Patrick Wintour
The Guardian / October 1, 2024
High-risk assault reflects Iranian elite’s belief that restraint after assassination of Ismail Haniyeh was strategic mistake.
Iran said its supreme leader made the decision to fire dozens of missiles into Israel as retaliation for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the recent killings of leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, two of the main groups in Iran’s so-called axis of resistance.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said the decision had been made by Ali Khamenei with the backing of the supreme national security council (SNSC) and the Iranian defence ministry.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, hailed the attack as “a decisive response to the aggression of the Zionist regime”, adding: “Let Netanyahu know that Iran is not a belligerent, but it stands firmly against any threat … Do not enter into a conflict with Iran.”
The Iranian mission at the UN said the actions were a “legal, rational and legitimate response to the terrorist attacks of the Zionist regime, which involved the targeting of Iranian nationals and interests and infringing on the national sovereignty of Iran”.
It added that, should Israel “dare to respond or commit further acts of malevolence, a subsequent and crushing response will ensue … Regional states and the Zionists’ supporters are advised to part ways with the regime.”
Iranian officials added there were further waves of ballistic missiles ready to go and said the launch of the attacks was signalled to western forces in advance.
It was not clear if Middle Eastern states such as Jordan or Saudi Arabia played any part in protecting Israel’s defences as they were alleged to have done when Iran attacked Israel in April in response to the killing of Iranian officials inside a consulate in Damascus.
The IRGC said the assault on Israel was a response both to the death on Friday of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July.
Iran’s high-risk decision to launch ballistic missiles against Israel reflects a growing consensus inside the Iranian elite that its decision not to mount a military reprisal after the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran in July was a strategic mistake.
Hardliners say the restraint gave a green light to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to mount further assassinations against “resistance leaders”.
They contrasted it with the firm response taken in April by the previous administration, led by the now deceased then president, Ebrahim Raisi, after the attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
The current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he did not respond to Haniyeh’s death because he had been given assurances that Israel was on the verge of signing a ceasefire deal within a week or two.
No such deal occurred, and Pezeshkian felt betrayed.
Iranian officials had also been alarmed by Netanyahu’s claim at the UN last week that one of his war objectives is to impose a change in the balance of power in the Middle East.
In such circumstances, Iran felt it simply could not abandon Hezbollah and start to look weak across the region. Anyway, they believed, Netanyahu was determined to go up the escalatory ladder, so it was necessary to confront him. There had even been claims spread by some Gulf states that Iran was abandoning Hezbollah.
The marked hardening of tone was first signalled by the SNSC chair, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, who declared early on Tuesday that Iran was at war and claimed Hezbollah had not been forced on the back foot by the recent string of Israeli military and intelligence successes.
Ahmadian instead argued: “The enemy is in a state of desperation and is trying to prove himself successful with psychological operations, with one or two operations that mainly rely on terror, but there is no such success for him.”
He said the work of Hezbollah had not been disrupted and no damage had been done to Hezbollah and its combat power. “After this, Hezbollah will start a new era,” he added.
But that optimistic assessment was not widely shared.
In a sign of how the rhetoric is heating up, Hamid Rasaei – who is an ally of Saeed Jalili, the hardliner who was defeated by the reformist Pezeshkian in Iran’s presidential elections in July – asked: “Why has the Islamic Republic of Iran become passive in the face of the threats and aggressions of the Zionist regime after the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, the prominent figure of Hamas in Iran? Why is the demand for blood of this martyr delayed? Hasn’t this passivity caused the fake regime [Israel] to attack more? Isn’t Hassan Nasrallah’s martyrdom, the symbol of religious zeal, the result of this inaction? Won’t these delays cause the fake regime to be more bold in martyring other resistance leaders?”
He attacked those who “constantly repeat that, no matter what happens, we will not fall into the trap of war with Israel”.
Ebrahim Rezaei, the spokesperson of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, also insisted war held no fear for Iran. He said: “Some say that, according to the statements made by the Zionist authorities, if we respond to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, we will cause a war. I must say that we are not afraid of going to war. We are not warmongers, but we are ready for any war. On the other hand, we are used to the chants of the Zionist regime and we are not afraid or worried by it.”
Alireza Panahian, one of the speakers of Khamenei’s office, said: “If the delay in revenge is due to a more complete destruction and a more terrible blow to the Zionist regime, we will accept it, and otherwise we will not accept it.”
Inside parliament there had also been calls from some conservatives for Iran to lift the fatwa on building a nuclear bomb, but Iranian officials played down such rhetoric.
The likelihood that Iran would make such a dramatic strategic switch in the midst of the current tension is low, especially since it hands Netanyahu an excuse to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.
Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is for civil use, but the west has feared Iran is seeking a bomb. In 2015 the two sides struck a deal that allowed Iran to enrich low stocks of uranium in return for an intrusive UN inspection regime to check the programme remained civilian.
In 2018 Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal and reimposed harsh sanctions, leading Iran to gradually increase its uranium stocks to levels of purity that would only be required if the country intended to make a nuclear bomb. The new government has said it is willing to return to the 2015 deal.
Khamenei is due to lead the Friday prayers this week. It will be the first time he has done so since the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ al-Quds brigade.
It was also confirmed that Pezeshkian is due in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday. With his critics claiming he is out of his depth, naive or sidelined, he leads a regime that is under its greatest external pressure for many decades.
The government spokesperson on Tuesday appealed for the sniping to end. She said: “We should not forget that our biggest enemy is division within the nation, and if national unity and unity are replaced by division, the smallest threats will cause the greatest danger to us.”
Patrick Wintour is diplomatic editor for The Guardian
