How Biden pushed Israel to limit its Iran attack and still inflict a heavy blow

After mounting worry that Israel might strike Iran’s oil infrastructure or even nuclear installations, the Israeli leader set his sights on military targets—to the relief of American officials.

The airstrikes that unfolded met Washington’s expectations while dealing Iran a punishing blow.

The attack destroyed Iran’s most advanced air-defense systems, while delivering a setback to the country’s ballistic missile program, U.S. and Israeli officials said Saturday.

While Iran is still considering its response, U.S. officials hope the severe damage inflicted on Iran’s air defenses will discourage Tehran from striking back as Washington renews diplomacy aimed at quelling the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.

“It looks like [Israel] didn’t hit anything other than military targets," Biden told reporters Saturday. “I hope that this is the end."

Nearly a month ago, the prospects of escalation seemed more ominous. Iran had carried out an Oct. 1 attack on Israel that involved about 180 ballistic missiles, some that reached their targets causing minimal damage and some that U.S. officials say could have led to substantial casualties had they not been intercepted.

After Israeli and U.S. forces successfully blocked a similar Iranian attack against Israel in April, Biden urged Netanyahu to temper his response. Israel confined its retaliation to striking the radar for an S-300 air-defense system, reducing the risk of escalation.

But with Iran launching even more ballistic missiles in October, it was clear to Biden that there was no dissuading Israel from striking back hard. The goal instead was to shape Israel’s response.

To many in the administration, the looming Israeli strikes risked an all-out conflict that might lead to Iranian counterattacks against Saudi oil installations, disruptions in the energy markets and a spike in oil prices less than a month before the U.S. presidential election.

“If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields," Biden said on Oct. 4, referring to the Israelis.

When Israeli officials indicated they were eyeing potential sites in Tehran, American officials pushed back, concerned that attacks against the Iranian capital could cause civilian casualties.

His call with Netanyahu on Oct. 9, which he made along with Vice President Kamala Harris, proved to be a breakthrough, according to U.S. officials.

Reassured that Israel was listening to U.S. advice to direct its airstrikes at military sites, Biden agreed to bolster Israel’s defenses by sending a Thaad antimissile system and nearly 100 American soldiers to operate it to Israel, a decision he formally signed off several days later.

As Israel continued to refine its plan, U.S. officials took other steps to cement the understanding about the narrowed scope of Israel’s retaliation.

In addition to sending the Thaad system, the White House announced on Oct. 11 that it was tightening oil sanctions against Iran, including measures against the “ghost fleet" shipping companies that were helping Iran smuggle oil. The clampdown on Iran’s oil smuggling was aimed at showing Israel it didn’t need to use military action to interrupt Tehran’s oil trade.

On Oct. 17, U.S. B-2 bombers carried out airstrikes in Yemen against underground bunkers used by Houthi militants to store missiles and other weapons. The Houthis have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and conducting sporadic attacks on Israel. Use of the bombers signaled the White House was willing to escalate its use of force when necessary, a cautionary message for Iran and a reassuring one for Israel, officials said.

In the attack Saturday morning, more than 100 Israeli planes struck 23 sites in Iran, confining their attacks to targets that demonstrated the understanding reached between Biden and Netanyahu had held.

An Israeli official said that Iran had four batteries of S-300 antimissile batteries, the most advanced in Tehran’s air-defense arsenal, before Israel’s recent strike and that all of them were destroyed.

“Israel’s strikes were designed to show Iranians how much more it could do if Iran retaliated," Dennis Ross, a former U.S. official on Middle East issues in Republican and Democratic administrations, wrote in a social-media post. “By taking out air defenses the Israelis showed the Iranians their vulnerability."

U.S. officials said that the strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile program damaged some production capabilities that could take Iran years to recover from.

Among the locations struck was Parchin, where a plant is located that makes solid rocket fuel, according to Fabian Hinz, research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

“If you look at missile production processes, they are very complex, they have complex supply chains and they have critical bottlenecks that can be surprisingly narrow," said Hinz. Israel “might have been able to cause quite a bit of disruption without the strike appearing too major."

Iran still has missiles in its inventory. U.S. officials estimated in 2022 that Iran had over 3,000 ballistic missiles of all ranges in its stockpile.

Iran denied that its military capabilities had been extensively damaged and sought to show life in Tehran had resumed to normal. At least four Iranian soldiers were killed and three sites suffered minor damage, according to Iranian officials.

“Iran’s nuclear facilities haven’t been impacted," Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote in a social-media post. At the White House, Biden and Harris received a briefing Saturday from their national-security team on the Israeli attack.

“President Biden directed that every effort be taken to protect our forces and help defend Israel against any potential responses from Iran and its proxies," the White House said in a statement.

Alexander Ward and Laurence Norman contributed to this article.