Turning the target page: Israel kept the airstrikes coming on Sunday amid its effort to end Iran’s nuclear capabilities and cripple its hardline regime. The sites it targeted, however, expanded somewhat from its opening salvo.
In addition to strikes on the Islamic Republic’s weapons depots and military leaders, the Israeli Air Force hit Iran’s foreign ministry, defense ministry, and other operational outposts. As a result, our Adam Kredo reports, it demonstrated “that it is willing to target the Iranian regime’s centralized ruling architecture, not just its contested nuclear sites.”
“The strikes on Tehran’s leadership outposts are likely aimed at destabilizing an Iranian regime that is already on the defensive following Israel’s successful opening salvo. That regime could soon face mass unrest if its fragile governing systems break down, and while the hardline government has for years quelled protests against it, the added pressure of a full-scale Israeli assault brings complications.” Bibi Netanyahu suggested as much during his Sunday interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier: “Eighty percent of the people would throw these theological thugs out,” he said. “I mean, they murder them, they oppress them for 46 years, they yearn for freedom.”
READ MORE: ‘Strategic Decapitation’: Israel Expands Operations, Targeting Iranian Political Institutions as Netanyahu Taunts ‘Weak’ Regime in Tehran
Diminishing returns: Iranian strikes also continued through the weekend. They differed from Israel’s in the sense that they targeted civilians—and in the sense that they were increasingly unsuccessful.
Aerial superiority has given the Jewish state free reign to fly over Tehran and strike at will. It used that advantage on Saturday to bomb Iranian gas fields, oil refineries, and, crucially, missile launchers. Iran has some 2,000 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel. But it needs launchers to fire them off, and it’s beginning to find those launchers hard to come by. On Friday, Iran launched roughly 200 missiles at Israel. One day later, that number halved to roughly 100. By Sunday, the Islamic Republic could only muster 30 missiles.
The dwindling figures reflect an emerging problem for Tehran. In addition to losing scores of military commanders and nuclear scientists, Iran is beginning to lose its long-range missile capabilities. Could the trend push the mullahs back to the negotiating table, or push the Israelis to finish the job? We may soon find out.
READ MORE: ‘The Road to Tehran Is Open’: Israel Pounds Iranian Gas Fields, Broadening Historic Military Campaign
Sending a message: Sixty percent of Republicans support Israel’s campaign against Iran, compared with just 27 percent who oppose it, according to a Ronald Reagan Institute survey published Friday. Still, some of the 27-percenters are especially loud in their opposition. Donald Trump addressed them on Saturday.
“For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon,” he told the Atlantic in a phone interview, dismissing isolationist members of his coalition who have accused Israel of trying to drag the United States into a fresh Middle Eastern war. “For all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.”
The comments came one day after Tucker Carlson broke with Trump, accusing him of “being complicit” in Israel’s “act of war” thanks to “years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social.” The GOP doesn’t appear to agree. In addition to the Ronald Reagan Institute survey, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll conducted in the buildup to Israel’s campaign found that 78 percent of Republicans backed an Israeli attack on Tehran if nuclear deal negotiations failed.
READ MORE: TRUMP TO PANICAN DOVES: ‘You Can’t Have Peace If Iran Has a Nuclear Weapon’
In other news:
- Kamala Harris’s Middle East adviser Phil Gordon, a champion of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, had this to say about Israel’s attacks: “I would have found it too risky to initiate military force with all that that could unleash.” We know, dude.
- Donald Trump putting tanks in the street for a peaceful military parade is just like the Chinese Communist Party putting tanks in the street to kill peaceful protesters, according to a political cartoon Sheldon Whitehouse posted over the weekend.
- Finally, the New York Times editorial board can say it: Anti-Semitism is an “urgent problem” in the United States—and one that’s tolerated by progressives who “reject many other forms of hate.”
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