The Iran–Israel exchange assessment
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The Iran,Israel exchange assessment is John Kiriakou's evaluation of the direct military confrontation between the two states, offered with the warning that it is probably an unpopular position: he thinks the Iranians came out ahead.

The Iron Dome

Kiriakou's first reason is that Iran proved the Iron Dome is not as infallible as the Israelis wanted everybody to believe. He illustrates with the slow-moving drones Iran sent, in his reading, to save face, announcing that a hundred drones were on the way and would arrive in six hours. Even with hours of advance warning, he says, seven of those drones got through.

Targeting

The second reason is that Iran showed it could go missile for missile with Israel. Here Kiriakou draws a contrast he calls impressive. Israel, he says, has historically not been shy about destroying an entire city block of apartment buildings to reach one targeted person; the Iranians were far more selective, specifically hitting defence and economic sites.

That, in his account, is why the casualty figures diverged so sharply between the two sides, not because the Iranians launched fewer rockets, but because of what each side aimed at. He attributes the Israeli killing of generals and nuclear scientists to the same method: if a target lives in an apartment building, the building or the block goes, and three hundred people may die with him. Kiriakou describes this as Israeli policy.

Why the ceasefire came

Kiriakou's third and most pointed claim is that the Israelis were essentially out of missiles, and that this is why the ceasefire was so easy to reach. He does not believe Israel accomplished what it set out to accomplish; he thinks it simply ran out of missiles, and to save face allowed the Americans to negotiate the ceasefire.

His view of the war's origins, that it was a war of choice driven by Israeli political pressure rather than intelligence, is set out in the Iran nuclear assessment.

See also

- The Iron Dome
- Iran Nuclear Assessment
- Benjamin Netanyahu
- Forcing Iran Toward A Bomb
