Bowen: As Israel debates Iran attack response, can US and allies stop slide into all-out war?

Israel’s war cabinet has used a tried-and-trusted phrase to describe its next moves against Iran. Israel would respond “in the manner and at the time of our choosing”.

Benny Gantz, the opposition leader who joined the war cabinet after the Hamas attacks of 7 October, emphasised the cohesion of Israel and its western allies.

“Israel against Iran, the world against Iran. This is the result. That is a strategic achievement which we must leverage for Israel’s security.”

The words Mr Gantz used did not rule out another attack on an Iranian target, or a first overt Israeli strike inside Iran (Israel has hit Iran’s nuclear programme repeatedly, with cyber-attacks and the assassination of officials and scientists). But there might be time for the diplomatic response President Joe Biden wants from the meeting he has called of the G7, the richest western countries.

This most recent escalation of the war that has spread across the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel began two weeks ago, when Israel attacked Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus. The air strike, on 1 April, killed a senior general, his number two and other aides.

The decision to attack was not coordinated with the Americans. Israel must have assessed the opportunity to kill senior commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) as a risk worth taking.

Publicly Israel offers an unconvincing argument that the presence of senior military officers on diplomatic premises made the building a legitimate target. More importantly is the fact that Iran chose to interpret the airstrike as an attack on its own ground.

Very quickly, it was clear that Iran would respond. Iran’s message was not transmitted with nudges and winks, but in unequivocal statements from its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel, the US and their allies had plenty of warning. Mr Biden had time to get back to the White House from a weekend trip to his home state of Delaware. Iran chose to open the attack not with supersonic ballistic missiles, but with slow drones, that were on radar screens for two hours as they approached their targets.