Iran has retaliated against israel for its killing of several quds force generals

Iran Has Retaliated Against Israel for Its Killing of Several Quds Force Generals | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Spot analysis from Carnegie scholars on events relating to the

Middle East and North Africa. Published on April 14, 2024 BLOG DIWAN _Diwan,_ a blog from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program and the Malcolm H. Kerr

Carnegie Middle East Center, draws on Carnegie scholars to provide insight into and analysis of the region.  Learn More WHAT HAPPENED? On the night of April 13–14, Iran retaliated for the

killing by Israel of senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including Brig. Gen. Mohammed Zahedi, the commander for Syria and Lebanon, Gen. Hossein

Aminullah, the chief of staff for Syria and Lebanon, and Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hadi Haj Rahimi, the commander for Palestine. The Iranians fired around 200 missiles, cruise missiles, and drones

at Israel, but Israeli military officials said most were shot down and the destruction was minor. The Iranian retaliation had been expected, with U.S. officials even predicting the exact

time of the anticipated attack to news outlets. The considerable publicity before the event, Iranian assurances that the response would seek to avert a regional conflict, and the fact that

Iran knew that Israel and the United States would be able to monitor the launches of the missiles and drones early on and shoot down a large number of them, suggest the Iranians may have

been looking to achieve more of a psychological impact than cause major death and destruction. In this regard, few images were more powerful from the Iranian perspective than that of

missiles flying over Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This symbolized best Iranian ambitions to liberate one of Islam’s holiest sites from Israeli control, while personifying Israel’s

vulnerabilities against the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.   WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? Israel has long assumed that it’s security can only be guaranteed by ensuring that the balance of military

power with its enemies leans heavily in its favor. This harks back to the notion of the “iron wall,” first enunciated by the Revisionist Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who argued in an

essay in 1923 that Jewish colonization of Palestine had to proceed behind an “iron wall” of Zionist military superiority. The only way that Arabs would agree to the Jewish presence in

Palestine, he wrote, “is the iron wall, which is to say a strong power in Palestine that is not amenable to any Arab pressure. In other words, the only way to reach an agreement in the

future is to abandon all idea of seeking an agreement at present.” Today, that principle has been expanded by Israel to encompass the entire region. Though Jabotinsky was an enemy of the

Labor Zionists who ultimately dominated Israeli political life for decades, his idea of an “iron wall” has been embraced by Israel’s leadership and military for some time. That is why the

response to the October 7 Hamas attacks in Gaza has been so ferocious. It is also the reasoning behind the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine,” which was notably articulated by an Israeli general,

Gazi Eisenkot, currently a government minister. The doctrine, which first emerged during Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, holds that Israel will engage in a disproportionate

destruction of its foes’ civilian and military infrastructure in order to dissuade them from ever attacking Israel. However, when Israel bombed the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on

April 1, it crossed an Iranian red line. While the Iranians had more or less accepted the systematic Israeli killing of IRGC figures over the years in Syria, along with members of

Hezbollah, this could be justified by the fact that Iran was successfully setting up a military infrastructure in southern Syria with which to bomb Israel and the occupied Golan. It made no

sense to jeopardize that effort by entering into a major conflagration with the Israelis, and perhaps even the United States. The embassy compound attack was a different matter. Not only did

it affirm Israel’s willingness to ignore diplomatic protection (even though Israel’s supporters argued that the building where the IRGC figures were killed was not, technically, a

diplomatic facility), it took place in a broader context since October 7 in which Israel has sought to alter the rules of engagement in Syria and Lebanon to their advantage, narrowing Iran’s

and Hezbollah’s margin of maneuver. In other words, it went to the heart of the rivalry between Israel and Iran over regional hegemony, and it was obvious that Iran would not allow this to

happen. More worryingly, the embassy compound bombing could also have been an effort by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to drag the United States into a conflict with Iran. To

decisively weaken the Iranians and their nuclear program are Israeli priorities, but Israel needs U.S. participation in any bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic for this to succeed,

with the added hope that Iran’s leadership can be overthrown. Washington has repeatedly avoided this. According to NBC News, President Joe Biden expressed concern about Netanyahu’s

intention to provoke a wider war, and he quickly moved to limit Israel’s options.   WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE? For the immediate future, the main news item on the morning of

April 14 was Biden’s conversation with Netanyahu in which he made two things clear: First, that Iran had failed to do much damage, so that Israel should consider this a success. “You got a

win. Take the win,” Biden reportedly said. And second, in light of the Iranian failure, the United States saw no need to escalate the situation further and provoke a region-wide conflict.

Therefore, if Israel decided to hit back against Iran, the Biden administration would not participate in any such operation. How Israel will react to this remains unclear. Israel’s defense

minister, Yoav Gallant, said that the tensions with Iran “were not over,” after Netanyahu had stated, on the evening of April 13, that “Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend

ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination.” It’s conceivable that Netanyahu will chose to respond on his own, but if the aim is to reestablish an

equitable deterrent, the prime minister cannot afford to allow such a response to come up short. All the signs are that Iran retains a wide array of means to harm Israel and wear it down

through a thousand small cuts. Moreover, Netanyahu’s forces are still fighting in Gaza, so that escalating the conflict regionally would only further complicate the grinding battle against

Hamas. More generally, for the first time in its history, Israel looks dangerously exposed. The country may not be facing an existential threat, but it is reaping the fruits of a cynical

policy largely built on ignoring Palestinian and Arab rights, while blocking all avenues that might force Israel to surrender occupied land. The Iranians have exploited this well, and even

if their latest attacks did not cause major devastation, subsequent strikes, particularly ones with less prior signaling, may be much bloodier. On its own, this is enough for Iran to say

that it has reimposed a balance of deterrence, even if it remains to be seen whether further attacks against Iranian officials in Syria will invite similar retaliation from Iranian

territory. It is this perception of helplessness that is stuck in the craw of Israeli leaders. Israel has long projected an image of strength. The Iranians have succeeded in scratching that

image. It’s difficult to see how Netanyahu can go along with Biden’s suggestion that he “take a win,” when everything about Iran’s assault suggested less than that. Michael Young Editor,

Diwan, Senior Editor, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the

author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees. BLOG DIWAN _Diwan,_ a blog from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East

Program and the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, draws on Carnegie scholars to provide insight into and analysis of the region.  Learn More Michael Young Editor, Diwan, Senior

Editor, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center