ISRAEL – Iran launched its first direct military attack against Israel using missiles and drones. A retired U.S. naval aviator who served in the Middle East spoke about how effective their strategy is.
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John Holzbaur, who is now a Jacksonville-based defense attorney, said Iran can’t contend with Israel’s aircraft.
“No. They cannot match Israel’s state-of-the-art 5th generation fighters and highly upgraded 4th-generation aircraft provided by the U.S.,” Holzbaur said.
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Holzbaur talked about the strategy of Iran’s attack.
“Iran has decided that because of sanctions for decades, they’ve held onto legacy technology that dates back to the days of the Shah and continuously upgraded that old equipment. But what Iran has chosen to do is fight what is known as asymmetrically. They will use low technology systems, but they will mass produce them,” Holzbaur said.
In this case, the mass-produced low-technology systems are drones equipped with an explosive warhead or hundreds of pounds of explosives. The slow-moving drones can travel more than 1,000 miles. Officials said Iran launched more than 100 drones toward Israel.
Israel uses an Iron Dome defense system that shoots surface-to-air missiles at anything attacking from the air.
“Iran is hoping to overwhelm the existing Iron Dome. As effective as it is, it still has vulnerabilities. If you run out of missiles, you run out of missiles, you run out of missiles,” Holzbaur said.
Retired Air National Guard Major General Doug Burnett said the conflict between Iran and Israel is very complex.
“It might be the most complex run-up to a huge potential escalation in hostilities in that region. Iran has done a lot of things through proxies and now they’re doing it from their homeland. The problem is Israel certainly has the weapons systems, big weapons systems to do what they want to do,” Burnett said.
Holzbaur talked about how escalation could be catastrophic.
“Do you escalate so much that you respond with even significant waves of air power and tactical strikes? You could level a city. Okay, what then now? Does Iran respond to that? And you’re caught in this steady escalation,” Holzbaur said.
An escalation that has the potential to turn a regional conflict into something far greater and deadly.