Iran has lost the war, and has turned itself from a regional power into a third-rate pushover in less than two years by launching fanatical attacks on Israel and then doubling down on an aggressive, failing strategy.
That is the conclusion of Foreign Affairs magazine, which published an analysis by Afshon Ostovar Friday:
Iran’s hard-liners overplayed their hand. After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the regime’s leaders opted for a campaign of maximum aggression. Rather than letting Hamas and Israel fight it out, they unleashed their proxies at Israeli targets. Israel, in turn, was compelled to expand its offensive beyond Gaza. It succeeded in severely degrading Hezbollah, the most powerful of Tehran’s proxy groups, and eviscerating Iranian positions in Syria—indirectly contributing to the collapse of the Assad regime. Iran responded to this aggression by unleashing the two largest ballistic missile attacks ever launched against Israel. But Israel, backed by the U.S. military and other partners, repelled those attacks and incurred little damage. It then struck back.
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In the face of these setbacks, Iran could have opted to regroup. Instead, it opted to escalate the conflict with Israel by directly striking the country in April and October 2024. By taking such action, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had hoped to showcase its military might and reestablish deterrence. Instead, the IRGC exposed the limitations of its missile capabilities. Even though the April and October strikes were the largest-ever ballistic missile attacks against Israel, Israel’s vaunted air defenses, combined with those of the United States and its regional partners, intercepted almost all of Iran’s drones and missiles. The small handful that did strike Israeli territory either missed their targets or did insignificant damage.
The attacks exposed Iran as weak. They also prompted Israel to hit back against Iran directly, using its superior airpower to destroy key Iranian air defense batteries and military facilities in October, shattering the final barrier that had previously prevented Tehran’s adversaries from using military force against its territory. Iranian deterrence collapsed.
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Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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