Roving Periscope: Israel’s Op. Rising Lion against Iran pushes the US & M-E on the edge

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Hours after Israel launched massive attacks on Friday on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities and killed two of its seniormost war leaders, leaving parts of Tehran in flames, Iran also launched a counter-attack on its sworn enemy. They pushed the already tense Middle East—and the world beyond—on the edge of a multidimensional conflict even as the planet is still struggling to bring peace on the smoldering Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza fronts.

Among those reported dead in Israel’s Operation Rising Lion against Iran were Major-General Hossein Salami (chief of the secretive paramilitary force Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC), Major-General Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces) and Ali Shamkhani (a close aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who represented Tehran at talks which sealed a landmark agreement to restore diplomatic ties with Sunni foe Saudi Arabia).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attacks essential for the Jewish state’s survival, marking the biggest strike on Iran since the 1980s war with Iraq. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned it, vowing “severe punishment.”

“Remember, we have not started this war,” Tehran tweeted on X.

India has urged both its friends, Iran and Israel, to exercise restraint and de-escalate tension.

Iran launched more than 100 drones at Israel on Friday morning, Israel’s military said, soon after Jerusalem announced it had begun a major operation against Tehran, with a wave of airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists and senior military commanders.

Apprehending large-scale retaliation, the US, which removed all non-essential staff from some of its embassies across the region amid unsuccessful nuclear talks with Iran, rushed in to say it was “not involved” in Israel’s attacks.

Israel attacked Iran’s capital early Friday in strikes that targeted the country’s nuclear programme and raised the potential for an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries. It appeared to be the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iran, the media reported.

Multiple sites around Iran were hit, including its main nuclear enrichment facility, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air.

The leader of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami, was confirmed dead, Iranian state television reported, a development that would be a body blow to Tehran’s governing theocracy and an immediate escalation of the nations’ long-simmering conflict. Several top military officials and scientists were also believed killed.

The strikes came amid simmering tensions over Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear enrichment programme and appeared certain to trigger a reprisal, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning that “severe punishment” would be directed at Israel.

In Washington, the Trump administration, which had cautioned Israel against an attack during the ongoing negotiations over Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, said that it was “not involved” and warned against any retaliation targeting US interests or personnel.

Israeli leaders cast the pre-emptive assault as a fight for the Jewish nation’s survival that was necessary to head off an imminent threat that a Shia-dominated Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike soon.

“It could be a year. It could be within a few months,” PM Netanyahu said as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat.” “This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” he said.

Khamenei’s statement, carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, confirmed that top military officials and scientists had been killed in the attack.

Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to a crime in our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centers,” the Ayatollah said.

For Netanyahu, the operation distracts attention from Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, which is now over 20 months old, and has seen the deaths of some 60,000 Palestinians and displacement of many others.

There is a broad consensus in the Israeli masses that Iran is a major threat, and even the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, a staunch critic of Netanyahu, offered his “full support” for the mission against Iran. But if Iranian reprisals cause heavy Israeli casualties or major disruptions to daily life, Netanyahu could see public opinion quickly shift—he is already facing a hostile Knesset which is mounting pressure to unseat him.

Multiple sites in the Iranian capital were hit in the attack, which Netanyahu said targeted both nuclear and military sites. Also targeted were officials leading Iran’s nuclear programme and its ballistic missile arsenal. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that an Israeli strike hit Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and said it was closely monitoring radiation levels.

The strike on Iran pushed the Israeli military to its limits, requiring the use of aging air-to-air refuelers to get its fighter jets close enough to attack; Tehran is located some 2,300 km from Jerusalem. It wasn’t immediately clear if Israeli jets entered Iranian airspace or just fired so-called “standoff missiles” over another country. People in Iraq heard fighter jets overhead at the time of the attack. Israel previously attacked Iran from over the border in Iraq.

The potential for an attack had been apparent for weeks as angst built over Iran’s nuclear programme.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he did not believe an attack was imminent but also acknowledged that it “could very well happen.” As tensions soared, the US pulled some diplomats from Iraq’s capital and offered voluntary evacuations for the families of US troops in the wider Middle East. Once the attacks were underway, the US. Embassy in Jerusalem issued an alert telling American government workers and their families to shelter in place until further notice.

“We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement released by the White House.

Trump is scheduled to attend a meeting of his National Security Council on Friday in the White House Situation Room, where he is expected to discuss the conflict with top advisers.

Israel has long been determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a concern laid bare on Thursday when the Board of Governors at the IAEA for the first time in 20 years censured Iran over its refusal to work with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site in the country and swap out some centrifuges for more-advanced ones.

Even so, there are multiple assessments on how many nuclear weapons it could conceivably build, should it choose to do so. Iran would need months to assemble, test and field any weapon, which it so far has said it has no desire to do. US intelligence agencies also assess Iran does not have a weapons programme at this time.

In a sign of the far-reaching implications of the emerging conflict, Israel’s main airport was closed and benchmark Brent crude spiked on news of the Israeli attack, rising nearly 8 percent. Both Iran and Israel closed their airspace.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that in the aftermath of the strikes, “missile and drone attacks against Israel and its civilian population are expected immediately.” “It is essential to listen to instructions from the home front command and authorities to stay in protected areas,” he said in a statement.

Trump earlier said he urged Netanyahu to hold off on any action while the administration negotiated with Iran over nuclear enrichment.