Speaking to the media at the United Nations, the Israeli ambassador focused on Iran and its response to the US and Israeli attacks.
“It’s a regime that explodes like an animal with a rabbit, dangerous for everyone around it,” said Danny Danon. “This is not a plan, it’s a wish.”
Increasingly, however, it seems that desperation has led Iran directly to its strategy. Experts say that Tehran will probably try to damage the security of neighboring countries and destroy the defense of the US and Israel by using cheap kamikaze drones to try to save the state.
Since a joint US-Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top government officials on the first day of the war, Iran has deliberately targeted America’s “soft underbelly” — military bases and communications equipment that are easily accessible, said Robert Malley, a former special envoy for Iran in the Biden administration.
In several other ways, he said “this is one where they can show that they have the power to retaliate.”
Iranian weapons have flown into US-installed areas in at least nine countries, from the Persian Gulf to Cyprus in the Mediterranean. Many people were injured and some died, most of them local residents. Drones have also struck US embassies and embassies in Riyadh, Dubai and Kuwait City, sparking fires.
Most of Iran’s neighbors had urged the US to avoid war, not out of sympathy for its regime, but to avoid being collateral damage.
Now, Iran’s goal is to inflict enough pain to pressure them to persuade US President Donald Trump to stop, said Galip Dalay, a Mideast expert at Chatham House, a think tank in London.
“The only person who can end this war or end the war is Trump, and I think that’s the player that Iran is targeting. [through its attacks],” he said.
Drone War
There may also be a second plan to be played by the surviving leaders in Tehran: to force the US and Israel to use expensive missile defenses in an attempt to shoot down the new Iran. Shahed line kamikaze drones.
The unmanned vehicles can carry powerful explosives up to 2,000 kilometers away, and are programmed to hit specific targets. That’s what destroyed three US missions a few days ago.
Iran was the first country to develop these, although they have been successfully adopted by Russia in its war with Ukraine.
But the low cost of drones makes them a challenge for major military powers like the US and its allies. A single drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000 US, while a single Patriot interceptor missile commonly used to shoot it down costs about $4 million and takes a long time to replace.
“This is the core of Iran’s strategy,” Kelly Grieco wrote on social media. He is a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “For every $1 Iran spent on drones, the UAE spent about $20-28 shooting them down.”
The US recently copied these Iranian-designed drones, named them LUCAS and fast-tracked their development. It also works on other cheap hacks.
Iranian drones are easy to transport and even launch from the back of ordinary-looking trucks, said Justin Crump, CEO of Sibylline, a British intelligence firm.
“You pull back the cover and they shoot. That’s very easy, it doesn’t look like there’s a missile,” he said.
Iran’s missiles
Ballistic missiles are another strength of Iran. They are such a threat to Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Iran be forced to drop them from the negotiations leading up to the war.
Iran’s arsenal – the largest in the Mideast – contains more than that 20 speciesmost collected in Iran comes from domestic and foreign sources. Many were expelled from Israel in June, and many more were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war before they could be used.
Video obtained exclusively by CBC News shows an Iranian missile breaching Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system and crashing into the Tel Aviv neighborhood on Saturday, killing one person, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
But Iran’s network of underground depots, with production and storage facilities, as well as missile systems, likely means they are full, Crump said. He estimates that Iran now has about 2,000 long-range ballistic missiles and many short-range missiles.
At the rate they are being used, Crump said Iran had about 10 to 12 days worth of supplies when the war began.
Between missiles and drones, the air war could continue for weeks, despite US and Israeli airstrikes.
Crump said the attacks and loss of leadership hurt Iran, with signs that the powerful Revolutionary Guard is disintegrating: Individual units often make their own decisions about when to fire and what to attack.
It has begun to “run away” from the executive order, he said. “True objectives are lost, accidents and miscalculations are more likely to occur.”
And what kind of Iran will it leave when the war is over?
“Its purpose right now is to show at the end of this war that it is still standing,” said former special envoy Malley. “What we will see is a more fragmented, chaotic, but stable regime.”
