Israel’s strikes spotlight its army superiority over Iran, consultants say

The Israeli authorities mentioned dozens of fighter jets took half within the first stage of a wider operation that focused Iran’s major uranium enrichment facility, ballistic missile websites and senior army officers. Israel’s Mossad intelligence service additionally carried out sabotage operations towards air protection programs and missile batteries, Axios reported.
Iranian state media reported that senior army leaders and nuclear scientists have been killed within the operation early Friday native time, together with the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami.
Even earlier than the airstrikes, Israel had demonstrated its means to function with close to impunity in Iran over the previous 12 months, focusing on senior figures for assassination and bombing necessary air protection programs with out dropping plane.
Israeli strikes in October and April 2024 hit key S-300 air protection networks in Iran and tools used to make strong gasoline for ballistic missiles.
Iran suffered severe injury to its air defenses in earlier airstrikes, and shoring up these programs was not one thing that may very well be achieved shortly, in line with Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Close to East Coverage.
“It’s an enormous nation with plenty of targets to guard towards a really superior opponent,” Knights mentioned. “They simply don’t have ok air defenses to maintain the Israelis out, clearly.”
Though Israel more than likely might inflict severe injury on Iran’s nuclear program, it lacks the heavy bombs and plane required to strike successfully at Iran’s buried nuclear websites, army consultants and former U.S. and Israeli officers say.