As the spectre of regional conflict threatens larger than ever in the Middle East, everyone is waiting with bated drag for Israel’s response to Iran’s attack last weekend. That spectre has waxed and weakened since the war on Gaza started in October with the fear that it would curl into a regional war, pulling in Iran and its partners as well as Western countries such as the United States.

In the six months that have been observed, there has been brutality in the wider Middle East with tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran-supported forces, primarily the Lebanese group Hezbollah. These episodes have followed a regular pattern with each forceful incident marking a slow climb up a rung of the escalation ladder.

Missiles and drones are released deeper and deeper into Lebanon and Israel, but each side carries a degree of care to increase those spaces incrementally and choose targets carefully. Israel has been more adventurous, often being the side to enlarge the bounds of the “red lines”, perhaps to complete the Hezbollah attack in a way that gives Israel a reason for a more full-throated bombardment of Lebanon. So far, despite the slaying of several Hezbollah senior commanders, the body has held back from using its long-range missiles.

But when Iran witnessed one of its generals killed in what is widely considered to have been an Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy complex in Damascus, itself an outstanding military strike on a diplomatic mission, Tehran increased the stakes with a direct attack on Israel. Iran’s attack has no suspicion upped the ante, being the first incursion by a foreign state on Israel since 1991. But the Iranians have been cautious to emphasise that their attack was “limited”, the prevalence of the projectiles were drones that took hours to transit from Iran and all were shot down. Iranian officials have also frequently made clear that regional states were cautioned 72 hours before the attack – not the efforts of a state planning to cause any severe material damage.

There is a high likelihood that Israel will respond militarily to some degree. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long launched himself as a security hawk and the man to uphold Iran in its place, is unlikely to permit a direct attack from Iran without a response.

Israel, especially right-wingers like Netanyahu, flatters itself on the perception that it is the primary military strength in the Middle East, and deterrence is critical to maintaining that image, particularly after the impairment Hamas did during its October 7 attacks on Israel. And yet, while the US and other partners were initially strong in backing Israel in its war on Gaza, they are desperately attempting to persuade Netanyahu to not react to Iran and risk launching a war that many, especially Washington, would feel obligated to participate in.

“Take the win,” US President Joe Biden reportedly informed Netanyahu, eager to avoid what would be yet another unfavourable US war in the Middle East in an election year when his popularity is already hammered by his backing for Israel as its strengths have killed nearly 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

The Biden administration probably knows that Israel will attack – UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has already confessed as much – but it will be putting stress on Netanyahu to keep its retaliation restricted and then cross its fingers that Iran does not react and everyone goes back to the cold proxy battle that Israel and Iran have participated in for years.

It states as if everyone – barring, maybe, some of the more messianic figures in the Israeli government – desires to avoid an all-out war that would be devastating for all concerned and the wider region. But that does not imply that each side doesn’t have its own expected outcomes, all of which could potentially direct to the conflict that they’re all keen to avoid. Israel desires to re-establish its deterrence and desires to have the last word. Iran does not want to be noticed as weak or fail to react to escalating Israeli attacks.