has been revealed as aspirational at best, much like it tries to use old videos of wildfires to pretend it hit something in this recent aerial blitz. The recent Abraham Accords and Israel’s bilateral peace agreements show the power arrayed against Iran’s ambitions, even if much of this is tacit.

It’s important to remember that the accords are not a military alliance. There are no mutual defense obligations as there are in NATO. The accords are essentially a formalized handshake—an agreement to be good neighbors and pursue peaceful relations and implied regional and economic cooperation where appropriate. That said, good neighbors often help each other out when something bad happens in the neighborhood.

“I think the attack by Iran strengthens the prospects of successful alignment with the Saudis and the Gulf States, but I doubt the accords were a consequential factor in Iran’s decisions,” said Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a professor of politics at New York University. “Iran seems to have carefully calibrated the signal it chose to send to contain the risk of escalation.”

Perhaps. Iran certainly has a reputation as a savvy player of suckers like the United States. But risk always leaves open the possibility of miscalculation. Iran’s real fear is how Israel’s Abraham partners may permit offensive operations against it. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, which Iran almost gleefully tries to humiliate, not only provide early warning of Iranian moves against Israel, but they could also be a platform for regime-threatening retaliatory action.