The Israeli airstrikes on 26 October, a tit-for-tat response to an Iranian attack in early October, have plunged the troubled West Asian region into yet another spiral of increased tensions between two arch adversaries, with the attendant risk of a potentially dangerous military escalation. The air attack targeted surface-to-air missile sites and related facilities in Iran that, according to Tel Aviv, were used to manufacture the ordnance fired at Israel.
It is instructive that Israel did not target Iranian oil facilities or its nuclear installations. This restraint is being interpreted as a case of signalling, i.e., that while the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) has the requisite trans-border military capability to breach Iranian air defences and attack selected targets with precision and lethality – they have chosen not to do so. Additionally, this restraint is being attributed to the US.