As this is being written on Monday afternoon, there is no news about any retaliatory military action taken against Israel by Iran and/or Hezbollah. What there have been are several analyses which concluded that the recent spate of assassinations have likely created a new breakout reality in the Middle East that would tend to militate against anything more than Iran’s April retaliation against Israel for the assassination of two of its senior generals.
Iran now knows that U.S. Naval and geopolitical power – in the form of a reprisal of the very successful April coalition – will be there for Israel, to serve as a deterrent and possibly more.
Iran and Hezbollah now know that Israel is capable of reaching into all parts of Iran and that their leaders are personally at risk. Surely, they recall that President Biden has urged Israel to target enemy leaders as a way of avoiding civilian casualties and even offered intel on Hamas leaders’ whereabouts if Israel abandoned plans for a major op in Rafah.
Iran now knows that its nuclear facilities are vulnerable should Israel be determined to finally take them out now that Iran is reportedly close to building a nuclear weapon, with President Biden’s promise to not let that happen no longer operative.
Further, while most analyses believe that Iran may feel it must respond somehow to Israel’s “red line” crossings and its embarrassing killing of a foreign leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian soil, any real impact on Iran’s overall strategic calculus is doubtful such that a major response from Iran may not be in the cards.
Similarly, with Hezbollah’s thinking, since its top military commander was eliminated by Israel, Hezbollah cannot take on Israel in any major way without Iran’s active support.
So, Iran should be loath to do anything significant that would draw Israeli power to its homeland. Indeed, this all could be behind the Reuters report that Iran now says it does not want regional escalation, but must “punish Israel.”
But then again, this is the Middle East and implacable hatred can do strange things to people.
