Persian is by nature a very flowery language that is particularly suitable for rhetoric. It reaches a climax in the hands of the clerics who support the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the 1979 revolution (mislabeled as “Islamic”), the United States became the “Great Satan” and Israel (which it does not recognize as a state) the “Zionist entity.” Its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, said that it must “disappear from the face of the earth,” words sadly made famous by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad years later. Since Hamas’ brutal attack triggered Israel’s brutal response in Gaza, the tone of Iranian speakers has risen to the level of war drums.
Although Tehran quickly denied it had anything to do with the October 7 aggression, it has not spared praise for the Palestinian Islamist group, which the EU and US consider terrorist. Hamas is a veteran supporter of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” an Iranian-funded and trained network of militias in various Middle Eastern countries whose common ideological denominator is rejection of Israel. But Iranian political and military leaders have not only cheered on their allies but also issued thinly veiled threats to come to their aid through the mediation of these allied militias, if not directly.
The Foreign Minister warned this just a week after the crisis began. In an interview with Al Jazeera television, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that if Israel did not stop its air strikes, it was “very likely that many other fronts would open.” His words, underscored by the Lebanese Hezbollah’s first skirmishes on Israel’s northern border, have stimulated analysis and speculation about the extent to which this group (which has more weapons and is more advanced than Hamas) will be involved and what this would lead to. She will intervene bluntly.
After Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the Gaza bombings a “genocide,” President Ebrahim Raisí declared on his X account (formerly Twitter) last Sunday that “the crimes of the Zionist regime have exceeded the limits that “Everyone must act.” Days earlier, the deputy head of the Pasdaran (the regime’s ideological army), Ali Fadavi, had even said that Iran would “if necessary” fire missiles at Haifa (an Israeli city 80 kilometers north of Tel Aviv).
The crimes of the Zionist regime have crossed the red lines, which could force anyone to act. Washington asks us not to do anything, but they continue to fully support Israel. The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance, but received a clear response on the battlefield.
— سید ابراهیم رئیسی (@raisi_com) October 29, 2023
What is true about that? How great is the risk that the war between Israel and Hamas will spread to the entire region? Iran’s rulers, masters of ambiguity, exploit this fear of their neighbors and others. Furthermore, the regional chaos seems to favor them. The greater the instability of those around them, the less appreciated are the cracks in their own building: a society exhausted by the severe economic crisis and oppression, the internal struggle to succeed the elderly Khamenei as the highest authority and international isolation. However, the theoretical possibilities are often limited by real politics.
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In early 2009, after another Israeli offensive against Hamas, the supreme leader anointed with the aura of martyrdom all those who had fallen fighting the “Zionist regime.” We correspondents accredited to Tehran witnessed demonstrations by volunteers who, wrapped in white shrouds, declared themselves ready to die for Palestine. According to official propaganda, up to 70,000 young people have registered. There was even a sit-in at Mehrabad airport to be allowed to board a plane. Not a single one left the country. As is usual in Iran, the authorities halted the campaign as soon as they feared that the response would harm their interests.
Both the ayatollahs and the generals who form the true foundations of the Islamic Republic know that a direct confrontation with Israel/the United States would endanger the regime’s survival. They want to weaken their archenemy without getting their hands dirty. So they target the “resistance forces”: from Lebanon’s Hezbollah to the Houthis in Yemen to a range of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria.
Conflicting characters
There are contradictory signs on site. Although Hezbollah has intensified its initial limited attacks to the extent of forcing the evacuation of several cities in northern Israel, no one knows whether it is ready to wage a new war against the Jewish army like the one it waged in 2006 the intervention of Hezbollah Its leader Hassan Nasrallah also expressed no doubts this Friday. With Lebanon much more impoverished than it was then, and its population exhausted after decades of domestic and foreign conflicts, a new crisis risks undermining the public support it prides itself on. It is also not clear whether Iran will risk losing the Lebanese Shiite movement, a strategic tool of its regional policy, if it remains without Hamas in the ground invasion of Gaza.
The intention of the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria is also unclear. Washington acknowledges an increase in attacks against its interests in both countries but distances them from the Gaza war. Meanwhile, the Houthis wanted to show their solidarity with Hamas by firing rockets and sending drones towards Israel (a first attempt was intercepted by the US Navy over the Red Sea in mid-October, the most recent by Israeli anti-aircraft forces nearby) . the coastal city of Eilat).
The coincidence of these operations gives the impression of coordination of these forces under the aegis of Iran, although there are serious doubts that Iran has full control over the militias it supports. Its rhetoric (insisting that the United States directs Israeli operations in Gaza) encourages the “resistance” and predicts its eventual support in the face of (unlikely) direct intervention from the Great Satan. But above all, and regardless of whether it had prior knowledge of Hamas’s attack on Israel or not, the Islamic Republic wants to take advantage of the situation created by its Palestinian protégé to show regional strength to its neighbors and, in particular, to the United States States (with which they are conducting eternal indirect talks to get out of the quagmire of sanctions over their nuclear program).
By deploying two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, the Biden administration is showing support for Israel and sending a warning to Iran. But beyond its symbolism, it also recognizes the danger that this game of inflammatory insults will end up sparking a conflict that doesn’t interest even the most boastful.
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