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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/us/politics/israel-iran-analysis.html
Israel's Strike on Iran: A Limited Attack but a Potentially Big Signal
(New York Times) David E. Sanger - Israel chose early Friday to respond to Iran's direct strike on April 13 with a limited strike, which appeared to do little damage. In its strike on a conventional military target in Isfahan, Israel demonstrated that it could pierce Isfahan's layers of air defenses, many of them arrayed around key sites like the Isfahan uranium conversion facility. "Iran's attempt to unilaterally move the goal posts of war in the region will not be met with silence and inaction," said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon's former top Middle East policy official who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "A state-on-state attack involving drones and missiles will be met with a response. Yet last night's strike was precise and limited. The message is that Iranian air defenses are entirely penetrable, and their forces cannot protect their military bases from external attack....If Iranian leaders decide that further escalation is not worth the risk of a much more lethal and expensive attack within their own territory, this escalation cycle can close."