Good morning. The violent confrontation between Israel and Iran is still pretty novel, but the beats that govern it are already familiar: first an attack, then the delicate dance of assessing the damage, and then the wait to see how the other side will respond. After Israel launched airstrikes on military targets in Iran on Saturday, that choreography is again well under way.
On Sunday, satellite imagery appeared to indicate that the targets were air defence systems protecting oil and gas facilities, as well as military sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme and production of ballistic missiles. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had “hit hard Iran’s defence capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed at us”. Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “the evil committed by the Zionist regime [Israel] two nights ago should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated”, and implied that the nature of any response would be left up to the military authorities.
