Despite their failed attack, Iran should not be underestimated

Iran’s overnight mass drone attack on Israel was supposed to be payback for the assassination of Iranian Republican Guard Corps commander General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. In truth, though, it was a tepid, face-saving response which the ayatollahs in Tehran knew would fail.

In the early hours of this morning, the Iranian army described what it called ‘Operation Honest Promise’ – the drone and missile attack on Israel – as a complete success. But in reality, the attack had minimal tactical impact, despite the highly orchestrated flag waving jubilation in Tehran’s Palestine Square.

Former MI6 Chief Sir Alex Younger said recently that covert intelligence gathering, the trade craft of his former career, ‘was not about starting wars, but preventing them’. Iran’s military would have made certain that both Israel and more importantly, the US, knew what was coming. After all, the last thing Iran wants at the moment, given it’s current domestic troubles of soaring inflation and the public’s growing dissatisfaction with its autocratic theocracy, is a costly and unwinnable war with Israel.