When an Iranian consulate building was destroyed in Syria in April, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to punish Israel. What followed was a huge, yet telegraphed assault and no all-out war. Three months later, the military chief of Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas’s political head were killed within hours of each other. The wider regional conflict seen by some as imminent didn’t end up erupting. Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday in Beirut dealt an even bigger blow. But it’s still unlikely to trigger a direct war with the Islamic Republic, according to current and former US and Middle East government officials and regional experts. Instead, Iran will focus on rebuilding the militant group in Lebanon and keeping its network of proxies in action for as long as possible, they said. For all the saber rattling, what Iran calls its powerful “axis of resistance” in reality has seen its soft underbelly exposed again. Both Hezbollah, the most important asset in that axis, and Iran itself have been weakened and have few options, making it unlikely they will escalate the conflict, according to a person familiar with US’s thinking. More of a wildcard is whether Israel pursues further targets to hurt Hezbollah while the US is focused on the presidential election campaign, one Arab official said. Already, the killing of Nasrallah followed an attack on the group’s nerve system by exploding pagers and walkie talkies they used for communication. “Iran will be cornered into responding, with a bigger chorus of people demanding revenge,” said Dina Esfandiary, senior adviser on the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. “But this administration doesn’t want to embroil themselves in a conflict they can’t win. So they will have to measure their response.” Khamenei’s first statement a day earlier, meanwhile, emphasized the fact that Hezbollah has enough people who can replace Nasrallah and that the “axis of resistance will decide the fate of the region.” The rhetoric from Tehran reflects the desire of the clerical and military establishment to keep war at arm’s length. In the immediate term, the task will be to recoup the strength of the militant groups it backs in the region and ensure it isn’t baited into a full-blown war. In Lebanon, the priority is to preserve what’s left of Hezbollah, according to Vali Nasr, a former senior adviser to the US State Department and professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. The group, like Hamas, is considered a terrorist organization by the US and many of its allies. “The priority for Iran is deterrence — it does not want a larger war right now and it suspects that Israel wants one,” said Nasr. “It’s not about avenging Nasrallah, it’s about rebuilding their position.”Iran will now try to move thousands of fighters to border areas of Lebanon and Syria, the source said, adding that for the past two months several thousand fighters have gone from Iraq to Syria, suggesting that Tehran has been preparing to reinforce its deterrence. “Iran doesn’t fight for its proxies, its proxies fight for it,” said Jonathan Lord, a former Pentagon official and director of the Middle East Security program at the Center for a New American Security. “The regime is most interested in self-preservation and won’t knowingly put itself at risk.” A foreign affairs think tank in the US. “Iranians are going to remain cautious, they understand that Israel is still in a mood to escalate and strike. They will go back to guerilla tactics and strategic patience.”
Israeli special forces allegedly launch raids into Lebanon
Israeli special forces have conducted targeted raids into southern Lebanon, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the incursions. The move is allegedly focusing on Hezbollah’s tunnel network and intelligence gathering, likely ahead of a ground incursion. Despite the report, the newspaper quotes a person as saying that the Isreli government is under pressure because of the possible repercussions of the event. In addition, there is no precise timing for the likely ground incursion. The news comes as Israel has heightened its military operations against Hamas and Hezbollah in the region. NN:
