World War 3 or an off-ramp

At 01:45am (ish) Tel Aviv time, the air raid sirens started to blare as Iran's drones and missiles had started to arrive and Israel's Iron Dome system had started to shoot them down. This started because Israel struck and damaged the Iranian consulate building in Syria on the 1st of April, which is the equivalent of Israel striking Iranian soil because that's what consulates and embassies are under international law. So this rocket barrage against Israel was retaliation, not necessarily an escalation because that would require some degree of surprise or lack of provocation on the part of Israel, which obviously there was.

What I have to say is actually remarkably little but I do want to say this, this strike is actually proof that Iran doesn't want a war. Iran has a well equipped military with Hypersonic missiles that are capable of breaking through the Iron Dome, and in fact, according to my own sources in the IDF, that's actually what they were worried about. But none of the missiles fired or hit were hypersonic in nature they were a mix of Cruise, Ballistic and Suicide drones, all of them artillery pieces that the Iron Dome isn't just capable of shooting down, but it was calibrated to shoot down.

As far as my friend in the IDF is concerned, all of the targets that the missiles/drones were set on were military installations and none were civilian in nature. Which is surprising, given Iran's history of not really caring about civillian targets. Nobody died, apart from a little girl in the south who was injured but likely to make a full recovery. And of the missiles that landed and actually detonated, all of them landed on airbases used to receive military aid from the United States.

Which brings me neatly on to, why did Iran attack in the manner it did? Well simply put, Iran doesn't want to escalate things, Iran is not in an economic position where it can just start World War 3 and be fine with it, but the Regime in Tehran had to do something to appease the hawks in Iran. So Tehran made a calculated judgement that sending their weakest shit would be enough of a "show of force" to appease the hawks in Iran while not provoking a severe response from Israel.

However, I don't think the retaliation was necessarily targeted at Israel, even if it was Israel taking the spiritual damage from it. This was a message to the United States, a "door knock" if you will, a reminder that Iran is capable of fighting back if it wants to, and spurring the question of whether it is worthwhile being dragged into a regional war with Iran just because Israel wants to. The answer we now know is, No, the United States has publicly and privately told Netanyahu that under no circumstance will the United States join Israel's front line against Iran and any action against Iran, Israel will need to shoulder themselves.

Which means that, the ball is in Netanyahu's court, he's not gonna start a regional war because without the United States, he's basically fucked. So what does he do? Well, Diplomacy is pretty much his only option, the United States has pretty much explicitly said that's his only option and anything else will be at the expense of Israel itself. So, as far as I can tell, Netanyahu is stuck between a rock and a hard place, he either does nothing and calls an election which is due and he's under mounting public pressure to do, or he does something and fucks up the entire country.

In conclusion, I'm fairly certain that we ain't about to see World War 3, if Bibi is feeling spicy, there will be a geo-political quagmire of a war between Iran and Israel but since the United States isn't getting involved, the other powers are unlikely to either. So the ball is firmly in Netanyahu's court just now, and in all practicality there is more chance of a war with Lebanon's Hezbollah just now than there is one with Iran.