Israel’s April 19th retaliatory attack on Iran, which hit targets dead in the middle of the country and adjacent to significant military assets – exposed Iran as a paper tiger: loud and threatening but, in reality, weak and feckless.
And now, Israel, after decimating almost all of hamas in retaliation for the October 7 massacre, has had an astonishing level of success in destroying the equally odious hezbollah. Almost all of its leaders are dead. And what few are left have to hide for their lives, without communications access to their forces because Israel destroyed their pagers and walkie-talkies (along with the terrorists who they were given to).
Since both hamas and hezbollah are armed, trained and financially backed by Iran, this, added to the April 19th humiliation, has made Iran look beyond pathetic.
So, an apparent decision was made that something big had to be done. Iran had to show its enemies – but, most important, its terrorist clientele – how militarily significant it was.
To that end, Iran launched almost 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, targeting its major cities. No apparent specific target, just hit what you can and hope there are lots of casualties to celebrate.
But the result has been that almost none of those missiles landed. Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense systems took them down. What little damage there was occurred only due to fragments of Iran’s destroyed-in-the-air missiles falling to earth.
Ironically, the one death that resulted from Iran’s disastrously unsuccessful onslaught was a Palestinian Arab on the fatah-controlled west bank.
And now, Israel is obviously going to retaliate.
Does anyone doubt for a second that Israel’s ability to damage Iran far exceeds Iran’s ability to damage Israel?
Maybe, just maybe, this is a true turning point in the middle east. Maybe Israel’s demonstrable superiority and Ayatollah-controlled Iran’s demonstrable weakness, coupled with the ugly subjugation of its people (a great many of whom would love to rid themselves of the Ayatollah and his minions), will be enough to have them rise up and remove them for once and for all.
Do I expect it? No.
But could it happen? Yes.
There is always hope. Let’s hope.
