Early yesterday morning, Bashar al-Assad’s forces launched a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli jet, apparently as it returned from striking Iranian military installations in Syria. While the missile failed to hit its target, Israeli defenses missed theirs, and it landed harmlessly in the northern Negev, setting off air-raid sirens near the nuclear reactor in Dimona. The IDF retaliated by striking Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. To Bobby Ghosh, the incident should be a wake-up call to the Biden administration:

Reports from Vienna, where the world powers are negotiating with Iran to return to the terms agreed to in their 2015 nuclear deal, suggest the Biden administration is softening its position. Whereas American officials initially made the easing of U.S. sanctions conditional on Tehran’s compliance with the [original agreement], they are now signaling a willingness to discuss the relaxation of some restrictions in order to facilitate more talks.

Apparently lost in the shuffle of diplomacy is another Biden precondition: that Iran agree to follow-on negotiations over its other malign activities, including its support of terrorist groups and sectarian militias across the Middle East, its support for the Syrian regime of . . . Bashar al-Assad, and its missile program. Tehran has repeatedly rejected this request.

[T]he missile stockpiles—and reportedly, research and manufacturing facilities—that the Islamic Republic and its proxies are building in Syria are a growing menace that Israel can’t ignore. The greatest threat comes not from stray rockets fired off by Assad’s forces but from precision-guided Iranian missiles assembled in Syria and supplied to Tehran’s catspaws in the country or in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

Preventing such an outcome ought to be a high priority for the Biden administration and the other world powers represented at the talks in Vienna; . . . a deal limited to its nuclear program will not greatly limit the danger Iran represents.

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.