The Iranian government has belittled the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli attack on its military sites, but hardliners in the parliament insisted the strikes breached Iranian red lines and required a swift response, preferably at a time when Israel is already enmeshed in Lebanon and Gaza.
The internal Iranian debate on how to respond to the long-awaited Israeli attack turns on whether to treat Israel’s breach of Iranian national sovereignty as too grave to be ignored, or instead to heed the advice coming from the region and from the US to acknowledge the relatively limited nature of the attack and to step back from the brink by not launching reprisals.
In making its decision, the Iranian political elite will have to weigh conflicting political, diplomatic and military pressures. But the initial tone from the government was one of patriotic pride at the performance of the air defences, rather than calls for immediate retribution. Some even claimed that the air defences proved better than Israel’s Iron Dome.
Is that supposed to be a joke?
How, in hell, would Iran take a lead?
Israel has f35s, useful aa defenses, and Iran isn’t on their border.
At the very worst for Israel, if they aren’t interested it’s a draw, more likely a few f35s drop jdams on important buildings, maybe even destroy power generating if they really want to be assholes.
Don’t think a few hundred shaheds is going to do it here, 50kg of semtex only goes so far.