{"id":117929,"date":"2024-04-20T06:59:24","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T11:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=117929"},"modified":"2024-04-20T06:59:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T11:59:24","slug":"an-audible-sigh-of-relief-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2024\/04\/20\/an-audible-sigh-of-relief-in-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"An audible sigh of relief in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BBC \u2014 The latest round in the region’s most dangerous rivalry appears to be over, for now.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Israel still has not officially acknowledged that the attack in Iran in the early hours of Friday morning was its doing.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Meanwhile, Iran’s military and political leaders have downplayed, dismissed and even mocked that anything of consequence happened at all.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The accounts over what kind of weaponry was deployed on Friday and how much damage was caused are still conflicting and incomplete.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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American officials speak of a missile strike, but Iranian officials say the attacks, in the central province of Isfahan and in northwest Tabriz, were caused by small exploding drones.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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“The downed micro air vehicles caused no damage and no casualties,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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But these simple quadcopters are Israel’s calling card \u2013 it has deployed them time and again in its years of covert operations inside Iran.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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This time their main target was the storied central province of Isfahan, which is celebrated for its stunning Islamic heritage.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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An Iranian woman walks past an anti-Israeli banner carrying pictures of missiles in Tehran on Friday<\/span><\/section>\n
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Of late, however, the province is more famous for the Natanz nuclear facility, the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre and a major air base, which was used during Iran’s 14 April attack on Israel.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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It is also an industrial heartland housing factories which produce the drones and ballistic missiles that were fired by the hundreds in Israel’s direction last Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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So a limited operation seems to have carried a powerful warning \u2013 that Israel has the intelligence and assets to strike at will at Iran’s beating heart.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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It is a message so urgent that Israel made sure it was sent before, rather than after, the start of the Jewish Passover, as was widely predicted by Israel watchers.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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US officials have also indicated that Israel targeted sites such as Iran’s air defence radar system, which protects Natanz. There is still no confirmed account of its success.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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So this attack may also be just an opening salvo. But it was, for the moment, an unintended 85th birthday gift to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Israel’s official silence gave Iran’s ultimate decision-maker vital political space. Tehran did not have to invoke its new rule that whenever its arch-enemy strikes, Iran will hit back hard, with the risk of sparking a perilous escalatory spiral.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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