In June, Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Vladimir Putin for the third time since the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war began last fall. Although the exact details of these meetings are unknown, they concern the ability of the Israel Air Force to continue carrying out strikes against Hizballah positions in Syria that threaten Israeli security. Such strikes appear to have continued—but, argues Tony Badran, this does not mean that there is no potential for conflict:

The Russian intervention [in Syria has already] introduced some important restrictions on Israeli activity. For instance, whereas Israel struck a shipment of Yakhont missiles in the port of Latakia in 2013, all reported Israeli strikes since [the Russian bombing began] have been south of the city of Homs, near Lebanon’s eastern border, and in and around Damascus. . . . So . . . there is an effective delineation of territory in which Israel still executes missions against Iranian weapons shipments, Hizballah, and Assad-regime targets. . . .

Operational issues aside, Israel has had to contend with the broader matter of Syria itself. . . . As Russia and the United States were discussing Syria’s fate, Israel was left out by the United States, which did not consider Israel to be a “stakeholder” in Syria, a country with which it shares a border and has fought two large-scale wars. . . .

The dilemma . . . is that the Russian enterprise in Syria is a partnership with Iran; its success is also Iran’s success. While Russia has firepower, and a seat at the Security Council, the Iranians own the ground in Syria. It is their forces and their Shiite militias that hold regime territory and fight to expand it, . . . which is why Hizballah and Iranian officers have worked together with Russian officers in planning operations.

There is no other possible partner for Russia in Syria besides Iran. And for all the talk about the divergence between Iranian and Russian objectives, the fact is that they agree on a fundamental point: the survival of the Assad regime. . . . [T]he Russian endgame is geared to ensure the victory of the Assad regime. In turn, that victory ensures the preservation of Iran’s position and strategic objectives in Syria. And that spells long-term trouble for Israel.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.