Alwaght- Nearly a month after 12-day war between Israel and Iran, analyses continue around the aspects and tactical and strategic outcomes of this war. In this regard, Egypt’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in a file opened under the title of “the lessons learned from Iranian-Israeli war” has shed light on the most important lessons of this confrontation.
1. Capability to neutralize Israel’s power temptation
In the first part, the author believes that the 12-day war showed that it is the only deterrence factor that can create security. According to the author, “nothing dissuades Israel from attacks, unless you have deterrence power.” The failure to create this deterrence is the core factor driving the Israeli aggression on Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian territories. So, it was not easy for Israel to attack such a country as Iran— a war that could to become a protracted war of attrition. But after being assured of American support, it decided to attack. Israel only gave up on continuing the war when Iran was able to inflict damage inside Israel. This meant that any enemy Arab country that lacked the ability to deter an Israeli attack could be the target of a potential Israeli aggression, and any country that had the ability to deter would be immune to such operations.
In other words, the main message of the war is that the modernization of the national armies in an era of technological superiority and the rise of the AI is a necessity. This war disclosed the significance of combat drones and ballistic missiles in operational and strategic impact on the enemy infrastructure and once again highlighted the need to have powerful air defenses and the readiness for long-term conflicts.
2. Difference of war with states and groups
The experience of this war showed that Israel’s successful approaches to confronting groups like Hezbollah are ineffective against a centralized state like Iran. Israel’s military operations at the beginning of the war suggest that the aim was to cut off Iran’s field command in order to completely paralyze its management of military escalation. But this did not happen, and Iran was able to quickly rebuild and provide give responses despite suffering heavy damages.
States are larger, deeper, and more capable of absorbing damages and returning to the battlefield, and can even carry out effective attacks. Perhaps Israel’s desire not to engage in a protracted war of attrition with Iran, given the heavy losses it suffered during the 12-day war, was one of the key factors in the pressure that led it to ask the US to intervene and to declare a ceasefire by Donald Trump on June 24.
3. Limitations of military power
Despite the apparent military superiority, Israel and the US failed to gain their strategic goals. Even the most advanced weapons could not check Iran’s nuclear program.
Despite the stark difference in the military capabilities of the warring parties, this superiority failed to help the stronger parties, Washington and Tel Aviv, achieve the goals of the war. The official narrative of the US and Trump — which exaggerated on the results of the attacks on the three nuclear reactors — was not accepted even within the US itself. In addition to the report of the US Defense Intelligence Agency that assessed the results as limited, some nuclear experts also downplayed the significance and impact of these results, arguing that their maximum impact was to delay Iran’s nuclear program. Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also announced that Tehran could return to uranium enrichment within a few months. The Pentagon confirmed on July 2 that the US attacks on Iran’s reactors of Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz had delayed the nuclear program by probably about two years. This shows that the US and Israel did not achieve their full goals in the 12-day war.
4. Israel cannot withstand wars of attrition with states
Another lesson highlighted by the Egyptian think tank is the Israeli weakness to tolerate protracted wars of attrition with states.
The past two years have shown that Israel can endure a long-term war of attrition with groups and militias, but it is incapable of long-term wars with states. Despite the efforts of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government to demonstrate its readiness to confront Iran until the fall of the ruling government, Israel’s ability was insufficient without US military support.
Another factor that prevented Israel from engaging in a long war was Iran’s ability to absorb the first blows — blows that killed senior military, IRGC, and nuclear scientists such as Brigadier General Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces), Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Commander of the IRGC), and Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh (Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force). Iran also neutralized Mossad’s spying network. As a result, the war ended when Israel realized that continuing the conflict was politically and militarily unviable.
5. Role of spying network
In this war, Israel used a vast network of penetrated agents that played a decisive role in the regime’s early successes. This makes the importance of strengthening internal security even more evident.
This war proved that modern warfare is not just a clash between missiles and fighter jets, but also an information battle and competition between networks. Therefore, focusing on cybersecurity and strengthening command and control networks is crucial. Also, high security sensitivity among defense and government personnel is necessary, since the main operations of the Mossad are carried out not in wartime, but in periods of “relative calm” to create a vast database for future attacks. Therefore, the internal front is a decisive variable in wars.
6. Planning for offensive scenarios
In its analysis, Al-Ahram points to the weaknesses and strengths of the two warring sides to dominate the sky. It highlighted the Israeli air superiority in the early days of war and weakness of Iranian air defenses. It at the same time admitted to the Iran’s big success for passage of its missiles from multi-layer air defenses of Israel and its allies, adding that back-to-back waves of fired missiles led to collapse of Israeli anti-missile defense and left the occupied territories relatively open to attacks.
7. Significance of strategic alliances
While Israel has the unquestioned Western support, Iran could not form effective alliances with such powers as Russia and China.
8. Israeli-American convergence
This was showed that the American and Israeli policies in the region are so convergent that it is hard to differentiate between their interests and decisions.
9. Iran’s strategic wisdom
Writing about the way of war management by Iran despite having an ideological discourse, the think tank says that Iran showed considerable wisdom in managing the crisis and steered clear of unnecessary escalation of conflict.
10. Limitations of regional hegemony
Neither side was able to achieve complete dominance in the region, reflecting the relative balance of power in West Asia (Middle East). The war demonstrated that regional powers have limits to their hegemony. Israel claimed to want to change or re-arrange the region, but despite inflicting damage on the Axis of Resistance and assassinating Iranian and Hezbollah commanders, it failed to establish strategic deterrence. Iranian and Hezbollah attacks continued, and Israel was unable to even fully implement its plan in Gaza.
11. Decrease of role of non-state actors
While Iran has not made any request for other members of the Axis of Resistance in the region to enter the conflict with the Israeli regime, and Iranian officials have even admitted that 70 percent of Iran’s combat and military capabilities were not used in this war, the author, declaring that resistance groups such as Hezbollah of Lebanon, Ansarullah of Yemen, and the Popular Mobilization Forces of Iraq declined to engage in the war, considered this a sign of “limited reliance on armed groups.”
12. Counting the costs and benefits
In the next part of this report, the author, who admitted at the beginning of his report that Israel and the US failed to achieve their goals in attacking Iran and considered Iran’s heavy responses to be the reason for the Tel Aviv’s request for a ceasefire, finally writes in a different conclusion that it is complicated to assess the results of the war for each side and that it is impossible to simply identify a clear winner or loser.
Israel dealt a heavy blow by attacking the military command network and also damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities. In contrast, Iran’s missile attacks left dozens dead and injured in Israel and caused extensive damage to several cities, including Tel Aviv.
13. Post-war time
Al-Ahram continues, raising three more lessons after the war including:
14. The need to adopt a strategy of weapons diversity
15. Relying on flexible network leadership
16. Rise of cyber and intelligence warfare
It holds that the end of the conflict does not mean end of the tensions, but also start of a new stage of strategic competition.
Conclusion
The12-day war is a turning point in the region’s strategic developments. The conflict not only disclosed the strengths and weaknesses of the warring sides, but also fundamentally changed the shifted the equations. A deep understanding of the lessons of this war is of vital importance for all regional players, as it will define a new framework for future competitions in West Asia.
