Capabilities..........

Missile attack on Israel was intended as a show of Tehran’s military capabilities, experts say

From CNN’s Abbas Al Lawati and Nadeen Ebrahim

Iran’s missile attack against Israel on Tuesday was intended to signal that Tehran’s arsenal is capable of inflicting mass casualties, Middle East experts say.

Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media, a London-based news site focused on covering the Middle East, said that unlike its attack on Israel in April — which was meant to merely showcase Iran’s capabilities and had been telegraphed in advance, allowing it to be largely thwarted — Tuesday’s barrage was intended to send the message that Iran can inflict significant damage if it chooses to.

“The (Iranian) response was measured and geared to send a message through accuracy and ability to bypass Israeli air defenses, rather than inflicting mass casualties,” Shabani said.

Ali Ahmadi, an executive fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said that “Iran’s April attack was deliberately designed to be ineffective so as to not escalate,” but the feeling in Iran is that it was taken as a sign of weakness.

“Iran felt that it had to discredit Israeli and American air defenses,” Ahmadi told CNN, adding that even though Tuesday’s attack did not cause mass casualties, it “did establish that Israel can be made to take on serious cost.”

Others disagree, however. Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank in Washington, DC, said Iran’s actions were meant to show that it is indeed responding to Israel’s recent assassinations of key Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, “both by domestic and foreign audiences for purposes of regime security and survival.”

He noted, however, that despite the lack of mass casualties, “we cannot assume that a desire to wash blood away with blood was not present.” The lack of damage had more to do with Israel’s defense systems as well as the US and other regional allies’ support, he said.