Israel recently conducted its most daring operation against Iran since the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, used a remote-controlled machine gun to kill Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the godfather of Iran’s nuclear program, more than three years ago. On Monday, April 1, Israeli aircraft dropped their payloads on one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) most notorious figures, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was meeting with Palestinian militant factions in Damascus, Syria. Strikes like this aren’t new for the Israelis, who have conducted hundreds of them in Syrian government-controlled territory over the years. But this one was different, not only due to the individual in the crosshairs but also because the building targeted was an Iranian diplomatic facility.
As one would expect, the Iranians are furious, calling the Israeli strike a massive breach of diplomatic protocol akin to an assault on Iran itself. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used a speech this week to warn Israel that there will be an Iranian response. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly shot back at Khamenei on X: “If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will react and attack in Iran.”
It’s difficult to overstate Zahedi’s importance to Iran’s regional strategy, nor is it a shock that Israel was waiting for the right time to take him off the board. Zahedi is an IRGC veteran, joining only two years after the Islamic Revolution swept the U.S.-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi from power. He once commanded the IRGC’s ground and air forces and served for years as the IRGC’s top man in Syria and Lebanon, which means he had an integral role in saving Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from going the way of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi—that is, dragged out of a storage drain and killed by his opponents. Zahedi was also critically important to solidifying Tehran’s strategic ties with Hezbollah in Lebanon, so much so that he was the only non-Lebanese to serve on the group’s decision-making council.
There’s no question Iran will retaliate. The moment Israel wiped out such a high-profile Iranian military officer, in a building with diplomatic status no less, it opened itself up to danger. Iran has already decided to hit back—anything less would have made the ayatollahs look like weak-kneed old men petrified of Israeli military power. The White House is “very concerned” about Israel and Iran stumbling into a direct conflict, a worst-case scenario that would also put the tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East at risk.
The issue isn’t whether Iran will retaliate but rather how.
Iran has choices, and the Biden administration is likely gaming them out. One U.S. intelligence assessment stated that Iranian reprisal could include “a swarm of drones or land-attack cruise missiles,” perhaps targeting Israel directly. This would be the most consequential and provocative option under its belt, akin to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein firing off Scud missiles into Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. The devastation of an Iranian missile or drone attack, though, would be greater than what Hussein pulled off more than 30 years ago because the quality of Tehran’s missiles surpasses anything Iraq had in the early 1990s.
This kind of attack on Israel would be unprecedented for Iran. While Iran is never shy to express its disdain for Israel and does so on a daily basis, it has never used its military to attack the Israelis directly. Doing so is a high-risk strategy that would force the Israelis—and perhaps even the Americans—to hit back against Iran even harder. Traditionally, Tehran’s constellation of proxies in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria do most of the work on the kinetic front. This allows Iran to cause damage without crossing a red-line that would instigate Israel into launching a bombing campaign on Iranian territory.
A rescuer works at the site of an Israeli missile attack targeting the Iranian embassy’s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, April 2, 2024.
Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua via Getty Images
The Iranian proxy most prepared for an operation like this is Hezbollah, which has already been engaged in an undeclared war with Israel along the Israeli-Lebanese border area for the last six months. Hezbollah is the strongest non-state military force in the Middle East and is stronger than the Lebanese army itself. Estimates vary, but analysts assess that Hezbollah possesses at least 150,000 rockets and missiles, some of which are precision guided. There isn’t a part of Israel that Hezbollah couldn’t hit during a full-scale war, a reality that has undoubtedly deterred Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from approving a large-scale military campaign against the group thus far. Hezbollah unleashing its arsenal into Israel would rip apart whatever restraint Netanyahu has left.
Another contingency Israel has to watch out for is assassination plots against its diplomats overseas. Israel is no stranger to these plots. In 2012, at a time when the Mossad was killing Iranian nuclear scientists, Tehran sought to hit back aggressively by going after Israeli officials in Azerbaijan, Thailand, Georgia, and India. In the Azerbaijan incident, Iranian intelligence enlisted three Azerbaijani nationals to kill the Israeli ambassador in that country, a plan that was foiled by police. In India, a sticky bomb was placed on an Israeli diplomatic car, wounding four people, including the diplomat’s wife.
Ideally, Iran wouldn’t retaliate. That’s probably too much to expect in this case.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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