IIsraeli Strikes on Iran Expose Gap in Prowess Between Two Arch Foes

Recent conflict pits Iran and Israel in a direct, long-distance war—and Israel has the upper hand

By Sune Engel Rasmussen, WSJ

BEIRUT-The Israeli strikes on Iran hit several of Tehran's most advanced air defenses, exposing Iran's vulnerability to future attacks as the two enemies engage in a new era of direct confrontation.

By Sune Engel Rasmussen, Laurence Norman and Anat Peled

During the hourslong attack early Saturday, Israeli warplanes struck Iranian military assets in three provinces, including three Russian-supplied aerial defense systems known as S-300, U.S. and Israeli officials said. A fourth aerial defense system was also hit. An Israeli official said that all the air-defense systems were rendered unusable.

The Israeli attack came after significant U.S. pressure to avoid hitting Iran's nuclear and oil facilities, with the U.S. saying Iran should now stand down from further escalations.

In a speech on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Israel had inflicted damage on Iran, and said that while Israel was exaggerating the impact, it would also be wrong to play down the attack or dismiss it as unimportant. Khamenei, who has led Iran since 1989, refrained from promising harsh retaliation, as he has done after other attacks.

Successfully defanging Iran's self-defense capabilities marks a new chapter in Israel's confrontation with the Islamic Republic. It created a vulnerability in Iran's air de fenses that highlighted the significant gaps between the two sides' military capabilities. Israel claims it now has the ability to fly over Iranian airspace. "Iran will have to do a lot of soul-searching and spend a lot of money on air-defense systems that are capable of intercepting these kinds of new threats," said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow and expert on Iran's military with the Wash ington Institute, a think tank. "Iran is a military-industrial nation. There are so many tar gets in the country, so they really need all the air defenses they can get their hands on."

For decades, Iran and Israel have fought each other indirectly. Iran has armed and trained militias to harass and threaten its enemies, including Israel, as a way to keep conflict away from its own borders. Is rael has pressured Iran through sabotage and assassinations targeting Iran's nuclear program, and by hitting Iranian forces abroad, including in Syria.

The recent war has pitted the two enemies in a different kind of battle: a direct, long distance war. And they are performing very differently.

Iran has twice, in April and October, been able to sporadically penetrate Israel's air defenses, but only by firing hundreds of missiles at a time.

Israel has twice shown its ability to strike sensitive Iranian targets, with few if any of its weapons being intercepted. A previous Israeli at tack hit an aerial defense radar in April. Saturday's assault involved Israel's most advanced aerial weapon, F-35 jet fighters, which are adept at evading radar, people familiar with the mission said.

Israel hailed the attack as a major victory. "Now, the stateof Israel has wider freedom of action in the air over Iran as well," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday.

The S-300 is a family of surface-to-air missile systems designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, and now used to defend against planes, drones and, to some extent, cruise and ballistic missiles. Russia supplied Iran S-300 systems in 2016, after nine years of delay because of nuclear negotiations and international sanctions.

Experts believe Iran received between 40 and 60 launchers as part of the total order, each of which is capable of carrying up to four missiles.

The S-300 systems are used to protect high-value targets such as nuclear sites and the domestic Mehrabad Airport used for official flights. One battery is kept mobile and travels with Khamenei when he visits his home city of Mashhad in the country's east, said Nadimi, whose research is based on sources inside Iran and satellite imagery.

Iran has a domestically produced long-range, road-mobile air-defense system called Bavar-373, which it says can com- pete with the more advanced S-400 system. It also has a range of less advanced domestically produced aerial defense systems, which it can redeploy to replace the damaged batteries, Nadimi said.

Iran has long sought the more advanced S-400 systems from Russia, but Western officials say there is no evidence Tehran has received any.

Israel struck one of the S-300 defense batteries positioned near the Natanz nuclear facility in April when it attacked Iran in retaliation for a barrage of 300 missiles and drones. Saturday's attack is believed to have hit most if not all of the remaining S-300s. Experts said that, even as the damage from the attack is still being assessed, the fact that Israel was able to hit Iran's most advanced aerial defenses and some of its most sensitive military sites is significant.

While Israel owes much of its military prowess to U.S. assistance, Iran has relied mostly on domestic technological development and support from Russia and China. The recent exposure of its vulnerabilities raises questions about the limits and benefits of its alliance with Moscow and Beijing.

Since Russia's full-scale in- vasion of Ukraine, Tehran and Moscow have strengthened their military ties, with Iran supplying drones and ballistic missiles to Moscow, Western officials said. China in 2020 signed a long-term partnership deal with Iran, which included some cooperation on military research and weapons development. Russia and Iran are due to complete their own long-term strategic partnership, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said after meeting his Iranian counterpart last week.

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said in July 2023 that there were signs of Russian technicians working on Iran's space launch vehicle program "and other aspects of their missile programs." Iran's space program is believed to be part of efforts to develop intercontinental missiles.

Those relationships come with caveats, however. Russia and China have strategicties with some of Iran's regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia.

U.S. officials question how quickly Russia will be able to provide Iran with new missile defenses when its resources are stretched by the Ukraine war.

In the aftermath of the attack, Iranian officials appeared to play down the Israeli attack, suggesting Tehran isn't planning an immediate forceful response against Israel directly. Khamenei said Sunday that military pressure shouldn't dissuade Iran from pursuing advanced weapons