Israeli General Avivi On Iran’s Many Miscalculations

Israeli Brig. Gen. (ret’d) Amir Avivi has published here a piece on Iran’s many mistakes that made the IDF’s stunning successes in its war with the Islamic Republic possible.

In just under two weeks—and after years of mounting pressure—Iran has suffered a series of devastating blows. Key military commanders and nuclear scientists have been killed, strategic infrastructure and nuclear sites destroyed, and the regime’s grip on power shaken. Iran’s once-feared regional influence has revealed itself to be lacking, with its proxies unable or unwilling to act on their sponsor’s behalf.

Speaking to The Media Line hours before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi told The Media Line that such a result wasn’t the predestined outcome of a clash between Iran and its archenemy, Israel. Had Iran acted more strategically, he said, the Islamic regime and its proxies probably “would have managed to bring Israel to the verge of destruction or destroy Israel.”

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Avivi, founder and chair of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, described a series of miscalculations on the part of Iran that led to the regime’s significant losses. Chief among them was Hamas, an Iranian proxy group, initiating the October 7 attack before Iran had acquired nuclear weapons.

“They could have waited a year or two to become completely nuclear,” he said. “It would have been much wiser for them to move towards nuclear weapons while all the proxies are fully in readiness to attack. This would have put Israel, as it did for many years, in a big dilemma because then you attack Iran, you immediately go into a multifront war with all the proxies shooting at you at the same time.”

The October 7 attack by Hamas also lacked coordination with other fronts, a move Avivi says doomed it from the start.

“I remember at 6:30 in the morning when the war started, the first question I asked myself—as someone who is leading an organization that two years before the war, saw the war is coming—was why isn’t Hezbollah attacking? Why aren’t the Iranians attacking? How can it be only Hamas? Once it was only Hamas, I can tell you that four hours into the October 7, it was crystal clear to me they lost the war and we’re going to win decisively. They did a huge mistake,” he said.

Hezbollah joined the war the next day but without coordination, leading to what Avivi described as the group’s effective collapse….

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“I don’t think they can really threaten anybody,” he said. “And I think that if they decide with the remaining capabilities they have to try to close Hormuz or shoot American bases or allies, Saudis maybe, Emirates, this will be the end of the regime….

Closing Hormuz would mean closing off the shipment of Emirati and Saudi oil to their customers. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE would stand for that, but would attack Iranian shipping in the Gulf, and perhaps even Iran’s oil terminals at Kharg Island. Nor will the Iranians dare to attack American bases in the region; they lobbed a few missiles at the Al-Udeid airbase, but made sure none of them would cause damage, by warning the Qataris well in advance, and the result was what Trump described as a “very weak response.” But if the Iranians were again to attack American bases in the region, Trump has warned that they “would be hit so hard like you can’t believe.” And Israel’s multi-tiered defense system includes the Sling, Arrows 1,2, and 3 for short- and middle-range missiles, and the Iron Dome interceptors for long-range ballistic missiles.

Avivi insists that regime change in Iran cannot be imposed, but the conditions that would cause enough Iranians to rise up against their oppressive rulers can be created from outside. He offers the example of Hezbollah, battered by the IDF, and so weakened that the Lebanese army is at last now prepared to challenge Hezbollah militarily. The humiliation of Iran’s rulers who have suffered a devastating military defeat will weaken the regime’s power to intimidate the people. The spectacle of Iran’s nuclear program, that cost the country $500 billion in sunk costs and in other costs resulting from sanctions, blasted to smithereens, will certainly enrage Iranians, not only with the U.S. and Israel, but with their own rulers, for such a colossal waste of the country’s money.

Hamas, meanwhile, now knows there is no chance of any help coming to it from Iran, that has itself been knocked from pillar to post by the IDF and, most recently, by the US air force, and reduced to pleading for a ceasefire with Israel. Nor can Hezbollah, or Syria, help Hamas. It is on its own, and the IDF, no longer having to put its main effort into the war with Iran, can concentrate on dealing with the remnants of Hamas in Gaza, for whom the future will be — as was said of a different people in Gaza long ago — dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon.