The Middle East’s Perilous Moment: Policy Implications and Escalation Risks

Iran’s April 13 strike represented its first direct attack on Israel since the founding of the Islamic Republic, exhibiting considerable operational scope and complexity. Major salvos of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles were launched from inside Iran and by Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon and Yemen—their retaliation for Israel’s strike on senior Iranian military commanders in Syria two weeks earlier. Yet the assault was unsuccessful on multiple levels: the IDF, the U.S. military, and other partners downed most of the drones and missiles before they hit Israel, while the attack had the unintended effect of shifting the world’s focus away from Israel’s controversial Gaza campaign and toward Iran’s destabilizing actions. As world leaders convene to address the situation, the coming days will carry acute risks for Washington’s overarching goal of preventing a full-scale regional war. To discuss this perilous moment, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with: Dana Stroul, the Institute’s Kassen Fellow and director of research, who recently completed service as the Pentagon’s top civilian official on Middle East issues Zohar Palti, the Institute’s Viterbi International Fellow and former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Policy and Political-Military Bureau Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow with the Institute, co-creator of its interactive Middle East Maritime Attack Tracker, and author of its 2023 study “The Next Generation of Iranian Ballistic Missiles”