Iran’s Retaliation

What will further the Islamic Republic of Iran’s goals of Shiite domination?

When will Iran retaliate against Israel for killing the Regional Director of Terrorist Coordination for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and what will they do? 

That is the question that is now the obsession of the Israeli and Arab press such that each cancelled flight to Teheran is proof that a massive missile attack on Israel, from Iran, is imminent.  Last night, the Israeli news sites and Telegram channels that monitor Arabic and Farsi news and government sites were reporting that Iran had closed its airspace, flights from Turkey were cancelled and the Iranians were on 100% alert.

Towards the morning, the Iranian government denied it had closed its airspace.

If the Iranian retaliation is simply to sew panic in Israel, they have succeeded.  Schools are sending home instructions for at home learning – without electricity! – the news channels are analyzing how we will manage without access to their wisdom in case we are forced back into the stone age. The government and IDF are all “100% ready” for any and all circumstances (where have we heard that before?). 

If in fact it is panic that is Iran’s retaliation, then they have succeeded.  However, what they don’t understand is that panic is one of Israel’s favorite sports.   For those with a minimal knowledge of Yiddish you will know the phrase “oy gevald”  - which can mean anything from “woe is me” to “holy crap”.   Israeli politics uses this as a get out the vote tactic – it is called, literally, “gevald” and is used when a party is at threat to lose the election – or at least not pass the minimum vote total to get into the Knesset.   Meretz (the woke leftist progressive party) used it in the last election but missed out anyway.  They tried to use “gevald” to guilt their voters into not letting them disappear off the map which would cause irreparable harm to “our democracy”.  Guilt and woe don’t always work.

Netanyahu used it to great success in 2015 when he announced on election day that the Arab voters were coming out in great numbers to throw him out. Gevald!  In this case it worked.

Note to Iran – if panic is your goal, it will just bring joy to Israelis who love panicking almost as much as eating humus with just a pita and no fork and knife.

But seriously – what is going on and what will happen?   

Before we answer these questions, we have to understand the goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran.   Iran is a revolutionary regime in the Napoleonic sense of the word.  They want to spread their ideology to the region and to the world for the purpose of creating a universal Shiite Islamic Republic.   These are and have always been the goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran since the Khomeini revolution in 1979.  Their first major act of conquest was the takeover of the US embassy and the holding of its staff as hostages for 444 days.  This was an attack on sovereign US territory and was the first indication of what Iran’s goals were and still are.  The Iran-Iraq War  - Sunni and Shiite war par excellence was soon to follow.

Since then, they have patiently built up military, terror and criminal organizations to accomplish that goal and have “proxies”, terror cells and criminal gangs in many countries in the middle east and Africa as well as in South America (have they entered the US through the southern border?).  The crown jewel of these proxies is of course Hezbollah in Lebanon where they have veto power over every move the government makes.   The Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) is the main coordinator and advocate of this goal. Iranian support, along with Russia, of the Assad regime in Syria and their free reign in Iraq – all countries with substantial Shiite populations - has allowed them to build a base with which to attack their enemies – Israel, the US and the Sunni Moslem states and populations – without getting their own hands dirty.

As we have written in the past (Next Stop:  Jordan), their ultimate goal is to be rulers of the Islamic world and one important goal they need is to control the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.    The gateway to those cities is through the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.  The Iranian proxy attack on a US base in Jordan, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders was one operation in that battle as they search for ways to cause chaos, leading to the fall of the Hashemites. 

There are three major obstacles standing in the way of the major goal of the Islamic Republic and they are the existence and strength of Israel, the presence of the US military in the Persian Gulf and environs and strong or wealthy  Sunni governments like Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia.  ISIS, while ostensibly a major enemy of the Shiite revolution is in fact a God-send as it is an excuse to use their military resources against this universally hated, cruel terrorist group and therefore to expand their permanent presence in the effected countries.  It brought them into Iraq and allowed them to more strongly infiltrate Syria and it has made them more active in sub-Saharan Africa, too. 

So whatever Shiite Iran does to retaliate against Israel it will not be something that puts their grand plan of middle eastern control at risk.  This means that their retaliation must succeed.  Failure will lead to humiliation in the Moslem world and will tarnish their reputation as the one Islamic power who can stand up to both Israel and the US.  There is nothing worse in the Arab and the Moslem world in the middle east than humiliation.   That is why when, at the start of the ground incursion into Gaza, Israel showed pictures of captured Hamas terrorists on their knees in their underwear.  But this was not a scene Israel’s Davos-Generals thought was appropriate, taking a key tactic out of the hands of the soldiers on the ground. 

Iran cannot risk humiliation and therefore cannot risk failure.     

On the other hand they cannot risk a minimal retaliation, meaning that it must either destroy important Israeli infrastructure, IDF military installation or kill many Israelis – soldiers and/or civilians.  Anything less after painting themselves into a corner and bragging about the magnitude of their revenge will lead to the humiliation they dread so much.  However, the infrastructure and the important IDF bases are the most defended against missile attacks.   Furthermore, even an unsuccessful attack on one of these targets will most probably cause a counter-strike by Israel and possibly lead to the destruction of key targets in Iran.  The most obvious targets are their refineries but the best target would be IRG bases.  The key should be punishing the Islamic regime and not the Iranian people (as an aside I would say the same thing about a potential war with Lebanon – destroy Hezbollah and Shiite targets and try to leave Sunnis, Christians and Druze alone – so don’t destroy Beirut but only Hezbollah/Shiite neighborhoods and targets).

As for attacking Israeli embassies abroad that is also a possibility, but it would have to be in a country in which Iran has no fear of retaliation and does not care if that country is embarrassed by it.   Two countries would fit this bill in the middle east – Jordan and the UAE. As for the UAE that is a bit more complicated since there is certainly Iranian money flowing through there. In Jordan there are already demonstrations against Israel at their embassy in Amman and the majority of the country is Palestinian, so that might make more sense. 

Other possibilities could be embassies in South America.  Argentina has always been a favorite of theirs, they have “boots on the ground” there in the form of experienced terrorist cells and Javier Milei, Argentina’s newly elected president is pro-Israel.  Milei will probably throw the Iranians out of the country but they will probably not have to pay much more than that.

It is hard to know how Israel will respond to an attack on an embassy of theirs – will it be enough to warrant an attack on Iranian soil, or even a pre-emptive attack on their missile sites?   I would think that this  would be an opportunity for Israel to cause real damage to the patron of all five fronts Israel is fighting now, but it is doubtful the US will support direct attacks in that case and israel would not want to take on Iran without real US support unless the damage was great.  It is doubtful that, when push comes to shove that the US will support any sustained attack on Iran under any circumstance. Also, the Israeli government might not feel it can start something with a possible nuclear power (no one knows how much time Iran needs for a nuclear bomb, but Israeli policy should assume they already have one) unless real and severe damage is done.

Hitting the Dimona nuclear facility, the Hadera electric plant or an Israeli Air Force base – to speak nothing of a civilian center-  would require Israel to hit Iranian territory with great firepower with or without US support, but it is not clear if an attack on an Embassy would provoke the same response.

Another possibility is the assassination of an Israeli political or military figure.  But assassinations of high level individuals in Israel are not an easy thing to pull off.  Even if you have planned it well you will most probably fail.  It would have to be done by Iranian agents here in Israel and all the major figures are well protected.  A failed attempt would risk a major attack on Iran for no gain.

So the question remains – what retaliation most furthers their goals of a Shiite middle east meaning the weakening and then destruction of Israel and the withdrawal of the United States from the region? 

I have to admit that my analysis is not leading me to where I thought it was going but the Islamic Republic of Iran wants an attack with high probability of success and lower risk of severe retaliation it would seem to me that the Israeli embassy in Amman is the correct target.   And they could get a three-fer – it would embarrass and possibly weaken the Hashemite Kingdom.   If ISIS were to take control of even parts of Jordan Iran could send in its own troops or proxies to defend innocent Moslems from them.  If chaos were to ensue due to Hamas protests or celebrations in Amman, it would also be an excuse to arm these terrorists, create chaos and come waltzing in.  Will the US defend Jordan from Iran?  That seems to be doubtful.  Would Israel get involved to defend King Abdulah and Queen Noor?  They did it once for King Hussein in 1970 but it is doubtful Israel would get involved again.  Once Iran gets a foothold in Jordan, they would never leave.  This would put them directly on Israel’s eastern border and within marching range of Mecca and Medina (and Jerusalem).

Will this be what they do?  Most probably not. 

But from the fact that they did not let Hezbollah risk even partial destruction by coming to the aid of Hamas with ground incursions into Israel on October 7 and the days after, they seem to err on the side of caution – always keeping their main goals in mind.  A major attack risks great destruction.  As opposed to Hamas, the Islamic Republic is looking to build and not just destroy – although what it is trying to build is quite ugly, oppressive and dangerous.

With fanatics it is difficult to predict their actions and therefore the job of the “status-quo” powers is to know the enemies capabilities and to destroy them when the opportunity arises.   Free countries have a very difficult time with the latter.

Of course – I could be proven wrong overnight and they may reign down missiles on Israel, in which case I might have to send my “woops, I was wrong” essay by carrier pigeon.  Or not at all.