On July 12, 2006 Hizballah operatives crossed into Israel and kidnapped and then killed two soldiers, sparking a 34-day war. Contrary to the claims of the Lebanon-backed terrorist group’s own leaders, Raphael Ofek and Pesach Malovany painstakingly lay out the case that Hizballah deliberately sought to provoke a serious conflict with the Jewish state at the behest of its masters in Tehran. The Islamic Republic, which sent soldiers and advisers from its Revolutionary Guard Corps to supervise and assist in the fighting, was at the time primarily concerned by growing scrutiny from Europe and the U.S. regarding its nuclear program:

Iran was seeking to divert world attention from UN Security Council Resolution 1696, which was due to be adopted the same month, on July 31. This resolution approved the International Atomic Energy Agency’s demand that Tehran completely suspend nuclear activities that could be used to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons. These activities included uranium enrichment and plutonium production through the reprocessing of nuclear fuel irradiated in a reactor.

According to various sources, the Revolutionary Guards arrived in Lebanon before the abduction of the Israeli soldiers and supervised its execution. Iran trained Hizballah fighters in its territory, including preparation for their participation in the abduction of the soldiers, and was involved in the Second Lebanon War alongside Hizballah. Hundreds of Iranian fighters from the Revolutionary Guards operated at Hizballah outposts in Lebanon, where they launched rockets and missiles at Israel. They also took part in launching an Iranian-made missile at the Hanit missile ship of the Israel navy. There were reports that some Revolutionary Guards were killed in Lebanon during the war.

This counters the version presented by Hizballah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, who was quoted after the war as saying that if he had known what Israel’s response was going to be to the abductions he would have refrained from ordering them, and that the harsh Israeli response surprised him. Those statements were intended for domestic purposes. They were meant for the Lebanese government and the Lebanese public, neither of which accepted the extensive destruction caused to the country following the Hizballah operation.

Could similar motivations lead Iran to start another war at some point in the future? Certainly, write Ofek and Malovany, but the likelihood is low in the immediate future given the Islamic Republic’s own financial difficulties and the current unpopularity of Hizballah in Lebanon.

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.