"The next war with Iran will look completely different. We want to operate better, stronger. We are better prepared for future combat. There were elements that worked well in the last few rounds rounds, and we will continue with them, but there are also new elements. If the Iranian enemy thinks it will meet us as we were 60 days ago, it is mistaken. We are investigating, learning and constantly seeking to improve."
With those words, and with considerable optimism about the future, Lt. Col. R., head of the Israeli Air Force's air superiority branch, opens his special interview with Israel Hayom marking one year since Operation Rising Lion. The interview begins with the latest developments and the day of fighting, or more precisely, the 17 hours of exchanges between Israel and Iran at the beginning of last week.
"That day demonstrated the Israeli Air Force's 24/7 readiness in both defense and offense. The ability to launch an operation in Iran very quickly, within just a few hours, is the result of deep preparation. From our perspective, the Iranian theater has become a first-circle front, and we are doing hard work both at headquarters and in the field. Headquarters is engaged in intelligence efforts, targets and flight plans, while the field is maintaining the levels of alert that have to be trained for, drilled and prepared for. That is what allowed us to be strong on defense, to go on the offensive within a short time, and to successfully strike air defense systems at significant and painful points, leaving the regime not knowing where it came from."
Lt. Col. R. says the IDF completed Operation Roaring Lion with full freedom of action throughout Iran. "That does not mean our freedom of action has been preserved since then," he admits. "The enemy (Iran) has renewed itself and managed to build up a certain degree of air defense. It has started to feel somewhat protected again. At the beginning of the week, we took away important systems from it, but we could also have done more."
Would it have been better to carry out a pre-emptive strike this week?
"All options were on the table. The firing did not come as a surprise, because the enemy had threatened that if we struck in Beirut, it would fire. There were various considerations here, some diplomatic, some tactical, and some related to the fact that we have confidence in our air defense systems."
"The enemy is very smart"
Exactly one year has passed since Operation Rising Lion, which lasted 12 days. "Since then, we have made a major leap forward and have managed to fly sorties to Iran at a high tempo," he says with pride. "That is also what enables us to mount such a response to Iran within a matter of hours. A little less than a year ago, I would have said that was imaginary, and now it has been set in motion quickly."
In addition to being responsible for air superiority, Lt. Col. R. is also a combat navigator who personally flew to Iran during Operation Roaring Lion. "Operationally, Roaring Lion was a tremendous success," he says. "Next time, if there is one, I want to do better and be stronger. Israel is in the west and Iran is in the east, and that will not change, but in the next war there will be different things, new surprises that we will bring to the battlefield."
According to him, "The Iranian enemy is very smart, but we left it with far less flexibility. It wants to rearrange the deployment of its defense systems, but it no longer has hundreds of them. It has far fewer. It does not have the quantity of missiles it had before the past few months."
Lt. Col. R. acknowledges that the Iranians were able to repeatedly bring out the launchers that the air force had shut down during Operation Roaring Lion, but he argues that in the next campaign as well, it will not be so easy for them to launch with them. "Their industries are supplying missiles at a much slower pace. The Iranians are continuing to build up their power, though less than in the past, but we have to return and degrade it. There are also diplomatic solutions, and that is not my field."
Unlike the claims heard after the most recent campaigns against Iran, according to which the nuclear program had been set back and Israel had managed to deal a severe blow to the enemy's missile array, Lt. Col. R. sounds less optimistic. "We have achieved results, but until we destroy the last launcher, we have not finished the job, and we will live under this threat. The enemy sanctifies death, and it will do everything to kill. Its economy does not exist, its services do not function, and its citizens live in chaos and doom. But it will continue holding on to the last launcher."
Is that a realistic goal?
"My target bank is full, but the first achievement is to reduce the threat to the home front, to make it so that he does not launch. How long will that take? It does not depend only on me. In Roaring Lion, the enemy hid and let its people suffer in order to survive until that last launcher. I do not have an answer to the question of how long it will take. I have an explanation of how to do it."
Family support
Asked about cooperation with the US, Lt. Col. R. is certain that the relationship has only grown stronger in recent months. "The Americans have been our natural partners for many years, and this is an alliance," he says. "There is coordination and synchronization between us. The interest here is shared: that the Iranian entity stop threatening the world. Each side uses its own advantages."
Although in recent months, since Operation Roaring Lion, he has supposedly not been in combat, Lt. Col. R., who is married and a father of four, barely sees his family and is hardly ever at home.
"The families of career service members, who have been fighting for 1,000 days, are part of the mission and the service. We have no right to exist without them," he says. "We are doing this so our children can grow up in a better place. There will probably still be an army when my children are grown, but I hope there will be fewer enemies and that they will be much less powerful."
Do you think we will continue living through rounds of fighting against Iran?
"The wars of the past ended in decisive victory, but the enemy close to Israel (Lebanon and Gaza) is a guerrilla enemy that is hard to defeat decisively. The enemy in the third circle (Iran) is farther away, and the distance creates a challenge for decisive victory, because you do not control the theater all the time. It may be that in this circle, rounds are the method, and the air force will have to get there every so often to clean out the stables. As long as they threaten us, we will continue attacking them."
