 "A cleric member of Basij paramilitary forces attends a rally in support of Palestinians, in Tehran, Iran. Source: FILE / West Asia News Agency / REUTERS.")
Fired, hit and gone! In the last one week, Israel went all out on Iran and its key proxy, Hezbollah, and eliminated the terrorist group’s most powerful and influential chief, Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah’s death has now focused attention on Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen, Hamas, the Syrian government and various Shi’ite armed groups in Syria and Iraq — all backed by Iran which is accused of training fighters from these groups to counter the US and Israeli influence in West Asia.
This network is being dubbed as the ‘axis of resistance’ and Iran, for decades, has been fostering these groups, enabling them to carry out attacks on Israel and other nations.
The ‘axis of resistance’ not just receives support from Iran, but also shares Tehran’s hatred of Israel and the US. However, they have their own interests and are not completely controlled by Tehran.
Iran has been aiming to be in power in West Asia through proxies but the assaults, starting from pagers and walkie-talkies explosions to targeted firing, left the country and its internal security in tatters.
Devastation beyond Iran’s imagination
Multiple weapon depots have been destroyed, top group leaders wiped out, the devastation in the past one week in Iran by Israel was something which Tehran never imagined of.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIsraeli airstrikes caused unprecedented damage, both physical and psychological, to Hezbollah, a report by NBC News quoted US officials as saying.
Iran armed ‘axis of resistance’ to avoid direct confrontation with Israel & US
Members of Hezbollah and other proxies are funded and trained by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The terrorist group is regarded as a key element in Iran’s strategy to counter militarily stronger opponents.
Avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel or the US, Iran has been arming Hezbollah and other proxy groups, equipping them with an arsenal of rockets and missiles. Doing this, Tehran is keeping its hopes alive that with its armed proxy, it can gradually weaken and outflank militarily superior adversaries.
Iran’s calculation on Hezbollah gone wrong
However, Iran went wrong with gauging how strongly Israel would respond to the October 7 attack by Hamas and cross-border rocket fire from Hezbollah.
The NBC News report quoted former intelligence officers and counterterrorism analysts as saying that Iran also overestimated the strength of Hezbollah.
“Basically, their whole calculation has been torn to shreds,” the report quoted Bruce Hoffman, terrorism expert and a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
“For Israel, this is a stunning turnaround from the events of almost a year ago," Hoffman said.
Referring to October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Hoffman said, “Israeli intelligence has restored their aura of deterrence… They lost it after the 10/7 debacle.”
Iran proved ‘incapable’ of shielding Hezbollah
The report quoted former intelligence and defence officials as saying that though Hezbollah has been under intense attack over the recent days, Iran has “proved incapable - and possibly unwilling - to protect its proteges in Lebanon.”
They further said that the recent incidents could possibly raise questions among some Hezbollah fighters about whether Iran is a “worthy patron”.
Hezbollah’s weakness exposed
For Tehran, its network of proxies, including Hezbollah, Houthi and Hamas, was intended to act as a deterrent against a direct Israeli assault on the country, but the recent events have “exposed the weakness at the heart” of Iran’s proxy strategy,” the report quoted Matthew Savill of the London-based Royal United Services Institute, who was a senior official in the UK’s Defence Ministry, as saying.
“While Iran will use its partners in defence of itself, the reverse is not true, and it is unlikely to go to war with Israel to save one of those partners," Savill further said.
Israel’s successful strike on Hezbollah planned since 2006
Back in 2006, Israel tried but failed to kill Nasrallah and permanently defeat Hezbollah and since then, it has carried out intelligence work which resulted in success recently.
“Long-term intelligence work is “paying off,” Glenn Corn, a former senior CIA officer, and other former intelligence officers said.
“Iran, so far, has been unable to do anything significant to back up the proxies,” Corn, who is now the senior director of Geopolitics and Global Threat Assessment at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, further said.
What if Iran retaliates?
Any counter attack by Iran on Israel may result in massive retaliation by Israel and could lead to a full-blown war for which Tehran is not prepared for.
Also, there is a possible risk that Israeli and the US forces in the region will down several of the missiles, similar to what happened in April, when Iran fired over 300 drones and missiles at Israel with almost no effect.
The new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian’s efforts of reviving nuclear diplomacy with the West may also take a hit if Iran attacks Israel.
Also, Pezeshkian, who has been optimistic about holding negotiations or seeking sanctions relief from the West, which is much-needed for the revival of his country’s economy, may experience a roadblock if Iran plans to retaliate.
What if Iran does not retaliate?
If Iran chooses not retaliate, it may appear weak and seem to be retreating from Israel.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is now in a dilemma of his own making. By not responding strongly, he keeps losing face. By responding too strongly, he could lose his head. Like all dictators, Khamenei wants to be feared by his people. These humiliations will fuel talk about succession in Tehran,” analyst Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in a post on X.
The NBC News report quoted former officials as saying that another option before Iran and Hezbollah could be carrying out terrorist attacks overseas, going after more vulnerable soft targets associated with Israel and the US around the world.
“The one concern we should have is a return to the old kind of terrorist game, soft targets such as embassies overseas, both Israeli and US. Certainly that would be a much more plausible scenario,” the report quoted Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA official, as saying.