On October 7th Israel was in complete shock, in such shock that we now know they tried to regain control of the situation by shooting and bombing some of their own citizens. Anything to push back Hamas and try to prevent people being captured to use as precious bargaining chips to force Israel to loosen its oppressive grip on the Palestinians.

Imagine this:

In immediate wake of the tactically succesful Hamas surprise attack Iran and Hezbollah simultaneously unload missiles on Israel.

We know from the 12 day war in 2025 that Israelis were shocked then. Now imagine the rockets come on top of the psychological shock of October 7th.

Now let’s imagine Iran does NOT act with restraint and increases its involvement in Syria right after October 7th and thereby makes sure Assas is not driven from power.

Sure, Israel’s air force would bomb all over the place, but they did that anyway. The US would race to Israel’s aid, but… they did that anyway. Sure, Iran would be bombed earlier, but at least it wouldn’t have been taken by surprise and it would have used its striking capacity before its striking capacity was targeted.

Israel was reeling on October 7th.

Amazingly Israel’s relentless bombing campaign and ground offensives against Hamas never managed to fully cripple Hamas and other, smaller, resistance groups in Gaza.

This with the help of only diversion tactics from Hezbollah and next to no help from Iran. The Houthis did their best, but could do little.

Israel was allowed to deal with its enemies one by one.

That was a disastrous miscalculation on the part of Hezbollah and Iran.

Restraint doesn’t work in the face of an Israeli leadership and Israeli population equipped with the most modern weaponry on the planet that is hell bent on creating a fortress out of itself, and care little how many innocents it needs to bomb to achieve that.

In short: a concentrated, coordinated, all out assault on Israel, with clear demands Israel would have had to accept. Leave Gaza alone, negotiate for the hostages, freeze settlements in the West Bank and other demands. The US would have needed some time to respond with its full might.

October 7th had some momentum behind it, but of course tiny Hamas could never keep that going, it would still have been a gamble for Iran and Hezbollah to throw their full weight against it from the get go, but sometimes the art of war is simple enough:

“Get ’em skeered [scared] and then keep the skeer on ’em.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The only admittedly very cynical downside:

If Israel is stopped from committing genocide in Gaza, the world never discovers the true face of Israel.

But maybe it would have shown its true face anyway, by, in its shock over so many incoming blows, immediately resorting to nukes.