Israel Intelligence Assessment: Iran Unlikely To Start War

Israel has assessed that Iran was unlikely to launch a regional war even its nuclear infrastructure was destroyed.

Israel’s leading strategic institute has concluded that Teheran would demonstrate restraint in wake of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. In a report, the Institute for National Security Studies said Iranian leaders feared a war that could end the mullah regime.

“The main Iranian interest is in regime survival, and therefore the regime would consider whether its response would enhance the threat against it,” the report, titled “If Attacked, How Would Iran Respond?” said.

Authors Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov said Iran would be more restrained in wake of an Israeli attack than that by the United States. They said Teheran would not see an Israeli air strike as threatening the Iranian regime.

“If in Teheran’s assessment the United States had decided to use its full power in order to topple the regime, this would reduce Iran’s inhibitions, and the scope of the Iranian response could be expected to increase,” the report said. “If Teheran’s assessment is that the United States is limiting its attack to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and that it is likely to broaden its attack against the regime only in response to an Iranian response, the chances would increase of Iran’s exercising restraint in order to avoid escalation that would threaten the survival of the regime.”

Institute director Yadlin, a former military intelligence commander, drafted the report in wake of U.S. assessments that any attack on Iran would trigger a regional war. But the institute said Iran, despite one of the largest missile arsenals in the Middle East, could not sustain any conflict.

Iran’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles, including the Shihab-3 and Ghadir, were deemed ineffective against military targets. Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicles were also said to be ineffective at long range, particularly against Israel’s air and missile defense umbrella.

“However, because the missiles have a low level of accuracy and this nonconventional weapon is not effective in a missile attack, Iran’s limited capability in this area and its leadership’s understanding that the use of chemical weapons would damage Iran’s legitimacy and lead to a military response on an entirely different level would likely actually prevent a nonconventional attack in response to a conventional attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the report said.

Yadlin and Golov also played down the prospect of a major Iranian insurgency campaign against Israel. The report said Teheran has been repeatedly foiled in both kinetic and cyber attacks against Israeli interests over the last decade.

The report, however, envisioned an Iranian missile strike against Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona. Teheran was also expected to order insurgency strikes against the Jewish state and its interests abroad. Iran’s main proxy, Hizbullah, already embroiled in Syria, could limit retaliation against Jerusalem. “Thus, in a scenario involving a pinpoint strike on the Iranian nuclear program, the regime would seek to respond without causing escalation and significant American intervention in the crisis,” the report said.