The United States has been spreading the news that Iran will surely attack Israel in coming days, a move that seems to be a purposeful ploy to provoke Tehran to carry out an attack against Israel.
Since the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in Syria last week, which led to the death of several senior IRGC forces, the US media have started a suspicious trend, quoting senior American officials that Iran will definitely give a decisive military response to Israel’s attack and this will happen in the coming days.
For example, US President Joe Biden said on Friday that Iran will soon launch a military attack on Israel, although he continued to say that the United States would fully support Israel in the event of an attack by Iran.
Likewise, two US officials also told CBS News the day before that a major Iranian attack on Israel is expected to be carried out late on Friday, and this attack will probably include firing more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles at military targets inside Israel. Other senior US officials speaking with CNN also repeated the same literature and claimed that they expect Iran to organize several attacks against Israel from several different directions in the coming days.
The US Embassy in Israel issued a statement Thursday, asking its employees not to leave the building in the coming days and also warning American citizens to avoid traveling to Israel. Similarly, Bloomberg stated in a report that according to the US Pentagon defense experts, they expect Iran and its proxies to carry out large-scale drone and missile attacks against targets in Israel in the coming days.
In a report on Saturday, the Atlantic Council also predicted that Iran may directly attack Israeli territories or assassinate senior Israeli officials.
Asserting the values and risks of such a scenario, the report noted that “Tehran would likely see such an attack as its best chance to restore deterrence and demonstrate that Israel cannot strike Iran’s officials with impunity. Tehran may also believe that such an attack could force the US to increase pressure on Israel so that it does not think of another attack against Iran. But there are risks in such a scenario. Israel may respond strongly to the loss of civilian or military personnel in Israel or to the assassination of senior officials. Iran’s direct attack to Israel has a high potential to start a full-scale regional war.”
US ploy against Iran failed!
But why is Washington seeking to incite Iran to take a direct military action against Israel? In an analytical report, the Cradle provides the answer to this question. It states in a report that Iran is now on a path that has put both the US and Israel in a complex trap. “Today, it is Iran and its regional allies who are using a measured approach to contain US and Israel. Strategy, discipline, and rare patience – the antithesis of western short-termism – will bring Iran victory,” the report said, adding that “time is now on the side of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its regional allies.”
But the US intends to divert Iran from this path of victory and by provoking the Islamic Republic to carry out a military action against Israel, take the initiative and end the game the way it likes. In other words, Iran’s attack on Israel provides the US with the excuse to create a strong regional coalition against Iran way easier and take stronger coercive measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran, however, didn’t fall into the US trap. In the early hours of this Sunday, Iran targeted Israel through a drone and missile attack. This means that Tehran has chosen the same path that Washington wanted. But Iran’s attack on Israel’s territory should not be interpreted as such.
In a report this Saturday, the Times of Israel revealed that Iranian officials had already informed the US government that they would respond to Israel’s attack, but the response would be completely controlled and limited, and that Iran had no intention to escalate tensions by such a military move.
Tehran’s message to Washington was conveyed by Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian during his Sunday trip to Oman, which often acts as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington. Maybe that’s why the Israeli army announced that it could successfully intercepted 99% of about 300 drones and missiles launched by Iran towards Israel. And maybe that’s why these attacks were without casualties and only a 7-year-old girl was slightly injured due to the fall of a drone carcass on the roof of a house in Israel.
