Tehran —
Iran faces the complex dilemma of whether to attack Israel directly or use a range of proxy forces, which now appear to be weakened, in retaliation for the assassination of the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. There is.
Diplomats, analysts and officials in the region and in the West believe that an all-out war between Iran and Israel would be catastrophic, perhaps even more devastating to the Islamic Republic than to its archenemy. They match.
The fragile state of the economy and domestic politics is another motivation for Iran to continue its attacks.
But failure to retaliate by force for the beheading of its most important proxy – the military and strategic “crown jewel” in the so-called axis of resistance surrounding Israel – would signal weakness, and would signal weakness in Lebanon, Iraq, etc. That could leave supporters in Yemen and elsewhere wondering what Iran will do. Support really means something.
The challenge appears to have created a rift between some cautious Iranian leaders and the most hard-liners, who want swift and decisive action.
Israel’s assassination of the powerful faction’s veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday came amid a constant onslaught of punitive attacks. Several Hezbollah leaders were killed along with Nasrallah, as well as General Abbas Nirforshan of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. On Saturday, Israel killed Nabil Kaouk, vice chairman of Hezbollah’s Central Council, according to Israeli and Hezbollah officials. He is the seventh Hezbollah leader to be killed in just over a week.
Ali Baez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran project, said the setbacks suffered by both Iran and its proxies were due to “intelligence and operational inferiority coupled with Israel’s desire to move up the escalation ladder.” It highlighted that.” “Iran and its allies have no real means of countering the former, and in Tehran’s case, a reluctance to counter the latter.”
“Iran has always sought to move the conflict away from its borders and wage a long war,” he added.
Grief-stricken Lebanese in Tehran on Sunday demanded revenge. But there was also a strong feeling that retaliation should not be carried out by Iran alone or spearheaded, but by an alliance of Islamists and other sympathetic forces. Experts say Iran has always worked more effectively behind the scenes and will do so again to help rebuild Hezbollah, which has struggled to install new leadership and block security violations and infiltration. There is a possibility that it can be done.
“We must unite Islamic countries and the international community against Israel,” Hamid Reza Telaki, deputy leader of Iran’s oldest Islamic party, the Islamic Union Party, said in an interview. “Negotiations with the United States are useless. Israel must confront it with force, not with talks.”
They argue that not only does Iran need to improve its sluggish economy hit by Western sanctions, it also lacks sufficient cyber technology, AI and other military know-how to counter U.S.-armed Israel. He said he is doing so. state.
Days before Mr. Nasrallah’s murder, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited the United Nations and expressed his desire to restart negotiations with Western countries, perhaps aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. He made conciliatory remarks.
Mr. Pezeshkian, who returned to Tehran following Nasrallah’s death, also said on Sunday that the United States was complicit in attacks against Hezbollah because of the steady supply of arms to Israel, but did not want to escalate tensions. It didn’t seem like he was there. He also said he was confident Hezbollah would secure a new leader.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media that Hezbollah is “fully capable of taking its own decisions and defending itself, Lebanon and the Lebanese people.”
This may be overly optimistic, but it reflects a persistent reluctance to go further down the path of war with Israel.
Iran may also decide to give Yemen’s Houthi militants a greater role as part of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force strategy. The Houthis, who fight Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, have had success in recent months by attacking ships and disrupting traffic in the Red Sea as a way to express solidarity with Gazans. Iran may prioritize efforts to arm itself with technologies that could increase the impact of such operations.
On Sunday, a day after the Houthis announced they had fired a missile at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, the Israeli military said its warplanes attacked Houthi strongholds in Ras Isa and Hodeidah in Yemen, destroying power plants and oil imports. reported attacking a port used for
The military is “determined to continue operations at any distance, near or far, against any threat to the Israeli people,” the military said in a statement.
Houthi broadcaster al-Masira said four people were killed and at least 30 injured in the attack. In X, senior Houthi leader Nasruddin Amer called the attack a failure, saying early emergency plans had emptied oil tanks before the attack.
“Zionists will not stop our activities under any circumstances,” he wrote. “We’re going to make it more qualitative.”
What Iran does next will ultimately be decided by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who so far appears to be supporting the relatively moderate Pezeshkian. is.
Khamenei and Iran have reasons to avoid all-out war with Israel. In addition to a struggling economy, many Iranians still suffer from the trauma of Iran’s last major conflict, the war with Iraq in the 1980s, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Analysts say the aging ayatollahs are pragmatic enough to seek to avoid a broader conflagration as long as their agents can step up action.
In April, after Israel killed a senior Iranian commander in Syria, Iran retaliated with its first-ever direct attack on Israel. However, airstrikes were mathematically limited, rockets and missiles were intercepted, and damage was kept to a minimum.
In an all-out war between the two countries, Iran would probably suffer more than Israel, especially if Hezbollah, Iran’s first line of defense against Israel, was significantly weakened. And economic conflict and political uncertainty will make it even more difficult for the current government to rebuild.
Karim Sajjadpour, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told X: “The survival of the system comes first.” “Khamenei is now in a dilemma of his own making. By not reacting strongly, he will continue to lose face. If he reacts too strongly, he could lose his head.”
Still, another unknown factor in calculating what Iran will do next lies within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. He has shown little interest in easing his country’s relentless bombardment of Lebanon and has rejected efforts by the United States and other powers to broker a ceasefire.
If Prime Minister Netanyahu interprets Tehran’s slow response as a lack of resolve, he could attack Lebanon even harder, move forward with tentative plans to launch a ground invasion, and even launch attacks on other areas of Iranian influence. You may be tempted to expand. That, in turn, could inflame the proxies’ anger and increase pressure on Tehran.
Some groups, like Yemen’s Houthis and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria, may begin to question the use of Iranian support if it doesn’t protect their most important allies, Washington’s Quincy says. said Trita Parsi, an analyst at the National Research Institute. .
“Some might conclude that there was no red line against Iran in Lebanon,” he says. “But if Israel is confident that it will bring war not only to Lebanon but also to Iran, Iran may conclude that war with Israel is imminent, whether it wants it or not. I can’t.”
Times staffer Wilkinson reported from Washington and special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran. Times staff writer Nabi Bros in Beirut contributed to this report.
