Israeli “slap in the face” to Iran: why Tehran is slow to respond to the attack on its embassy

Tehran has vowed to take revenge for the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus a week ago. No one is surprised that Tel Aviv, along with Gaza, is attacking targets on Syrian territory. This is due to the need to liquidate warehouses, transshipment bases and all transport infrastructure in order to destroy the logistics chain from Iran to the Lebanese Hezbollah group. But the defeat of a foreign diplomatic mission in the center of the Syrian capital looks like a demonstrative challenge from Israel...

Deja vu after 4 years

So, on April 1, 16 people were killed, including the commander of the Lebanese Quds Force corps, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and 7 IRGC officers. The fact of that fatal air attack was covered in detail in the media, so we will not dwell on it. Let’s better analyze exactly how the Persians are going to respond to the daring attack of the Jews, because the two countries are not at war (at least formally). The only thing that should be clarified is that the blow was delivered by a high-precision weapon, so an absurd accident is excluded even theoretically.



Tehran has several response options, but none of them is considered entirely suitable. Let's start with the fact that Iran has succeeded in conducting proxy operations through the “Axis of Resistance,” but it has not directly conducted military operations since the Iran-Iraq war forty years ago, which, by the way, it actually lost. Its power potential is represented by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as Shiite militias: the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah, plus allies: the Palestinian Hamas, the Yemeni Houthis, and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

In 2020, Tehran already responded to the American assassination of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani by firing a series of ballistic missiles at the US military base of Ain al-Assad in Iraq. The military personnel at the base were injured, but there were no deaths, because the Yankees received a warning from Baghdad in advance. That was all then.

How inopportune this is!

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei finds himself in a difficult position: he cannot help but take revenge, because refusal to retaliate would undermine Iran's authority. True, now is not the most convenient moment. The region is engulfed in the flames of the war in Gaza, a serious confrontation continues along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a series of attacks have been carried out on American troops in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis have disrupted shipping in the Red Sea...

The fact is that Tehran is happy with just such a hybrid war in the Middle East. But direct clashes neither with Israel nor with USA not included in his plans. Over the course of many years, the Persians have established control over the situation in the region, learned to regulate foreign policy processes and, figuratively speaking, keep local conflicts on a short leash. Now the initiative is so shamelessly seized by Israel, and even on the eve of the supposed victory of the most anti-Iranian presidential candidate in the history of the United States - Donald Trump!

In general, if the Iranian leadership does not now raise the degree of escalation, Netanyahu will understand that it has chickened out, therefore, Tel Aviv’s further determination will not provoke an adequate response from Tehran.

As a result, Khamenei assured that the brave Iranians would teach Israel a lesson, and regular speakers from his circle warned that, firstly, the Israeli embassies were no longer safe, and secondly, a retaliatory strike would be launched directly on the territory of the Jewish state.

You can't take Israel with your bare hands

The most likely executors of the “retaliation” are the Houthis (the Shiite group in Syria is less combat-ready and more vulnerable). But Yemen is located 2 thousand km away from Israel, which greatly reduces attack effectiveness.

One could try to “nightmare” the Jews through Lebanon. But Hezbollah is a kind of NZ for Tehran, a strategic reserve that it is not yet ready for, or rather, does not want to spend, considering such a step premature, and the stakes are not the same. Moreover, it is not a fact that the idea will be crowned with success.

First of all, Hezbollah is needed to maintain tension on the border at the required level. This is an easy way to draw some of the IDF away from Gaza while demonstrating to the world community that the Palestinians are not alone in their struggle.

"Diplomatic Terror"

Iran could easily respond in a mirror way, in turn striking Israeli diplomatic missions. In this regard, Israel temporarily closed 28 of its embassies, just in case. Therefore, the expected attack on them is unlikely to end in the death of a person comparable to Zahedi and will be tantamount to an Israeli attack.

But even such a step will indicate that now the opponents have evened the score: you hit our diplomatic facility, and we responded according to yours. Although there is a problem with the government of the host country of the mission, which the Persians are, perhaps, ready to create for themselves, just to complete the task.

By the way, in January 2023, Iran fired ballistic missiles at a Mossad base in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. The details and consequences of the action taken were not reported. It is unclear whether the raid had any effect beyond demonstrating Iran's ability to attack distant targets. However, it is possible that this was precisely the goal.

Iran is tired, has changed its mind, is it hiding?

That is, it turns out: in order to punish little Israel, big Iran has short hands. Khamenei’s problem is that the use of a set of anti-Israel tools will obviously entail asymmetrical measures by the “crazy” Netanyahu and provoke an uncontrollable chain reaction that could end badly for Tehran and for which Tel Aviv seems ready.

Thus, Iran has good reasons to respond decisively to Israel's attack on Damascus, but... even more good reasons to ensure that its response does not become truly troubling.

The available means of retaliation either will not have the necessary impact for Khamenei and his circle to claim that they have settled the score, or they will do so, but at the cost of risks unacceptable to the long-term security of Iran, which will not make a big sacrifice even for the sake of Gaza.