The White House said on Tuesday Iran was preparing to launch ballistic missile strikes at Israel and the US was making defensive preparations to counter and impose “severe consequences” for any attack. If Washington is correct, this would amount to a total reversal of Iran’s longstanding policy of avoiding direct involvement in regional conflicts.
On Monday in advance of the Israeli army’s cross-border ground operation, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Iran would not dispatch fighters to Lebanon or Gaza to confront Israel. “The governments of Lebanon and Palestine have the capacity and power needed to face the Zionist regime’s aggression, and there is no need to deploy auxiliary or volunteer Iranian forces,” he said, adding, “We have also not received any requests, and we know they do not need the help of our expeditionary forces.”
While he warned Israel “will not go without punishment for the crimes it has committed against the Iranian people, resistance forces, Iranian citizens and military personnel”, Israel has not, so far, faced retribution for strikes on Iran. Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear research sites, killed Iranian scientists, bombed Iranian officers and fighters in Syria, and assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hizbullah commanders in Lebanon. On Monday, Iranian president Massoud Pezeshkian visited Hizbullah’s Tehran office to pay condolences for Israel’s killing of the movement’s leader Hassan Nasrallah last Friday.
Both Pezeshkian and supreme leader Ali Khamenei condemned his killing without suggesting Iran would intervene in Lebanon. Despite being blamed by Israel and its allies for being a destabilising force in the region, Tehran has adopted a cautious, pragmatic line on direct involvement. Responding to Israel’s April bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran forewarned the West of its plan to launch hundreds of missiles and drones toward Israel, enabling Israel and allies to shoot down 90 per cent before they reached Israeli airspace.
Iran could expect this to happen a second time if it fires missiles at Israel, so this would be an empty gesture. In retribution Tehran could face a joint Israeli-US offensive against its nuclear and civilian infrastructure.
Since Israel mounted its war on Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7th last, Iran-supported Hizbullah, Yemeni Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias have tried and failed to use attacks on Israel and allies to exert pressure for an end to the war. Instead, Israel has expanded the conflict by decimating Hizbullah and striking Yemen’s port and power infrastructure, while Iraq’s government has reined in Shia militias.
Iranian hardliners and revolutionary ideologues have for years criticised Tehran’s refusal to engage directly in regional conflicts, but they cannot overrule Khamenei, who is the country’s ultimate authority. Since Pezeshkian assumed the presidency in July, critics have focused on his conciliatory foreign policy. They have criticised his address to the UN General Assembly, in which he urged talks with the West to revive the 2015 agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions that cripple Iran’s economy.
Hardline ex-Iranian ambassador to Syria, Ayatollah Hassan Akhtari, told the UK-based Middle East Eye that Israel and the US were trying to divide Iran from its allies “by claiming Iran does not support them”.
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