the strategy to strike Iran –

For Israel all options are on the table. The attack on October 1st will be followed by harsh retaliation against Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thundered: “Iran has made a big mistake and will pay for it.” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari assured: “We will act at the time and place we choose.” The point is on what objectives Israel’s response will focus which, according to Michael Milshtein, director of the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, will be “dramatic” and could “hit ports, oil or military sites” or even “the headquarters of the Pasdaran”. According to other observers, Israeli retaliation could instead focus on the nuclear sites of the Islamic Republic, a scenario that does not find support from the United States, as President Joe Biden has made clear, confirming that there are ongoing discussions with the Israelis on the response to the Iranian attack, which “must be proportionate”.

An attack to “destroy the Iranian nuclear program” is the favorite hypothesis of those in Israel, after the events of October 7, who are asking to settle accounts with the ayatollahs once and for all. Among them is the former prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Observers say that two factors are playing in Israel’s favor at the moment. On the one hand, the situation in the United States, where the November vote will inevitably absorb some of the attention while awaiting the handover, with the new president who will only take office in the White House in January. On the other hand, the disarray of Iranian proxies, from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis, which make Tehran’s deterrence less fearful. “We have the justification. We have the means. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran is exposed,” Bennett noted.

There are essentially two objectives that Israel could target if Tel Aviv’s assessment led to authorizing raids against Tehran’s nuclear program. The uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and the nuclear research center in Isfahan, already targeted by the Israeli retaliation – on a small scale – in April. But these are complicated operations, which require even more powerful devices than those used to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. In fact, most of Iran’s nuclear facilities are located deep underground, under mountains. “It’s not something that will be easily accessible to Israel from the skies,” Andreas Krieg of King’s College London told Al Jazeera. Striking nuclear sites in response to an attack that caused minimal damage could be considered disproportionate.

Hitting the profitable Iranian oil sector, perhaps by bombing refineries, at a time when the Iranian authorities are grappling with growing popular pressure due to the country’s dramatic economic situation could also work in Israel’s favor from a political point of view, but in in any case it would trigger a surge in crude oil prices on world markets, with all the resulting consequences. In any case, the response will have to be well calculated if Tel Aviv still wants to keep the level of conflict with Tehran below that of a catastrophic conflict. Regardless of the target, a new raid is bound to “force Tehran to retaliate, triggering a ballistic missile ping pong that could push the entire region into the abyss,” believes Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at International Crisis Group ( Icg).