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After a weekend of hard fighting, Israel is “on our way to achieving our two main objectives” in its campaign against the Iranian regime, announced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “eliminating the nuclear threat and eliminating the missile threat.”

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, the Iranian regime — which openly seeks Israel’s annihilation — has raced toward nuclear weapons, which would give it a means to that end. After the U.N. inspector agency officially ruled Thursday that Iran’s nuclear program was not in compliance with its oversight, Israel launched a two-week campaign to degrade the rogue regime’s aggressive capabilities.

Israel Winning Aerial War

After four days, Israel held a decisive battlefield advantage. (The term “battlefield” applies only metaphorically; because the territories of Israel and Iran are separated by nearly 600 miles, combat has taken place primarily in the air.)

“From Israel’s side, the campaign objective is to destroy and degrade — and Iran doesn’t have that ability,” summarised retired British Air Marshal Martin Sampson, who heads the Middle East office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Israeli Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir announced earlier this weekend,

Over the past 24 hours, we completed an aerial route to Tehran and conducted an aerial breaching battle. IAF [Israeli Air Force] pilots are flying at great risk to their lives, hundreds of kilometres away from Israel, striking hundreds of different targets with precision.”

In its opening attacks, Israel eliminated Iranian radar and anti-aircraft systems, leaving the regime with no static defences against aerial attack.

Meanwhile, the Iranian air force is far too flimsy to engage Israeli planes directly.

Within 48 hours, Israel was the uncontested master of the skies over the western half of Iran, including the capital city, Tehran — an achievement the Russian air force has failed to achieve in Ukraine after more than three years of war.

Winning the battle for the skies allows Israel to bring even more forces to bear. Israel’s initial airstrikes depended solely on the stealth F-35, but now Israel can also deploy older aircraft, including F-15s and F-16s, with relative safety. Israel can also switch to dropping short-range bombs instead of long-range missiles, which are cheaper and more plentiful. Israel now has “the ability to use the whole suite of their offensive weapons — in greater mass, more efficiently, and spreading them out,” Sampson said.

Factors in Israel’s Air Dominance

Multiple factors contributed to Israel’s easy victory in the skies. One major reason is the weakness of the Iranian air force.

“Iran never relied on air defences alone to ward off attacks like this. The idea was always to use deterrence,” said IISS expert Fabian Hinz.

These deterrence measures included its own missile stockpiles aimed at Israel’s population centres, as well as those amassed by its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and constant criticism from the global media. This agenda aligned with its ultimate goal of destroying Israel with nuclear weapons.

However, Israel broke the power of Hezbollah’s military threat last year. The re-election of President Donald Trump helped Israel to largely break free from the constraints of press hostility. And Israel’s astonishing covert operations helped them gain the element of surprise.

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Timothy Ray told The Wall Street Journal,

Israel has the upper hand because they can now go after the missiles that are shooting at them with direct attack. After all, the best way to shoot a missile is on the ground while it’s in a container, and not in the air while it’s flying.

What the Israelis are doing is just steadily leveraging an advantage.

Israel’s Defence System Superior to Iran’s

In addition to shooting at missiles on the ground, Israel is also shooting most of them out of the air. Overnight Sunday, Iran said it launched about 100 missiles at Israel, but Israeli authorities said that only seven of those missiles landed in Israel. The missile barrage was still deadly, with Israel counting eight people killed and 100 people wounded in residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa, but the casualty count could have been far worse.

By contrast, nearly every strike launched by Israel flies true. On Sunday night, the IAF struck 100 military targets in central Iran. The targets included 20 surface-to-surface missiles struck before they launched, four senior intelligence officials, 10 command centers for Iran’s elite Quds force, and Iran’s largest oil refinery.

After four days of fighting, the Iranian regime has killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 500. Meanwhile, Iran’s official death toll is 224 (some estimates are higher), with 1,277 wounded. The disparity is due primarily to Israel’s ability to intercept most of the incoming missiles from Iran.

Iran Targets Civilians; Israel Targets Military Sites

Like its terrorist proxies, the Iranian regime is apparently targeting Israeli civilian centres. “We clearly see that our civilians are being targeted,” said Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne.

By contrast, Israel is striking military sites, military leaders, and nuclear scientists — with a regrettable but unintentional amount of collateral damage to civilians. Israel has even published warnings to residents of Tehran neighbourhoods before impending attacks — trading the element of surprise for an attempt to secure the safety of civilians.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s military and intelligence services seem to be playing catch-up (that’s likely to happen when all your top officials get assassinated in 48 hours). The regime on Monday hung a man convicted of spying for Israel in 2023, while they have also arrested dozens more alleged saboteurs and spies. So many arrests at once — whether accurate or not — surely places the question in the minds of many: is it safe to trust anyone?

Meanwhile, Iran’s military is resorting to the innovative tactic of trying to get Israel’s multi-layered missile defence systems to target one another, so that their weapons can better make it through — not exactly a measure that instills confidence in their weapons. And the Iranian Parliament is preparing a bill to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an action whose only precedent is North Korea.

Iranian Regime is Losing

The Iranian regime knows it is losing. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi offered to suspend strikes against Israel if Israel will return the favour. Iran also signalled willingness to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, so long as the U.S. doesn’t join in the attack.

But wars that end indecisively must often be waged again. From long experience, Israel knows that Iran’s strategy is simply to buy time until they are ready to attack again — perhaps one day with a nuclear warhead.

Now is Israel’s best chance to deal with its ideological adversary, and Israel does not intend to let Iran off easily by agreeing to the first offer of ceasefire. Instead, Israel threatened to escalate its attacks if Iran kept targeting Israeli civilians.

“If [Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front — Tehran will burn,” declared Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz.

These contrasting tones provide perhaps the best litmus test for how the combatants fare.

Israel roars while Iran whimpers.

Israel is clearly winning.

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Originally published as “Israel Gains Upper Hand in Aerial War with Iran” at The Washington Stand. Image via YouTube/CBN News.