Washington has despatched a warning to Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about Iranian anti-US provocation within the Center East. This has been happening sporadically for years, however from October 17 to October 25 there was a rise, as Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq carried out 16 drone and rocket assaults on bases with US personnel. One contractor died of a coronary heart assault, and 21 troops suffered mild accidents.
The US warning got here in two elements. On October 25, Joe Biden despatched a observe to Khamenei, which he later summarised for the press: “My warning to the Ayatollah was that in the event that they continued to maneuver in opposition to these troops, we are going to reply, and they need to be ready.”
However on Thursday the militias fired one other three volleys at US positions. In order that night time, US F-16 fighter jets struck a weapons depot and an ammunition retailer utilized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the militias, in northeast Syria close to the Iraq border. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, emphasised:
If assaults by Iran’s proxies in opposition to US forces proceed, we won’t hesitate to take additional needed measures to guard our folks … We proceed to induce all state and non-state entities to not take motion that will escalate right into a broader regional battle.
These US messages had been loud and clear. However will Iran heed them?
‘Axis of Resistance’
The instant context for the militia assaults was Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 7. Sources differed on whether or not the Revolutionary Guards or Iran’s management – or each – had advance discover of the lethal assault. However most analysts agree that Tehran gives funding, weapons, intelligence, and operational and logistical recommendation to Hamas.
However whether or not or not they knew Hamas was going to assault, Iranian officers seemed to be taken again by the size of the killing. They tried to include the fallout with strident denials of any involvement. Khamenei insisted in a public handle on October 10: “Those that say that the latest saga is the work of non-Palestinians have miscalculated.”
But when the Iranian regime gave any indication that it didn’t totally again the killing, then its proclaimed place because the chief of the “Axis of Resistance” could be shaken. So Tehran stepped up its rhetorical offensive with every day assurances of alliance with Hamas and every day threats in opposition to Israel, the US and the west.
In his October 10 handle, Khamenei mentioned: “We kiss the arms of those that deliberate the assault.” Intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, pledged “a harsh, damaging, mortal and annihilating revenge for the Zionist regime and its advocates”. International minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, advised the UN normal meeting on October 26 – after Biden’s message to the supreme chief however earlier than the US strikes in Syria – that America “wouldn’t be spared from the fireplace” if Israel continued assaults on Gaza.
EPA-EFE/Wael Hamzeh
There is no such thing as a proof the regime has adopted up the rhetoric with planning – for instance, by way of Lebanon’s Hezbollah or the Houthi insurgency in Yemen – for a wider struggle in opposition to Israel or within the area. However the Quds Power, the Revolutionary Guards department for operations exterior Iran, supervises in addition to funds and equips the militias in Iraq and Syria. So it’s virtually sure that Iran’s leaders have authorised the extra restricted response in opposition to US positions.
Did Khamenei pay attention?
A clue to the regime’s response to the US message got here within the protection of the US strikes by Iranian state media. For hours, there was silence throughout the regime shops. Lastly, the English-language web site Press TV talked about the US missiles. Nonetheless, it did so in an article which gave a lot of the emphasis to additional militia assaults on US positions.
The indications are that the regime – having been cautioned by Saudi Arabia in addition to the US – doesn’t desire a regional struggle. The supreme chief got here to energy after the Iran-Iraq Warfare of 1980-88 wherein tons of of hundreds of Iranians – together with as much as 30,000 executed by Iran’s leaders – perished. He pulled again from struggle in Afghanistan in 1998 after the Taliban killed ten Iranian diplomats. He shook his fist, together with token assaults on bases with US personnel, however averted a showdown after the US assassinated Iran’s main commander, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020.
With Israel now beginning a floor offensive into Gaza, Tehran can flip its preliminary defence over Hamas’s mass murders – “that is the work of Palestinians themselves,” Khamenei mentioned – into political offence, calling for the world to unite in opposition to the Israelis.
However the regime won’t publicly rule out getting concerned in an armed confrontation. On October 15, Amir-Abdollahian introduced: “We’ve got conveyed our message to Israel by way of its allies that if they don’t stop their atrocities in Gaza, Iran can not merely stay an observer.”
Two days later, Khamenei expanded the purpose: “If the crimes of the Zionist regime proceed, Muslims and resistance forces will change into impatient, and nobody can cease them.” And so forth Sunday, three days after the US strikes, Press TV ran with the headline: Simultaneous Assaults Hit 3 US Bases in Syria.
The drone and rocket present of the militias, overseen by the Revolutionary Guards, will go on. And from that present might come the regional struggle that nobody desires. If one of many militia assaults causes important casualties amongst US personnel, the always-circling forged of hawks in Washington – amongst activists, lobbyists, and legislators – will demand escalation. That might additional unsettle a fractured Syria and a perpetually unstable Iraq. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, settling for skirmishes on Israel’s northern border to date, and its Iranian interlocutors may danger wider assaults.
The Biden administration was at nice pains to say that Thursday’s strikes had nothing to do with the Israel-Gaza violence. That, after all, is a facade. Whereas US tensions with Iran are rooted within the soil of post-2003 Iraq and the Assad management’s devastation of Syria from 2011, the supreme chief and his allies will seize most benefit from lethal Israeli operations in Gaza.
Solely a halt to these operations will curb the manoeuvres of Khamenei and his commanders – together with the lobbing of rockets on the “US occupation forces”.
