“A new chapter” for Israel and Iran
After a week of tense internal deliberations and international calls for calm, Israel struck an air defense system in Iran on Friday, according to Western and Iranian officials. Israel’s airstrike is latest in an exchange of attacks between the countries.
I spoke about Iran and Israel with my colleague Farnaz Fassihithe head of the UN bureau, which covers the shadow war between the countries.
What does this attack mean for the conflict between Iran and Israel?
I believe this marks a new chapter in their years-long conflicted relationship because, despite fighting secretly, by proxy and through shadow operations, this is the first time in 45 years that they have attacked each other directly. So it’s a turning point in the relationship that somehow upsets all the previous rules.
They both really took things up a notch in a significant way, and I think it remains to be seen whether this latest blow for blow will create some sort of deterrent for both sides.
How do people in Iran react?
In Iran, people are very worried about a war with Israel, but this is on top of many other problems that Iranians face.
The government has launched a very aggressive campaign in the streets, cracking down on women who do not respect the hijab law. The government summons activists, journalists or anyone critical of its policy towards Israel. They impose silence. So people in Iran it seems like they are in a hurry from many different sides.
And the economy is terrible. It’s a sanctioned economy, there’s a lot of corruption, and since this skirmish with Israel, the Iranian currency is collapsing against the dollar. They are therefore already seeing the real impacts of this situation on prices.
What do you think will happen next?
I think it looks like both sides are pulling back. And there was also a lot of diplomatic pressure and messages sent to both Iran and Israel – from the United States, from regional countries, from European countries, from African countries, from China , from Russia, from everyone – calling out Israel and Iran and saying the region simply cannot handle another massive war, stand down.
Even the Biden administration has repeatedly told Israel that it is not interested in war with Iran. The United States does not want war in Iran and told Netanyahu it would help defend Israel, as it did during the Iranian attack, but would not participate in the attack on Israel. ‘Iran. And I think that factored into Israel’s decision to scale back its efforts because they realized they would have to fight Iran alone.
I think people feel like the threat of war may have passed, like we were on the brink of war and we pulled out.
But it’s a volatile situation. This is far from being resolved… because another calculation erroranother attack, another assassination, and it could explode again.
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That’s all for today’s briefing. Thank you for spending part of your morning with us, and see you tomorrow. -Dan
PS Can you place these eight events in chronological order?
You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
Thanks to Farnaz Fassihi.
