“This is likely to unfold over a number of hours,” a spokeswoman for Joe Biden’s National Security Council said Saturday, as Israel waited for what, in the final tally, were between 200 and 300 drones and missiles launched from Iran.

The IRGC announced the attack in a statement, saying “dozens” of projectiles were fired at “targets” in Israel in response to what the Guards called “crimes of the Zionist regime.”

The “crime” in question was the IDF’s rather immodest strike against an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, where seven IRGC officials and commanders including Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who ran the Quds’ operations in Lebanon, were killed early this month.

To briefly recapitulate, Iran had to respond. Directly. The strike against the consulate in Syria was humiliating. But the Guards had no good options. Potshots from Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon would’ve been insufficient and anyway indistinguishable from all the other Hezbollah potshots. Asking Hezbollah to go beyond potshots would’ve risked Israel invading Lebanon. Blowing up an embassy somewhere would’ve drawn an international backlash. As for missiles and drones, the risk of launching projectiles into Israel without warning was that you hit something important. Or worse, somebody important. Or even worse, some civilians, in which case you’d be at war with Israel. And maybe with the US too.

So, in an apparent effort to minimize the risk of World War III, Khamenei let the entire world know what the Guards were planning to do and also when they were planning to do it. Almost down to the hour. Saturday’s attack was a good early candidate for worst-kept military secret of the century. It was so well-telegraphed that US stocks priced it in on Friday afternoon, just in case one of the missiles the IRGC was very likely to launch over the weekend veered off course and slammed into an Israeli suburb (or something).

A mistake of that sort wouldn’t have been terribly surprising, even if it would’ve been terrible. Saturday’s attack felt quite a bit like “Operation Martyr Soleimani,” the pitiable fireworks show Tehran staged a few days after the US incinerated Khamenei’s most valuable asset in January of 2020.

Then, as now, Khamenei needed to save face at home. But anything he might do carried the very real risk of starting a war with the US. So, in the wake of the Soleimani assassination, the White House stood by and let Iran fire a few missiles at American assets in Iraq, just so Khamenei could claim he tried to avenge the general.

Some might fairly quibble with that characterization. Maybe the US wasn’t complicit in “Operation Martyr Soleimani,” but Khamenei’s domestic audience was taken aback by the suddenness of the general’s demise and also by the apparent ease with which the US military turned the world’s most feared commander into a pile of dust. It surely wasn’t lost on the Trump administration that the theocracy was in very bad way and desperately needed some rope. My view is that the US gave it to them — with the caveat that if they went too far, that rope would be used to hang them.

The Guards were scared to death that day. So paranoid was the IRGC about a US counterattack, that they mistook a passenger plane for an incoming American cruise missile. Tragically, they shot it down, killing all 176 people on board. Because you really can’t make this stuff up, the plane was operated by Ukraine International Airlines. It was flying from Tehran to Kyiv. And it was shot down with a Russian-made Tor-M1 missile.

Coming quickly back to Saturday’s events, Israel was well prepared. Mossad detected the missile and drone launches (from Iran and Iraq) well in advance. The projectiles were expected to hit the Golan Heights, where Israeli barracks were also attacked by Hezbollah rockets. An IDF facility in the Negev Desert was on alert too.

Israeli war planes patrolled the skies ready to shoot down the drones. Airspace was closed over Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Air raid sirens blared over southern Israel and the West Bank. Explosions were heard in Jerusalem.

Ultimately, Israel intercepted most of the incoming fire with assistance from the US. Initial accounts suggested there were no casualties and only one injury.

Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman who regularly briefs the world on the latest from Gaza, said Iran had engaged in a “dangerous escalation.”

Schools were closed, gatherings of more than 1,000 people were banned or limited, the war cabinet convened, and the military was set to conduct an assessment of the situation at dawn. The attack came just hours after the IRGC seized a cargo ship affiliated with Israel-born billionaire Eyal Ofer.

Biden’s NSC spokeswoman said the White House’s position is clear: “Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad. The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”

In a statement issued by Iran’s UN mission, Khamenei effectively said this should end now, and could end now if Israel doesn’t push the envelope any further. “Iran’s military action was in response to… aggression against our diplomatic premise in Damascus,” the statement read. “The matter can be deemed concluded [but] should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe.”