“I like to quote Napoleon’s dictum: When your enemies are making a big mistake, don’t interrupt them,” he says. “Iran interrupted its enemy at a time when Israel was increasingly isolated and on the defensive, both internationally and in its relationship with the U.S.”
"Like many Americans, Richard Haass is still trying to understand why Iran decided to attack Israel directly over the weekend with a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones, most of which were shot down. The attack was a retaliation for an airstrike by Israel earlier this month that killed a top general with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Damascus. But Haass believes Tehran has miscalculated and will come to regret its decision to shift from its longtime strategy of using proxy forces in places like Syria and Iraq into launching a direct attack on civilian areas in Israel, which has only rekindled sympathy for Israelis.
"'The Iranians have lost control of the narrative,” Haass says.
"Haass, the author of multiple books about foreign policy, retired as president of the Council on Foreign Relations last year after nearly 20 years. Previously he was director of policy planning at the State Department under Secretary of State Colin Powell in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. Today Haass publishes a weekly substack called “Home & Away.”
"The question for the Middle East now is whether Iran’s miscalculation will be followed by an Israeli one." . . .
. . ."The principal strategic beneficiary of the Iraq war was none other than Iran. And one of the things that struck me the other day when the missiles and drones were being shot at Israel was, look where they were coming from. They were coming not just from Iran but also from Yemen and Iraq. This is the new Middle East. This is the Greater Iran. And to me, that was a reminder of how the Iraq war so imbalanced the region in Iran’s direction. So yes, we are and will continue to pay a real price for the strategic blunder that was the Iraq War." . . .
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