With Iran's retaliation largely a dud, Israel is in a stronger position than it was before it hit the Damascus embassy.
Israel conducted arguably its most politically risky assassination of an Iranian military commander yet — one that could have triggered an outright war. And it emerged not just unscathed, but having demonstrated that its homeland appears safe from direct Iranian assault in the immediate future.
The mass Iranian assault also seems to have galvanized Israel's Republican supporters in Congress, where an aid package has been held up for months as part of the fight over support for Ukraine.
But if Israel responds aggressively to Iran's attack, all bets are off.
Any major retaliation would force an Iranian response, potentially leading to an escalatory cycle that ends in a full-scale war. This would certainly pull in Iran's regional proxies, most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, and would result in tremendous amounts of death.
Even if this disaster is averted, an Israeli response would infuriate the American government — which both played a critical role in intercepting Iran's missile barrage and are strongly opposing any future Israeli retaliation.
Israeli escalation would snatch strategic defeat from the jaws of victory. Yet Israel's government is reportedly considering it anyway. A source told reporter Ronen Bergman that "if the [internal government] talks were broadcast live on YouTube, you'd have 4 million people clamoring at Ben Gurion airport trying to get out of here."
Prior to October 7, Netanyahu had a reputation for being cautious about using force. But since the Hamas attack, he has been astonishingly aggressive — embracing a maximalist, open-ended campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians while putting Israel on the road to strategic defeat.
The cooler heads in Israel seem to recognize reality. When war cabinet member Benny Gantz vowed that "this event isn't over yet," he also said that "we will build a regional coalition and we will make Iran pay the price at a time and in a manner that we choose" — framing that at least implies that Israel isn't planning imminent unilateral action.
So Israel might yet get out of this mess without a major disaster. Yet experts also warn that this attack might have longer-term destabilizing ramifications.
"Even if Israel chooses not to retaliate now, we are not quite back to where we were before. Status quo has changed with the precedent of a large-scale Iranian attack on Israel," writes Thomas Juneau, a Middle East scholar at the University of Ottawa, who predicted "a higher baseline of tension and violence" going forward.
A post-attack statement from Hossein Salami, the leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, supports Juneau's analysis. Salami said Iran has "decided to create a new equation" with Israel, one where any Israeli attack against Iranian personnel anywhere will be met with direct attacks by Iran on Israel. Previously, Israel had managed to conduct strikes on Iranian interests in places like Syria without direct retaliation — which carries greater risks of escalation to out-and-out war.
On Saturday night, the term "World War III" began trending on Twitter/X. It's safe to say at this point that these fears were overblown. But the Middle East remains a powder keg — one that's slightly more stuffed with gunpowder than it was before.
—Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent
