US pressure on Israel over revenge against Iran has paid off – at least for now

Israel was always going to hit back after Iran launched close to 200 ballistic missiles in an attack at the start of the month, knowing that every tit-for-tat response risks taking the region into all-out war.

The fact that the waves of Israeli strikes – codenamed Days of Repentance and carried out by dozens of fighter jets – were limited to military targets will cause Washington to breathe a sigh of relief. There had been talk that Israel could strike Iran’s oil infrastructure or even nuclear facilities, both of which Tehran would see as deeply provocative. The Israeli air force instead struck about 20 military bases across Iran, including missile and drone manufacturing sites and air defence systems.

US officials had been working to try to limit the strikes from Israel, wary of Iran’s response. While Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s public statements in the last few months have given the impression that listening to his staunchest ally is one of the last thing he wants to do – particularly over conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon – he appears to have relented on this.

Israel has made clear that it believes the matter closed, unless Tehran responds. Iran has said that it is obliged to hit back, but the statements definitely strike less of a harsh tone than previous missives. There will be plenty of hardliners in Iran pushing for a large response, but only time will tell exactly what form that will take.

It may have asked its most heavily-armed proxy, Hezbollah, to carry out retribution across Israel’s northern border. But Israel has killed a number of members of Hezbollah’s leadership and pounded Lebanon with airstrikes and a ground invasion in the south – essentially taking that option off the table. If Iran wants to respond, it will likely believe it has to do so itself.

The stakes are extraordinarily high on both sides. Tehran is unlikely to walk away completely, that would make Iran look weak in the face of Israel’s military and the political will of the US. Is it willing to give Israel the last word in what has been a number of tit-for-tat military strikes?

The fear for the West is that Iran looks towards the nuclear option. If it is searching for a way to deter enemies, with this latest spiral of strikes back-and-forth unprecedented between Israel and Tehran, then developing a nuclear warhead to be used with its stash of ballistic missiles would be the most extreme way. Israel also knows how dangerous that would be.

Israel not hitting oil or nuclear facilities may provide enough breathing space to allow the diplomats to work towards pushing both nations away from the brink of all-out war. It has been weeks since the Iranian barrage of missiles, and Tehran may also decide it would like similar thinking time.

The US election on the 5 November is another consideration. If Democrat Kamala Harris gets in, the White House will probably chart a similar course to the one taken by Joe Biden. But if Donald Trump gets a second term, he has already suggested he will be less concerned about the consequences of striking at nuclear and oil infrastructure.

The hope will be that both sides see this as a moment to step back, or if more strikes are to come, they are of a lesser nature. But that will not become clear immediately. Make no mistake, we are very much in a dangerous moment.