Is a Full-Scale Middle East War Already Here?

Iran and Israel Face Limitations That Make Massive Escalation Unlikely

By Kenneth M. Pollack

Many analysts watching the conflict in the Middle East have warned that the present fighting could escalate further. At the moment, such fears are concentrated on the prospect of a war between Iran and Israel.

Of course, that war is already underway. Iran has launched two direct attacks on Israel, while Israel has carried out one strike in response and is almost certainly preparing a second. A half dozen Iranian allies and proxies have attacked Israel, including in terrorist assaults; Israel has assassinated a passel of key Iranian leaders; and both sides have carried out cyber strikes.

So the real question is not what a war between Iran and Israel would look like but what an expanded conflict between them might entail. The answer, in essence, is this: more of what is happening right now, just with increased intensity. That is because both sides face significant material and strategic obstacles that make an imagined all-out war between them unlikely.

Iran trails Israel in almost all offensive and defensive capabilities, so it simply cannot inflict devastating damage. Israel, meanwhile, has a tremendous capacity for targeted strikes, but it does not have the variety of resources that a war of conquest or devastation against Iran would require. Both states are physically too far apart and lack the capacity to launch invasions by ground or sea. These obstacles mean that unconstrained warfare is doubtful, and even to the extent that there is an escalating exchange of blows, Armageddon is unlikely.

THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE

The most important factor constraining a war between Iran and Israel is distance. The two countries do not share a border. At their closest points, they are 750 miles apart. Central Israel is almost 1,000 miles away from Tehran.

Moreover, between them lie Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Some of those countries are more aligned with Israel, some are more aligned with Iran, and some are hostile to both. The two potential antagonists can count on help from some—in terms of allowing their forces to pass and impeding those of the enemy—but cannot assume much more.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, for instance, is a key, if tacit, ally of Israel, but he rules over a majority Palestinian population that mostly hates the Jewish state, limiting how much he can support Israel. His country helped Israel shoot down the Iranian drones and cruise missiles that crossed its territory during Iran’s first missile attack on Israel on April 13. But Amman was careful to insist that it was merely defending its airspace and would do so against all foreign intruders. Likewise, Syria is heavily dependent on Iran. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was taught by his father never to fight Israel, a lesson the Assads learned after repeated defeats in 1967, 1973, and 1982. As a result, although Iran can move forces through and base them in Syria, Damascus has so far prevented Tehran from mounting major attacks directly against Israel from Syrian territory for fear that Israel would expand its attacks there.

These realities make any kind of land invasion impossible in either direction. To invade Iran, Israeli ground forces would have to drive through Iraq and Jordan or Iraq and Syria, which would be logistically challenging and strategically foolish. Iran is 80 times as large as Israel, and even if Israel could find a way to get half of its dozen or so ground divisions there, they would be swallowed up by the Islamic Republic’s vast geographical expanse and would have little ability to accomplish anything meaningful, nor would Israel ever want to send so much of its citizen army so far away.

The most important factor constraining a war between Iran and Israel is distance.

The Israelis have been able to destroy key enemy facilities with small special forces teams inserted by air, and they very well might stage one or more such operations against important Iranian targets. But the Israeli military could not occupy Iranian territory in this way without a route to resupply and reinforce a first wave of air-dropped units.

The Israeli Defense Forces, of course, also boasts a capable navy, and Iran has a lengthy coastline. The IDF might mount a battalion-sized or even brigade-sized raid against an important Iranian coastal facility using one or more jury-rigged naval transports of some kind. But Israel lacks the amphibious assault and carrier-based air capabilities needed to mount a larger invasion from the sea. Unless Israel could base fighter squadrons in Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, which is highly unlikely, maintaining a force ashore for more than a few hours in the face of Iranian missiles and airstrikes would be exceptionally difficult. Even if these forces could somehow seize and hold a beachhead, sustaining it would require getting Israeli transport vessels through both the Houthi-menaced Bab el Mandeb Strait and the Iranian-threatened Strait of Hormuz. Consequently, such a small raiding force could realistically destroy only one or a few high-value Iranian facilities near the sea before it had to withdraw out of range of Iranian air and sea forces.

Iran’s navy would face even more formidable obstacles trying to mount an amphibious invasion of Israel against the air, sea, and ground forces of the Jewish state, not to mention the logistical nightmare of trying to move and supply forces there by circumnavigating all of Africa. A ground offensive against Israel would be only slightly more appealing. In theory, Iran has the logistical advantage of free passage through Iraq and Syria. But its ground forces are the weakest and most backward element of its armed forces, and they would not stand a chance against an IDF mobilized to defend its heavily fortified positions on the Golan Heights. Iran knows this: that is why the government has not deployed large Iranian ground forces to the Damascus area. Instead, Iran has reportedly massed as many as 40,000 Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian militiamen in southwest Syria who could be used to launch a massive assault without jeopardizing the lives of Iranian citizens or, Tehran hopes, triggering an Israeli response against Iran.

Yet that kind of attack would almost certainly result in a catastrophic defeat, with vast numbers of these lightly armed and poorly trained forces slaughtered by Israeli ground and air forces. That Tehran has not already attempted such an assault suggests the Iranians realize its futility. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has greatly degraded Hezbollah—Iran’s ultimate deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran. If Tehran thought these militias could save its close partner, it almost certainly would already have thrown them at the Israelis.

THIN AIR

These limits on ground operations mean that the conventional aspects of a wider war between Iran and Israel would fall mostly to their air forces, which are also limited in what they can do. Israel possesses ballistic missiles that could range all of Iran and has cruise missiles and drones that can do so from ships and submarines, and probably from Israel itself. No one knows how many of these Israel has, but it is not a huge number—probably in the high hundreds or low thousands for each. All have relatively small warheads, nothing like the payload that manned aircraft can deliver. That makes them very useful for destroying relatively small, high-value Iranian targets—military equipment and buildings, but not vast bases, let alone cities.

Although Iranian air defenses would complicate the operations of Israel’s manned aircraft, they would act as little more than an annoyance. The real problem for Israel would be the distance. Israel’s F-15s can certainly make those flights, but its cutting-edge F-35s and F-16s, which represent the bulk of its combat air force, have ranges of only about 600 miles. Israel’s long-range, standoff munitions can boost that figure by several hundred more, but it would still be a significant undertaking for those aircraft to hit targets in central Iran without aerial refueling.

Israel has a small number of long-range refueling aircraft, and although its air force has skilled pilots who routinely fly them in ways that no other country would dare, the planes are big and very vulnerable. It would be difficult and dangerous for Israel to employ them routinely in hostile airspace. Although none of Israel’s American-made fighter aircraft were designed to refuel one another in flight (a technique known as “buddy refueling”), the Israelis may have modified them to do so. That, however, would introduce other inefficiencies; half of Israel’s fighters would do nothing but refuel the other half. So unless Jordan or Saudi Arabia opens its airspace to the Israeli air force (as they apparently did on April 13 to combat the Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel), the Israelis would have to pick and choose when to employ manned aircraft to strike Iran.

Neither country is in a position to mount a massive, sustained air campaign against the other.

Iran has two air forces, one belonging to the regular armed forces and the other to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But neither can hold a candle to the Israeli air force. Iran has no dedicated refueling aircraft and only a few dozen old French-made fighters that could buddy refuel. Its aircraft are overwhelmingly American models dating from the 1960s and 1970s and French and Soviet planes from the 1970s and 1980s. However many of them could even make the flight to Israel would not stand a chance against Israeli air defenses.

That would put the onus of an Iranian air campaign back on its missile and drone force. Like Israel, the Islamic Republic probably has hundreds (or even a number in the low thousands) of these left with the range to hit Israel. In its strikes on April 13 and October 1, however, Iran launched a combined total of 500 of them and did virtually no damage. There are reports that Russian technicians are trying to help the Iranians improve both the survivability and the lethality of these missiles, but the six months between those two Iranian attacks did not show any significant improvement. It is humiliating for Iran to keep striking and failing in this way. Worse, it invites far more painful Israeli retaliation.

What all of this should make clear is that Israel can inflict a considerable amount of pain on Iran through relatively small, highly precise air, drone, and missile strikes, whereas Iran will have trouble causing Israel much pain at all. And neither country is in a position to mount a massive, sustained air campaign against the other. That is why even an expanded war between them won’t look anything like the German Luftwaffe’s Blitz or the British-American Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany in World War II—or even anything that would look like more recent U.S. air campaigns against Serbia and Iraq, or the kind of air campaign Israel is now waging against Hezbollah.

UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE

Both sides would likely try to complement (or substitute for) their conventional military operations with further cyber strikes and covert actions. As to the latter, Israel’s advantage appears to be even greater than it would be in an air war. For decades, the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to assassinate VIPs and sabotage critical facilities inside Iran. It is unclear how long it took Israel to set up such operations, how easily it can improvise new ones, or whether it has others already prepared.

By contrast, Iran has come off as impotent in this arena as well. Although it has reportedly tried to kill senior Israeli officials, it has so far failed. Its best effort seems to have been a small terrorist attack on the night of October 1, which was carried out at the same time as its second missile and drone attack and which killed a half dozen people in Tel Aviv. Iranian personnel may have been involved in a number of small-scale terrorist attacks in Israel during the past year, but they all pale in comparison with Israel’s astonishing covert successes.

In the cyber realm, Iran appears to be in a somewhat stronger position but still seems outmatched by the Israelis. Iran has spent almost two decades developing its cyberwar capabilities, and they’ve gotten good enough to wreak havoc on undefended targets. The Iranians have even shown some ability to hit harder targets. But in cyber exchanges, the Israelis have consistently prevailed. For instance, during the summer of 2023, Iranian cyberattacks shut off the power at several Israeli hospitals and health clinics. But the Israelis responded by launching cyber-assaults of their own, shutting down gas stations across Iran. Tehran stopped its attacks.

Of course, the whole point of cyber-operations is that neither side knows what the other can do—because if they knew, they would eliminate their vulnerabilities. It is possible that Iran is holding some truly devastating cyberweapons in reserve. It is equally possible that Israel is, too—and so far, the evidence suggests that the Israelis are both more likely to hurt Iran and better prepared to limit the damage from Iranian attacks.

THE STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

Both Iran and Israel face strategic conditions that further limit the potential scope of a conflict between them. Not only does Iran understand that it is fighting at a pronounced disadvantage against Israel in conventional and even unconventional warfare but the Iranians believe that Israel possesses an array of weapons of mass destruction. Although the Iranian regime is often accused of irrational behavior, the reality is that it has shown considerable prudence and would undoubtedly seek to avoid taking any action that could provoke a massive Israeli response.

Similar questions would probably also affect Israeli calculations. The IDF has the capacity to destroy various facilities critical to Iran’s nuclear program. But it has never done so for a crucial but typically overlooked reason: Israel and the United States fear that a large-scale Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites would prompt Tehran to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and declare that it had to build a nuclear arsenal as the only way to deter another Israeli attack. Tehran would then begin constructing more facilities deep underground to achieve that goal—like the facilities it already has at the Fordow plant near the city of Qom, which is immune to any of the aerial munitions Israel is known to possess. Thus, attacking the Iranian nuclear program might set it back for a few years, only to guarantee that Iran acquires a nuclear arsenal very soon thereafter. That would be a severe net negative for Israel.

Similarly, neither side is likely to want to interfere with Iranian oil exports. Iran’s regime remains almost completely dependent on oil revenues and would try to steer clear of any actions that might affect them. Israel knows that attacking Iranian oil exports could raise global oil prices, potentially infuriating the United States and many other countries. Given how much Israel still depends on American support, it seems unlikely that the Jewish state would touch that third rail, although it might opt to hit Iranian refineries, oil storage, and other facilities associated with Iranian domestic consumption.

WHAT MIGHT MAKE IT WORSE?

For all these reasons, an expanded war between Iran and Israel is likely to consist of a sporadic series of assaults carried out by aircraft, missiles, drones, and cyberweapons, plus some covert operations and terrorist attacks. In other words, more—possibly much more—of the same. Iran would probably continue to limit its missile and drone attacks to Israeli military facilities for fear that hitting Israeli cities could push Israel to escalate to the kind of attacks that Iran could not match. And even if the Iranian regime decided simply to hurt Israel as much as it could regardless of the consequences for itself, the Islamic Republic is just not strong enough to do much damage. It could launch its entire inventory of several thousand missiles at Israeli cities and perhaps kill several hundred Israelis. And in that case, if the IDF decided to retaliate against Iranian cities with hundreds of missiles and airstrikes, it could probably kill thousands of Iranians—but that’s it. The Iranians would then be a spent force, and although the Israeli air force could sustain small airstrikes against Iran for weeks, unless Israel did something like deliberately bomb an Iranian mass participant event—say, a soccer match—it is unlikely there would be a huge increase in Iranian casualties. Neither country would be devastated by this kind of exchange; indeed, it is exceptionally difficult to imagine scenarios that would even bring them close to it.

It is far more likely that Israeli strikes would focus on Iranian military targets but could include civilian infrastructure—power plants, refineries, government buildings—and elements of the Iranian leadership, such as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and military commanders. Even then, the Israelis would be unlikely to target Iran’s most senior leaders, such as President Masoud Pezeshkian or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Israeli officials recognize that either man could be replaced by a more aggressive, less prudent figure willing to incur a tremendous price in order to inflict harm on Israel or, worse still, willing to commit Iran to building nuclear weapons regardless of the costs.

It’s possible to conjure black swan events—such as an Iranian-backed terrorist attack on Israel that kills hundreds or thousands of Israeli citizens—that could cause one side or the other to try to do more damage to the other in return. But the far more likely prospect is that even a wider conflict would remain constrained by the limitations of distance, diplomacy, and strategy that have shaped the war that is already underway.