As is the case in Gaza, modern warfare rarely involves set-piece battles where armies march to meet each other in an open field. More typical is the sort of messy urban warfare we are likely to see again in Rafah very soon. John Spencer and Geoffrey Corn address the moral, legal, and strategic complexities:

In urban warfare, where combat unfolds amid a multitude of civilians and dense infrastructures, maintaining legitimacy is not merely a legal formality—it is a strategic imperative. . . . The perception of legitimacy underpins the credibility of the strategic goals military action is used to achieve. Indeed, if there is one transcendent lesson from the Israeli campaign against Hamas, it is this: the perception of illegitimacy will snatch strategic defeat from the jaws of overwhelming tactical victory. This is especially true for legitimate democracies who fight not just for battlefield outcomes, but to advance the principles upon which their nations are founded.

To Spencer and Corn, the laws and ethical considerations that necessitate striving to minimize damage to civilians and their property are no mere niceties, but strategic and moral imperatives. The problem with most reporting on urban conflicts, let alone so much editorial commentary, is ignorance and confusion on both the legal and moral levels:

The long-term negative consequence of such reporting and the overbroad condemnations it contributes to are profound. At a time when U.S. armed forces must once again contemplate large-scale combat operations, and some advocate a retreat from the legal and moral high ground, we cannot afford reinforcing unrealistic expectations of what the laws of armed conflict demand. Doing so will only provide greater momentum for those who unfortunately fail to recognize the moral and strategic value of the continuing commitment by U.S. armed forces to the rules of international law especially in war, and even when the enemy does not reciprocate such commitment.

While I’ve seen much speculation—some reasonable and well informed, some quite the opposite—about why Jerusalem chose Friday morning to begin its campaign against Iran, the most obvious explanation seems to be the most convincing. First, 60 days had passed since President Trump warned that Tehran had 60 days to reach an agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, Israeli intelligence was convinced that Iran was too close to developing nuclear weapons to delay military action any longer. Edward Luttwak explains why Israel was wise to attack:

Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.

Luttwak also considers the military feats the IDF and Mossad have accomplished in the past few days:

To reach all [its] targets, Israel had to deal with the range-payload problem that its air force first overcame in 1967, when it destroyed the air forces of three Arab states in a single day. . . . This time, too, impossible solutions were found for the range problem, including the use of 65-year-old airliners converted into tankers (Boeing is years later in delivering its own). To be able to use its short-range F-16s, Israel developed the “Rampage” air-launched missile, which flies upward on a ballistic trajectory, gaining range by gliding down to the target. That should make accuracy impossible—but once again, Israeli developers overcame the odds.