By the conclusion of the week, Iran’s attack on Israel with missiles and drones was one of the most well understood incidents in recent modern history.
Subsequently, in the wee hours of Friday, news of Israel’s counterattack surfaced.Similar to the events of June 1914, when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife sparked the outbreak of World War I, these bullets were heard all throughout the world,
despite divergent opinions regarding their meaning.
By one de minimis account, Tehran was merely sending a performative warning shot with its attack last Saturday, almost taking its ballistic missiles out for a weekend test drive. The maximalist version is that this was a state-on-state assault designed to change the rules of the Middle East. By swarming Israel with so many projectiles, such an assessment goes, Iran was prepared to risk turning Israel into a mini-Dresden of 1945 and was only thwarted by Israeli strategic defences and, crucially, extraordinary cooperation between the US, Israel and Sunni Gulf allies.
Whatever Iran’s ultimate intention, its assault and now Israel’s reported counterattack have presented the Gulf states with dilemmas and acute choices, according to Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations. How they respond may determine the outcome of the crisis.
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