Since its creation, the Islamic Republic has systematically cultivated proxy forces and terrorist groups in other countries, of which Hizballah is the oldest and most prominent. This strategy allows Tehran not only to conserve its manpower but also to deny responsibility for its violent and repressive policies—a fiction the American foreign-policy establishment has been more than happy to play along with. By killing Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian officer responsible for supervising these proxies, alongside the leader of the most important such militia in Iraq, Washington sent a clear message that it would no longer abide by the distinction between the Iranian regime and its regional proxies. So argues Jonathan Schanzer:

Suleimani’s most effective and deadliest aggressions against the United States are memorialized in the U.S. Army’s comprehensive two-volume study The U.S. Army in the Iraq War. After the end of the first phase of the 2003 war, Suleimani’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) infiltrated the neighboring country, assassinated former leaders of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and established safe houses for future operations. IRGC teams then deployed to organize, train, and equip Iran-backed militias. American personnel were increasingly targeted and killed by the deadly bombs known as explosively formed projectiles.

Knowingly or not, with his targeted strike on Qassem Suleimani, President Trump upended [longstanding American policy]. In holding the terror master responsible for attacks carried out by his Iraqi proxies, the U.S. president torched the thin firewall that long hindered American decisionmakers from holding Iran accountable. And in so doing, he appears to have pushed Iran’s proxies to dispense with the fiction as well.

On January 9, [a few days after Suleimani’s death], the head of the IRGC’s aerospace command, Amir Hajizadeh, gave a press conference in front of the flags of the IRGC, Hizballah, the Houthis of Yemen, and the Fatemiyoun and Zaynabiyoun militias. [The last two, composed respectively of Afghans and Pakistanis, have been terrorizing Syrians for years.] The message was clear: Iran commands all of them, and they all form an axis pitted against America in the aftermath of Suleimani’s killing.

Donald Trump is still unsure if he wants to leave Iraq. If he does, he’ll validate Suleimani’s strategy and breathe new life into his shadow armies. If he denies Iran that territory and holds the regime accountable for the actions of its proxies, he will have done something that no other president has done since the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He’ll have changed the rules of the game.

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.