Last month, the Islamic Republic fired seven of its newest model of Zulfikar ballistic missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria, not far from the U.S. zone of operations. Official Iranian media covered the missile launch with enthusiasm, although it seems that only one of the projectiles hit its target. Despite this apparently poor performance, argues Uzi Rubin, the fact that Tehran possesses such long-range, high-precision weapons should arouse serious concern:

To hit a single house from more than 6oo kilometers away, [as one of the missiles probably did], is far from trivial. In fact, it is a very significant development. As a military operation, Iran’s missile strike may have been a dud, but as a technical demonstration of the Zulfikar’s inherent capability, it may have been a step forward. . . . In any case, poor reliability can probably be cured by design refinements and further testing. If its basic design is sound, the Zulfikar can still become an awesome weapon.

While Israel is threatened by Iranian missiles from Lebanon and from Iran itself, it is not the intended target of the Zulfikar, which lacks the range to reach Israel from Iranian territory. Its intended target is probably Saudi Arabia, whose capital city, Riyadh, is about 700 km away from the Iranian shores of the Persian Gulf—well within [its] claimed range.

Iranian officials continue to cite Israel as its chief enemy in the region, but their missiles indicate that this is not exactly the case. A drizzle of Iranian-made missiles is currently hitting Saudi towns along the Yemenite border and spreading to the Saudi interior. Houthi rebels in Yemen have already launched Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia’s largest port city of Jeddah, its summer capital of Taif, and Riyadh itself at least twice.

But if Iran succeeds in setting up platforms for these missiles in the territories it controls in Syria, Lebanon, or even western Iraq, the danger to Israel will become that much greater.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.