The Middle East on the Edge… Has the Countdown to a Broader War Begun?

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As Israel prepares to launch an attack on Iran in response to a recent strike from the latter, amidst the current escalation between the Hebrew state and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, discussions are now focusing on an “inevitable slide” toward a broader war in the Middle East.

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“Israel is unlikely to hold back from launching an airstrike on Iran in the next few days, in response to Tehran’s firing of nearly 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday,” experts have said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated during a meeting with the security cabinet on Tuesday evening: “Whoever attacks us, we will attack them,” further fueling expectations of an Israeli attack on Lebanon in the coming days.

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However, several decision-making experts at the intelligence and military levels have pointed out that there are still factors preventing the region from being dragged into a major fire that could push Israel and Tehran into an escalating conflict, drawing other countries into the fray.

How so? Israeli officials informed their American counterparts that their response to the Iranian attack would be “calculated,” but they have not yet provided a final list of potential targets, according to a Washington-based source familiar with the discussions, who requested anonymity.

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Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and negotiator during the first and second Palestinian intifadas in the 1980s and early 2000s, told Reuters: “I think the targets that will be chosen will be selected carefully and with great caution.”

He added that potential targets would include sites of military importance to Iran, such as missile infrastructure, communication centers, and power plants.

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More than six former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials, who have worked in military, intelligence, and diplomatic roles, said during interviews with Reuters that Israel is unlikely to target the oil facilities that support the Iranian economy or nuclear sites.

Asked whether the U.S. advised Israel not to target Iranian oil facilities, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he would not disclose details of ongoing negotiations publicly.

Biden’s comments came just hours after he said that Washington was discussing those Israeli strikes, which drove up oil prices.

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Israel surprised most of the world with its attack on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group last month, which began with the explosion of thousands of communication devices known as pagers and walkie-talkies used by the group’s members, before killing Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an air raid on Beirut, followed by a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.

Norman Roule, a former CIA official responsible for the Iran file between 2008 and 2017, said: “It’s unwise for outside observers to speculate on Israeli attack plans.”

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He added: “But if Israel chooses to launch a proportionate and substantial strike at the same time, it could opt to limit its attacks to Iranian missiles and the Quds Force infrastructure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which supported Tehran and its allies’ attacks against Israel.”

Roule, a senior adviser to the group United Against Nuclear Iran, stressed that Israel could strike Iranian gasoline and diesel refining facilities meant for domestic consumption, while avoiding facilities used for oil exports, which could help limit the rise in crude oil prices.

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Is it likely that nuclear sites will be targeted?

A source in Washington said the U.S. is not pressuring Israel to avoid a military response to the recent Iranian attack, as it did last April, but is calling for a careful analysis of the potential consequences of any response.

However, it has been proven that Washington’s influence over Israel is limited, and Netanyahu remains determined to target Israel’s enemies since the Hamas attack.

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Retired U.S. Army officer Richard Hooker, who served on the National Security Council under both Republican and Democratic presidents, said: “The Israelis have already crossed every red line that we set for them.”

The proximity of U.S. presidential elections, set for November 5, also means Biden’s persuasive power is limited as he approaches the final months of his term in the White House.

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On Wednesday, Biden told reporters that Israel had the right to respond “proportionally.” He clarified that he does not support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel and Western countries claim that the Iranians are pursuing a program to build nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies.

Hooker noted that targeting such sites was possible but unlikely: “Because when you do something like that, you put the Iranian leadership in a position where it could react in an extremely tragic way.”

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Israel views Tehran’s nuclear program as an existential threat. Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, though it has never confirmed or denied possessing such weapons.

Iran’s nuclear sites are scattered across many regions, and some are located deep underground.

Voices have been raised in Washington calling for strikes on refineries and other energy facilities in Iran. So far, U.S. sanctions against Tehran have failed to curb activity in the oil sector.

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Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement: “Strong strikes should be inflicted on Iranian oil refineries, as they are the source of this regime’s money.”

Will Iran retaliate?

Experts predict that bombing such highly sensitive targets will prompt a strong reaction from Iran.

In the event of a broader Middle Eastern conflict, it will likely not resemble the bloody ground wars of past decades between armies.

In the past year, the only military confrontations between sovereign states have been between Iran and Israel, which are separated by two other countries and vast desert stretches.

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Because of the distance between them, operations between Israel and Iran have been limited to airstrikes, covert operations, and the use of armed factions like Hezbollah.

Iran has long threatened to destroy Israel, but it has taken a cautious approach in this crisis, carefully analyzing two airstrikes it launched on Israel, the first in April after the Israeli army bombed the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing several leaders, and the second this week after Nasrallah’s death.

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The two Iranian attacks resulted in the death of only one Palestinian after a missile fell on the West Bank on Tuesday.

The United States says it will do everything possible to defend Israel against Iran and its allies, but no one thinks they will deploy ground troops as they did during the Gulf Wars in 1990 and 2003 against Iraq.

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