A nervous Iran wanted to restore old regional order, but Israel is on the offensive
Hardliners seem to have won the day in Tehran, but instead of deterring Netanyahu, they have likely sparked a painful, direct strike on Iranian territory – possibly the first of many
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel surprised some observers.
It had seemed that the relatively moderate camp in Iran enjoyed growing sway over Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s decision-making. Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, a member of the group that wants to see more engagement with the West in order to grow the economy and stabilize the regime, seemed to win the day after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Despite the killing — widely believed to be by Israel’s hand — of a guest of the regime, who was in the capital to attend the inauguration of the new president, Khamenei opted not to respond.
Speaking at the United Nations last week, Pezeshkian offered a message of conciliation: “We seek peace for all and have no intention of conflict with any country… Iran opposes war.”
That approach has changed.
With the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the organization’s senior leadership, the Iranian regime was genuinely alarmed. It seemed to be on the way to losing its most capable proxy, an army it had built up for three decades right on Israel’s border.
And there was an even more worrying scenario. “They were genuinely concerned that the current government might go after Iranian leaders,” said Ori Goldberg, an Israeli expert on Iran and Shi’ism. “They look at Israel and see a bull in a china shop.”
After the Nasrallah strike, Khamenei was even transferred to a secure location inside the country with heightened security measures in place, two regional officials briefed by Tehran told Reuters.
“The Islamic Republic’s credibility as a patron and leader of revolutionary Shiism was on the line, and Khamenei seemed caught like a deer in the headlights – worried that if he goes all in to save Hezbollah by attacking Israel, he and Iran will be the next target for massive retaliation or even worse,” said John Hannah, senior fellow at JINSA who served as national security advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
If he did nothing, Hannah said, Israel, the Arab world, and the rest of Iran’s axis of resistance would see that the emperor — or supreme leader — has no clothes.
“They needed to save face somehow, but on all sides of the equation the risks of catastrophe are high and the reward low.”
In an atmosphere of alarm and concern that the region was suddenly becoming very dangerous for the regime after a year in which the Islamic Republic itself enjoyed a rather comfortable war, the hardliners and the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps seem to have the upper hand now. They hoped that a show of force would reset the rules of the games, which were changing quickly and undermining the network they had built across the region.
Iran certainly doesn’t want to spark a war with Israel, or the US, but it seems a foregone conclusion that it will suffer a direct strike on its territory, something it has worked hard to avoid.
Unnamed Israeli officials have told local media that the country could respond to the ballistic missile attack by striking strategic infrastructure, such as gas or oil rigs, or by directly targeting Iran’s nuclear sites.
Targeted assassinations and attacks on Iran’s air defense systems are also possible responses, Axios reported.
But an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the attack would be designed to cause “significant financial damage” to Iran. That seems to indicate that Israel would target Iran’s oil facilities, a key component of the country’s struggling economy. Oil revenues make up around 20 percent of GDP, and the economy’s fortune rises and falls with the oil exports.
With greater economic challenges, the regime will have to keep an eye on domestic unrest, among a public in which significant numbers despise its rulers. And the more it has to pour into subsidies and handouts, the less Iran has on hand to fund its proxies, including the battered Hezbollah.
It is that very success against Hezbollah that offers Israel a freer hand against Tehran.
“The Sword of Damocles that Nasrallah and his battle-hardened terror army equipped with nearly 200,000 rockets was holding over Israel’s head is largely no more,” said Hannah. “While they still may be capable of causing real problems and pain, the odds that the organization is still capable of threatening the very viability of Israeli society, as so many feared, have been dramatically reduced by Israel’s offensive.”
And there is a more earth-shifting change in Israeli thinking that many are missing, as they focus on the trees and not the forest.
After decades of a defensive deterrence and containment strategy, which failed spectacularly, after October 7 Israel finally shifted to the strategic offensive against the Iranian alliance.
“The Iron Swords War does not stand on its own,” wrote Israeli military theorist Eran Ortal. “The campaign in Gaza is a critical transition stage, both conceptual and practical, during which Israel is moving from defense to offense in a long war with Iran’s proxies.”
Iran might want to reestablish the old order with its missile attack, but Israel is evidently not going back to an arrangement in which dangerous enemies were allowed to build up forces a few hundred yards from Israeli homes, and in which the Islamic Republic knew it was secure.
With all the dramatic developments, decision-makers in Washington and Jerusalem are also keeping a close eye on Iran’s nuclear program. As the region shifts, the Iranians’ thinking will as well. They could become more cautious, as they did after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Or they might slam their feet on the gas and rush to weaponize before Israel and the US take advantage of Iran’s newfound vulnerability.
“The doctrines of preemption and prevention are now back with a vengeance as part of Israel’s national security doctrine,” said Hannah. “They won’t be going anywhere soon.”
