Airstrikes ‘highlight disparity in military might’

The overnight airstrikes highlighted the “disparity” between the Israeli and Iranian militaries but was just “a fraction of what Israel could conceivably do”, the director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute said. Matthew Savill said there was a “neat symmetry” to the targeting of an airbase outside Isfahan, given the Iranian attacks on the Nevatim Air base in the Negev desert six days ago. “Iran had to fire over a hundred ballistic missiles to get four or five through Israeli air defences. But the Israelis might have fired just a handful at a military base, signalling the disparity in relative air defences,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt that Isfahan is near some nuclear facilities. It makes the not so subtle point ‘We could if we wanted to’.”