Alright, let’s look in a bit more detail what an Israeli response could be like. I’m joined by military analyst Professor Michael Clark. Professor Clark, great to have your thoughts on this today. So what more have we learnt from that attack over the weekend and and how likely is an Israeli response. Yeah, I mean we’re we’re learning quite a lot more after action reports come together start to collate them always these things get a bit more complicated the more you look at them the the less simplistic they seem when they they first occur. So we’re we’re learning some more. I think the theme of what we’re learning is that the Israelis were quite lucky in some respects because there were a lot of misfires. We don’t quite know how many yet. I’m trying to find out, but quite a lot of of Iranian missiles didn’t get much further than their their launch sites for various reasons. So they chances are launched, but you know, some of them self destructed. It could have been a bigger barrage that was on it’s way than. Yes, well the barrage was calculated at 330 but some proportion of that didn’t get very far. So that’s, you know, take that out into account and then when we see what the allies are saying, I mean the American Navy and Air Force say that between them they think they got about 70 drones. The Israelis say 170 drones were launched. Now that was their figure, 185 yesterday. They say 170 today. On reflection, the Americans got about 70, the British got about a dozen. The French were there, We don’t quite know how many. They got some on their side of the the Iraqi Syrian border and the Jordanians defending their own airspace in the Jordan Valley and on their border with Iraq and Syria. They got some as well. So it looks as if about over 100 of 170 drones, maybe quite a lot more than 100 were brought down by the allies and the Americans got some of the ballistic missiles as well. The American Navy ships that were in the Mediterranean, they got a of the ballistic missiles, which is very good going. So the Israeli defenses did very well, but they wouldn’t have done quite as well if it wasn’t for their allies. And that gives the allies more political weight in what the Israelis are now thinking about and what they’re going to do next. So will the Israelis respond? Yes, they’re determined to respond. How do they respond? They’re still talking about it. And the allied voice is a bit louder in that response than it would have been before this attack was resisted in this way, as our previous guest was saying, sources telling that they’ve resolved within the cabinet that they will respond. It’s just the, the level of response. Yeah. When, when and how, we don’t quite know, but we’re going to find out pretty pretty soon. And the, you know, the, the contribution that the allies made to that defence, I think it’s become quite interesting. Talk to us about what form it could take. I guess there are a few options, aren’t there? So yeah, how Israel could, I mean, the biggest options, I mean what one issue is distance because the distance between Israel and Iran, the the shortest distance between between the two borders is about 650 miles. So it’s getting on towards 1000 or more if you’re talking about targets inside Iran. So if the Israelis wanted to launch strong air attacks to really hurt Iran, then they’ve got to cross the airspace of Jordan, Iraq or Saudi Arabia and they’ve got to get permission to fly. They won’t all sorts of political they won’t get that permission. Doesn’t mean to say they wouldn’t do it, but it means that it makes it even more politically controversial if they do. The alternative is to go the sea route, go the wrong way around. So to take a route all the way down the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden, right round and into the Gulf and into around that way. It can be done air to air refuelling, but it’s much more hazardous, it takes longer, lots more could go wrong. They could launch missile attacks from Israel. You don’t need permission to launch missiles because they go higher than effective airspace. So missile attacks from Israel into Iran are possible, don’t do as much damage, not as not as obvious, and they need an awful lot of missiles to really hurt them. Much more likely, in my view, are attacks against the IRGC, the Iranian Republican Guard Corps in their operations in Iraq and Syria. This is what they’ve been doing anyway. If they were to hit IRGC people and facilities in Iraq and Syria, that would send a message, but it would not be hitting Iran directly. That would give them a response. Most people would say that response is below the threshold that will provoke Iran and maybe we could talk, call an end to it there. But a lot of people in Israel are saying, look, the fact is deterrence has broken down. The fact that they attacked us shows that they don’t fear us. We’ve got to restore the fear that they dare not attack us. And that’s the argument that’s going on at the moment as we speak in the cabinets, the different cabinets of of Israel. Yeah. OK, Michael, Claude, thank you very much.
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