The ambiguity of Iran’s strategy in response to Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon was implicitly evident in Massoud Pezeshkian’s speech on Tuesday, September 24, from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The new Iranian president did not have strong enough words to condemn the escalation. “crimes against humanity” and the “desperate barbarism” Israel, estimating that its attacks on Lebanon, which have left at least 560 dead since Monday, “We couldn’t remain without an answer”.
But rather than threatening the Jewish state with scathing retaliation, as the hardliners of the regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard often do, President Pezeshkian called for the international community to take responsibility for “Let us not allow Lebanon to become another Gaza”. Israel is leading an offensive in the Palestinian enclave that has left more than 41,000 dead, in response to the attack carried out by Palestinian Hamas, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
As Hezbollah suffers setback after setback, the Islamic Republic shows no signs of wanting to help its Lebanese protégé, believing that this is exactly the trap that Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to lead it into. The Israeli Prime Minister periodically threatens a military operation against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Tehran does not want, with a military adventure against Israel, to spoil the UN meeting, where its emissaries came to plead with the West to “a new era” in their relations and the end of their country’s isolation.
If they opened a front against Israel in support of the Gaza Strip on October 8, 2023, Iran and Hezbollah remain determined to avoid an open war with the Jewish State. Tehran has not yet responded to the assassination, attributed to Israel, at the end of July in Tehran, of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The missiles it sent towards the Jewish State in response to the attack on its consulate in Damascus on October 1,Ahem April, had not, in any case, produced the expected deterrent effect. Iran does not have the capacity to come to Hezbollah’s aid on Lebanese territory, beyond sending weapons and advisers to the elite Al-Quds Force.
“State of shock”
Iran and Hezbollah still believe they can avoid an escalation of the conflict, even though Israel is now working to destroy the military infrastructure that Hezbollah built up over two decades, with Tehran’s help. The sabotage of its telecommunications systems, the decapitation of its military command and the destruction of thousands of rocket and missile launchers dealt a heavy blow to Hezbollah, stunning its allies within the “axis of resistance.”
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