The Daily - Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Overnight on Saturday, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israeli soil, shooting hundreds of missiles and drones at multiple targets.Eric Schmitt, a national security correspondent for The Times, explains what happened and considers whether a broader war is brewing in the Middle East.Guest: Eric Schmitt, a national security correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Here is what we know about Iran’s attack on Israel.The barrage made the Middle East’s new reality undeniable: Clashes are becoming harder and harder to contain.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

I'm Isabel Kirschner in Jerusalem. It's coming up to about 5.30 a.m. at the end of a very long and surreal night here. For the first time in Israel's history, the country came under a direct attack from Iran. This night started ominously with cancellations of all educational activities for Sunday morning, then the reports on TV that the airport was closing down after midnight, and then came the announcement that swarms of drones were actually on their way.

There were lots of diagrams on TV, how long it takes drones to arrive, how long it takes cruise missiles to arrive, how long it takes ballistic missiles to arrive. So everybody was basically up and waiting. Sure enough, at about 2 a.m., air raid sirens were going off in Jerusalem, very quickly followed by a long series of booms in the sky and flashes of light. Wow, wow, wow, look, look, you can't see.

Look, now, wait. My apartment building woke up, it came to life. The neighbors were sitting on the stairs in the stairwell. Everybody in this country is used to incoming rocket fire. It was a fairly relaxed atmosphere, but quite surreal and bizarre nonetheless. And now, dawn is just about breaking. I can hear birds song, and we're being told it's not over. There will be some kind of Israeli response, and the question is whether that will be wrapped up within a couple of days

or whether we are entering into an unprecedented regional war. From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. Overnight on Saturday, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israeli soil, shooting hundreds of missiles and drones at multiple targets around the country. Today, my colleague Eric Schmidt on what happened and what it means for the risk of a broader war in the Middle East. It's Monday, April 15th. So, Eric, we witnessed this extraordinary attack overnight on Saturday against Israel by Iran. You know, missiles, drones lighting up the sky in multiple locations around the region.

The whole country was really on high alert. I was watching in New York, and it really was like the whole world was holding its breath with this attack. Tell me what happened. At around nine o'clock Israel time, we started to get intelligence that the Iranians had launched a first wave

of attack drones. Iran has basically three buckets of weapons that they're launching over time against Israel. So the drones come first. They're packed with explosives, relatively slow movingmoving, make a lot of noise with their buzzing that goes on. People can actually see them. The next wave that's coming after this are cruise missiles. These are larger missiles, guided, that are headed toward Israel at the same time, faster-moving.

Then finally, the Iranians launch as many as 100 ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles are the fastest moving missiles. They carry a big payload. And what makes them so dangerous is that, especially if launched in large numbers, they can overwhelm defenses on the ground. You've got well over 300 drones and missiles of different kinds that have been engaged. But the thing you have to know about these 300 weapons is that the vast majority of them are actually shot down, mostly by Israel, but also by allies like the United States, Britain, and Jordan. And in the end, only a dozen or so, maybe a few more, actually impact in Israeli territory.

So where do these missiles actually hit? So you have some damage to this air base in the Naguib Desert. You have military targets in the Golan Heights. You have some injuries on the ground. About a dozen or so civilians are injured, and it's unclear whether it's, you know, from the blasts themselves or more likely from kind of some of the shrapnel and debris that's falling from the sky. There was one seven-year-old girl, for instance, who was severely wounded outside of Arad, Israel, in a Bedouin Arab. But no fatalities that we know of so far, and no major injuries, which is, given the scale of this attack, is really quite remarkable.

And Eric, walk me through why this Iranian attack was so clearly repelled. Well, there's several main reasons. One is that the Israelis have a very sophisticated layer of defenses. The best known of them is called Iron Dome. But it seems here it was another defense technology called AeroSystem that shoots down ballistic missiles that was particularly effective. And in addition to Israel's already very strong defenses, you have a number of Israel's allies, principally the United States, that it's engaging with their combat planes.

They've got F-15 fighter jets up in the sky that are shooting down, we were told, more than 70 of these exploding drones. Wow. And then you've got a couple of U.S. Navy destroyers off the coast of Israel in the eastern Mediterranean Sea that take down as many as six of these ballistic missiles. Iranian Sea that take down as many as six of these ballistic missiles. The other thing that's obviously important is that Iran gave everyone a lot of warning this was going to happen. We didn't know exactly which bases they were going to shoot at. We didn't know exactly what part of the country was going to be attacked. But it became pretty clear in the messaging that Iran did beforehand that they weren't going to attack major cities. That wasn't the goal here. That wasn't the objective. It was going to go after military targets in the way they did it was pretty much as U.S. officials expected the Iranians to do.

So, Eric, it seems like really at the end of the day, this attack, you know, despite its unprecedented nature, was actually really not nearly as bad as it could have been from the Israeli perspective. But why did Iran attack Israel to begin with? Yeah, I mean, as you said, this is really from the U.S. and Israeli perspective, given the vast number of drones and missiles that were launched at Israel, this was a win that they were able to get out of this crisis with relatively little damage on the ground and all that. But for the Iranians, you have to understand, well, what prompted this in the first place? The latest now from the Middle East.

Syrian state media reporting that an airstrike hit Iran's consular building in Syria today. And what this is really all about was retaliation for a strike on April 1st that the Israelis carried out in Damascus, Syria. Damascus has reportedly killed seven members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Among the dead pulled from the rubble a high-ranking Iranian military leader. And even though the Israelis haven't come out and formally acknowledged this,

it's clear that Israel is behind this. Mohammed Zahidi, one of the leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, a commander that was involved in the weapon shipments to groups like Hezbollah and Iran-backed Syrian Shia militias, has been targeted in an Israeli airstrike this afternoon. These weren't just any old Iranian officers. These were a couple of their top generals and other senior officials from a group called the Quds Force. It's a wing of the Iranian security services that carries out covert operations across the region in places like Gaza, in places like Lebanon. These are the actors that organize the very attacks against Israel.

Israel has long targeted Iranian military installations in Syria. Monday's attack marked the first time Iran's embassy compound itself had been hit. But the other important thing, these guys weren't killed on some dusty road, in a military truck, in some battlefield or anything like this. They were in a diplomatic facility. This is kind of essentially their sovereign soil in a military truck in some battlefield or anything like this. They were in a diplomatic facility. This is kind of essentially their sovereign soil in a foreign country. And if that's violated, it's a big deal. So for the Iranians, it's not just the loss of these key operatives

in this covert organization that carries out some of their most sinister activities, but it's almost as if you're carrying out a strike on Iranian soil itself, this embassy complex. And they feel they need to respond to this and respond in kind, respond in force. Because carrying out an attack on Iranian soil, effectively, was really an audacious thing to do. Absolutely. And this was so audacious that the Israelis didn't tell their closest ally, the United States, until about five minutes before the strike is going to hit.

Wow. American officials were not happy. Not only does it create this diplomatic and security challenge, but it also, for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, it presents a very serious problem about what will the response be and what kind of threats now would this pose to American troops in the Middle East. So the U.S. does something pretty unusual right away. One is they come out and say publicly that the Israelis didn't give them any kind of advance notice of this. And the other thing they do that's also a little bit unusual is the United States, kind of both publicly but very much privately privately starts to signal the Iranians through back channels that the U.S. government had nothing to do with this attack on April 1st and the Damascus embassy. You know, they had no prior

knowledge of it and were not involved in it. And so the message to the Iranians from Washington is, don't blame us. We know Israel is our key ally, but we had no idea this was coming. You know, we don't want to get caught in the blowback. Interesting. So the Americans are basically saying, look, Israel, we're in the middle of a pretty high stake situation here. There's this war in Gaza. Proxies are firing rockets into your territory. It's all kind of on a Harris trigger. Taking this shot at these Iranian military officials was not a good idea. How do the Israelis respond? What is their explanation to their American allies for killing this top Iranian commander on April 1st? Well, the Israelis are saying, look, these are the people

that are planning attacks on us through their proxies, and we are in a war of survival with them. And they are the root of the problem that we are facing, not just in Gaza with Hamas, but with Hezbollah, with the Houthis in Yemen, with these militias in Iraq and Syria. Iran is behind all of these groups, these partners and proxies that they have, and they're willing to take the risk despite the blowback that they almost certainly know will happen once they strike these Iranians in Syria. They're willing to take it. Because they just don't get opportunities like this very often. And they feel pretty confident that they can take a step like this, as risky as it is and audacious as it is, because they've seen it work before.

We'll be right back. So, Eric, why were the Israelis so confident that engaging with Iran in this kind of risky way was something they were willing to gamble on? I mean, it resulted in this historic Iranian attack. So why risk something like that? So the Israelis had been involved in a shadow war with Iran for years, where each side took shots at some of their senior military people or other operatives. But it's always been kind of below the radar, if you will. The Israeli strike on April 1st that precipitated this attack from Iran was a clear departure from that shadow war. And I think one reason why Israel had that change in approach was because it was looking to a specific American action against Iran as a kind of a model.

In January 2020, the United States, under President Trump, made an extraordinary move. He went after a guy named Major General Qasem Soleimani. went after a guy named Major General Qasem Soleimani. Now, Soleimani at the time was Iran's most powerful security and intelligence commander. And he worked closely with Iraqi and Lebanese allies. He nurtured proxy forces to form a kind of Shiite axis of power throughout the whole region. Shiite axes of power throughout the whole region. Medi in Iran lauded him as a hero, somebody who was essentially untouchable to the West, and he was almost too big to kill. However, he'd also been long designated as a terrorist by the United States, and because many of his forces had been fighting against the United States after the United States

invasion of Iraq. So Trump orders a strike to kill General Soleimani. He was on a visit to Iraq, and while he's at the Baghdad airport, they take him out. And it's just stunning. I remember the strike because it was, you know, everybody was saying,

this is going to be the beginning of the end. I mean, this guy is the most important guy in many ways in Iran, and the United States just killed him. Yeah, yeah. Well, Trump said he was plotting imminent and sinister attacks against American interests. That was his reasoning after the strike. But everybody was just waiting and holding their breath for what's going to happen next. What will be Iran's response to the death of their top general. And sure enough, five days later, Iran responded. They launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Al-Assad Air Base, a major American base in western Iraq where hundreds of U.S. service members are stationed.

The response was important in Iran's view. This is a major attack, again, using a very sophisticated weapon against an American base in Iraq. More than 100 Americans suffered brain injuries, but no one was killed. Given Soleimani's position and the influence he had over covert operations, the Iranian attack could have been much worse. the Iranian attack could have been much worse. In fact, the Iranians come out looking kind of restrained in the response. Iran did not want a full-scale war with the United States at this point, despite their public remarks, despite the loss of this revered general.

When Bush came to shove at that point, they did not want to cross that line. So what is the lesson in the Soleimani example for what we saw this past weekend, Eric? I mean, is it fair to say that perhaps the Israelis were right in their assumptions? You know, that what we saw in how Iran prosecuted this attack on Saturday, the advanced warning, the slow rollout, the targeting of remote bases rather than urban centers, that all of this seems to have been done to send a signal. And that that signal was that Iran is only willing to go so far. Yes, they're essentially, you know, maneuvering themselves to give them a way out. It's an off-ramp here by basically saying, okay, look, we're done for these strikes for now. This has been a defensive measure. That's how they're calling it. That's

how they're casting it. And basically, unless you Israelis want to ramp this thing up, you know, we're done. We're done for now. And that seems to be where Iran wants to leave it. And so the ball is in Israel's court right now as to what the response will be next. Okay, so what do we know about what Israel's thinking? What's going to be Israel's response? So that's the question everyone is asking right now. Israel's closest and strongest ally, the United States, is pushing Israel to basically stop here. President Biden spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu and told

him, hey, you got everything you wanted. You killed the generals. You staved off this massive Iranian attack. This basically could not have worked out any better for you. Take the out the Iranians are giving you and let this be the end of it for now. Look, we came to your aid when you were in need. We put our planes and our ships in harm's way and helped knock down these missiles and drones, but we will not help you retaliate against Iran if that's the decision you decide to make. Eric, this strikes me as a pretty tricky moment

for President Biden, right? Because, you know, he's asking Netanyahu not to escalate. But at the end of the day, you know, Netanyahu has lots of constituencies he's dealing with. He's under lots of pressure. And now that Iran has attacked like this directly, it's going to be harder for Biden to use his leverage against Israel. So I guess the next question then is, will Netanyahu actually take the win as the Americans are advising him to do? Well, and that's the open question. You've got in one ear, the Americans are telling him, stop, take the win.

Don't make this any worse. But in the other ear, you've got the far right cabinet members saying, you cannot let this stand. You know, you must strike aggressively far right cabinet members saying, you cannot let this stand. You know, you must strike aggressively back. You cannot do this. And so what you see, at least the early statements from the Israelis are saying, look, we will continue to defend ourselves and we will respond at a time and place of our choosing. It's sort of international speak for we're going to do something, but we're going to do it later. That's right.

And of course, were the hardliners in Netanyahu's cabinet to win out, that of course would potentially spark the regional war that we've long been worrying about and have been talking to you for a long time about, Eric. That's right. And of course, that would have multiple effects. I mean, think about it. Just as there's this huge debate before all this happened over the Israeli operation in Rafah in southern Gaza now. Well, Israel's ability already is so difficult to do that. But can you imagine having to try and prosecute its mission of dismantling the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza and having to fight some other kind of broader second or third front at the same time, as a whole, it would upset the stability of the entire region

if this happens. And any escalation here would open the door to a much wider regional war. I guess the question is, will Israel bring us into one or will Iran lose patience and bring us into one from that side? Yes. In the United States and Iran, they're saying here, is this the line we're willing to walk up to? And the question is whether Israel is willing to set that line or go further. You know, you seem to have, in this case, the Iranians and the Americans in a weird way are kind of aligned in this, like, enough. Enough already. And the Israelis, everybody's kind of leaning forward and saying, okay, now what? Is this going to get worse?

And that's what we just don't know yet. Eric, thank you. Thank you. On Sunday, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting at the request of Israel, with diplomats urging restraint by all parties to prevent the conflict in the Middle East from escalating. The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, told the Council that it was, quote, time to step back from the break. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you should know today. On Friday, in a major turnaround, the House passed a reauthorization of a surveillance law that national security officials say is crucial to gathering intelligence and fighting terrorism, and civil liberties advocates say improperly allows warrantless surveillance of American citizens. The law, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, had stalled in the House just a few days before, when former President Donald Trump had urged lawmakers to kill it. But Republican Speaker Mike Johnson rescued it by putting forward a version that extends the law by just two years instead of the original five. That was enough to persuade hard-right Republicans,

who had been blocking the bill, to vote for it. And in Sydney, Australia, six people were killed and at least 12 others were injured in a stabbing rampage at a crowded shopping mall on Saturday. The attack was the deadliest act of mass violence in the country in years. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja, Alex Stern, and Luke Vanderplug. It was edited by Mark George with help from Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Corey Schruppel, and Alicia Baitube, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly.

That's it for The Daily. I sabrina tavernisi see you tomorrow