Iran lost its most reliable ally in the Middle East when an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. But Iran isn’t leading the charge to retaliate.
That’s put Tehran in a bind: Not responding could see it alienate the militias it relies on in the region. Meanwhile, any possible retaliation risks a wider war as its theocracy faces intense challenges at home.
Iran's Supreme Leader and Foreign Ministry's comments highlight a reticence in responding to Nasrallah’s death. Though his leadership of Hezbollah was the crown jewel in Iran’s decades-long strategy of arming regional militias to counter both Israel and the United States, Iran remains cautious about when — or if — it will strike back.
Iran didn’t enter the war as an Israeli offensive devastated the Gaza Strip. In the time since, an increasingly emboldened Israel has attacked Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other groups.
Hard-line voices already are calling for a response “harsher” than its April attack, which caused very little damage. That, however, runs directly counter to the plans of Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who campaigned on a promise to get crushing economic sanctions lifted against Iran.
https://apnews.com/article/iran-israel-mideast-tensions-hezbollah-lebanon-analysis-5020aeed3c88790d5483fdf40c9ba392
Posted by Naurgul
11 comments
I was listening to the economist podcast this morning and the Beirut based reporter on the show said he was talking to a Lebanese intellectual who made this analogy when it came to Hezbollah and the IRGC.
It is a bodyguard and a president relationship. Hezbollah is the bodyguard and the IRGC is the President. The bodyguard will laydown their life for the President but the President won’t do it for them.
And i think this is accurate. I think Iran is overexposed and doesn’t want to risk systematic retaliation over all their proxies especially the more strategic and more important militias in Iraq who help them influence Iraqi politics and the IRGC positions in Syria which help shore up more widespread influence in the region. But to also remember Iran was unable to win the Syrian civil war without Russian support. Al-Assad and Iran were losing the war before the Russians directly intervened. Iran is truly looking like a paper tiger.
Iran has an increasingly broader partnership with Russia, they’re enlarging their partnership with China although it isn’t clear how far it’s going to go in terms of military aid.
Long range strikes on Israel won’t accomplish much aside from forcing the US’ hand and endanger an Iranian Leadership that is already struggling internally due to the sanctions.
If anything securing deeper military deals with Russia in terms of missiles & radar technology and keeping the nuclear option as a trump card is far more profitable for Iran than risking it all for a proxy in Lebanon that doesn’t stand a chance anyways.
While everyone is thinking “Iran isn’t responding, how weak”….
If Iran responded, it would almost certainly be WW3. They can **absolutely** decimate large swaths of Israel. They would also take heavy damage from Israel as well.
If you are an able bodied man, be grateful they have not responded.
From where I’m standing if you terrorize Israel at all, they’re coming after you now. They’re done with everyone’s shit (by shit I mean rocket attacks and suicide bombings). That’s why they aren’t responding, they’re afraid.
Iran is evil, but not dumb. The understand that Israel and the U.S. could devastate their country if a full-blown war breaks out, and that they don’t have the ability to inflict similar damage on Israel or the U.S.
They’re not reluctant so much as realistic about the fact they can’t do jack squat and everyone knows it.
Israel allowed Iranian proxies to take potshots the last few decades and had a policy of containment and what the video game crowd calls “turtling.”
They set up a border wall to contain Hamas, set up the iron dome and layered air defense to handle inbound rockets, and focused on keeping close tabs on what was going on to ensure the threats stayed manageable.
10/7 changed that math. Hamas sucker punched them and demonstrated the containment policy failed.
Israel now sees a US election potentially altering their long standing defense pact so their plan now seems to be to remove the threats entirely.
Iran has gone from boogeyman puppet master to being quiet and hoping Israel forgets they’re there now that the Israelis aren’t pulling their punches as much.
I can’t wrap my mind around how the news are actually being received in the Middle East?
Like I picture the strikes against Hamas being easy to process and understand in a place like Saudi Arabia. *Israel, western colonialists and occupiers are murdering little Sunni children in Gaza.* is something that AlJazeera can publish, actually something they did publish: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2024/9/25/celebrating-a-martyrs-birthday-in-gaza
But how is the killing of Iran’s main external force, a Shia army, processed by them? Are they thankful that someone else is fighting and humiliating their enemies? Are they feeling like Israel’s victories only make them look weaker?
I know that there is no love lost in places like Egypt and Jordan. Where both the Israelis and Palestinians are distrusted unequally.
I can’t fathom that the other factions in Lebanon are crying about these killings. They also can’t be happy watching bombs drop in Beirut and refugees coming from the south.
I’d love to actually be able to get what people think. Not what their leaders let them publish or what they need to say publicly to save face. What they are actually saying at the little table in the kitchen where the family gets their breakfast.
Iran’s proxies and reputation have been taking considerable damage in the past months. Any real action Iran takes will likely escalate into all out war. Which they are trying to avoid. However they are in a position like Germany was before the start of WW1.
IMHO, If Iran manages to secure support from Russia and China, I think they will retaliate with full force against Israel. Russia is likely on board, but I’m not certain about China, I still think they want to be somewhat neutral until they are fully prepared to wage all out war on the US.
Israel’s actions have also damaged US geopolitical position badly, it’s quite possible that US might move further away from Israel as a result, even if Iran doesn’t attack.
Iran has no reason to retaliate.
They will wait for Israel to finish killing all the Hezbos and then they will start rebuilding.
Iran doesn’t care about Hezbollah, Lebanon or Palestine. They only care about themselves.
The whole point of Hezbollah was to act as a buffer for Iran.
I give it 2 months before Israel’s big-headed ass is launching missiles into Tehran. These crazy assholes are gonna keep poking the bear as long as the U.S. keeps supporting them.
Iran won’t retaliate, anybody who thinks they will is completely ignorant of how the theocratic regime works.
Iran is a large, diverse, and complex country. There are a lot of ethnic minorities who hate the regime and want independence. The dominant ethnic group, the Persians, also hate the regime and want to see it toppled. The base of the support for regime is very shallow and the regime holds no legitimacy in the eyes of the people. That’s why the past few years have seen some of the biggest protests in the middle east.
The only way for the regime to hold on to power is through tyranny, fear, and violence. Thus the Iranian theocracy cannot afford to deploy its military too far from home as that’s the tool that’s keeping it alive. Therefore it won’t. The regime realized this way back in the 1980s after the Iran Iraq war. That’s the whole point of Iran establishing the Quds force branch of IRGC. It’s so they can utilize asymmetric warfare by supporting, funding, and arming proxy groups who will do their bidding.
The Iranian strategy for the past 30 something years is to have their proxy groups use terrorism and other types of asymmetric warfare to constantly chip away at their enemies while building their own strength. The idea is to carry out a bunch of small attacks all the time to drain resources from the countries they’re attacking without promoting a strong retaliatory response to wipe them out. It’s a very effective strategy which is why Iran is such a force in the Middle East. Not only does this keep Iran itself an arms length away from any direct confrontation but these proxy groups help Iran expand its sphere of influence on top of harming it’s enemies.
Every once in awhile, Iran tries to test its limits and orders one of these proxy groups to carry out an attack that’s bigger than usual. If the attacks get a weaker response than they expected then they’ll do them more often, if not then they’ll hide back in their holes and go back to their usual small terror attacks until things quite down until they repeat the cycle.
In the off chance that Iran miscalculates and ends up ordering an attack that leads to a strong retaliation that ends up either paralyzing or completely wiping out one of these proxy groups, then they will pretend to be shocked and angry, but they won’t actually do anything. They’ll use the loss of their proxy for PR before going back to rebuilding their proxy groups or supporting new ones.