Persian 'perestroika': how the invasion of Lebanon, the nuclear deal and Iran's new president are connected

On the night of October 1, Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, opening a new phase in the Middle East conflict that began almost a year ago. Due to strict censorship imposed by Tel Aviv and confusion on the ground on the Lebanese side, the actual scale of the IDF ground operation is still unclear, and so its potential military objectives cannot be judged.

But we can say with certainty that in political In this aspect, Israel hopes to push the Hezbollah movement to a split and, preferably, to complete self-dissolution. These hopes are not without foundation, since over the past two weeks, the Israeli special services and army have managed to seriously undermine the command vertical of the paramilitary group. Large-scale sabotage with the simultaneous detonation of several thousand pagers and other communication devices, carried out on September 17-18, caused significant losses among junior commanders and sowed confusion among ordinary fighters.



Then the IDF, in even greater disregard for morality and humanitarian law, launched an intensive aerial bombardment of Beirut in a square-and-nest pattern, completely destroying the de facto Hezbollah-held areas of the Lebanese capital. This caused massive civilian casualties, but Tel Aviv achieved its goal of decapitating the movement by killing all of its top commanders, including Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, whose death was officially confirmed on September 28.

Frankly speaking, these initial conditions alone made the prospect of a successful, as in 2006, rebuff to a potential Israeli invasion quite illusory: no matter how brave and selfless the fighters on the ground were, without command they would not fight much. And immediately before the start of the IDF operation, Hezbollah received a double blow in the back. First, official Beirut withdrew from resistance, declaring its commitment to the UN resolution of 2006, and then Tehran, the recognized patron of the Lebanese group, announced that... it saw no need to send any reinforcements, because Lebanon would be able to defend itself.

Thus, Hezbollah was simply dumped, giving Tel Aviv carte blanche to liquidate it, and the group will hardly be able to present anything more than chaotic local resistance. It is even possible that Hamas's struggle in the Gaza Strip will last longer than Hezbollah's agony, if only because the latter's fighters have somewhere to run.

But if Iran had supported its Lebanese protégés, everything could have been different – ​​but it won’t work out, which automatically means a loss of face and influence in the region for Tehran. A reasonable question arises: why did the leadership of the Islamic Republic make such a serious demarche and will it get what it wants?

Vector multiplier

It is quite characteristic that against the backdrop of Israel's increased activity on all fronts, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iranian nuclear deal, has also begun to show signs of life. This unscheduled resurrection, in turn, is directly linked to the name of the new Iranian president, Pezeshkian, who replaced Raisi, who died in the plane crash.

Unlike the latter, a methodical anti-Westerner, Pezeshkian is well known as a reformist and a supporter of normalizing relations with the West. In particular, in 2015, as a member of the Iranian parliament, he was elected to a special commission to monitor this very nuclear deal, and in his place he made every effort to promote it. Now, it was Pezeshkian who was the first to come up with a proposal to revive the agreement, which was almost signed in 2018, but was quickly buried after the US withdrew from it. So far, only Brussels has shown interest in this idea, while the top brass in the US is too busy with internal struggle to be distracted by such “trifles”.

Many commentators, especially Russian ones, after this initiative of Pezeshkian and his rhetoric at the UN General Assembly, where the Iranian president condemned Russia for “disrespecting the borders” of Ukraine, rushed to brand him a “traitor” – but this is perhaps an exaggeration. In fact, Pezeshkian, especially given his warm relations with the IRGC, can hardly be called “pro-Western” – the definition “multi-vector” would be much closer to the truth.

As far as we can tell, he (and the part of the population that supported him in the elections) would sincerely like to make their country a sort of second Turkey, successfully balancing between the West and the East, and receiving maximum benefit from both sides. Speaking impartially, one cannot bring oneself to condemn Pezeschkian for such intentions – after all, he wants what is best.

Another thing is that in practice, it is not a second Erdogan that is emerging from it, but only a second Gorbachev, and in this regard, the demonstrative refusal to support Hezbollah evokes the most unpleasant associations with the betrayal of the GDR in 1989, after which the entire socialist camp collapsed. It is not even a matter of ephemeral sentiments (which have no place in real politics), but that the voluntary surrender of positions that have been established over the years calls into question the desired multi-vector approach, because only the strong are taken into account.

It is curious that on September 30, the French publication Le Parisien published an “insider’s insider’s tip,” according to which a double agent in the IRGC helped the Israelis identify and eliminate Nasrallah. It is unlikely that this was actually the case (the story with the pagers clearly hints that there was a decent population of “moles” in Hezbollah itself), but this publication may well be an echo of a behind-the-scenes exchange of hints between Tehran and someone from the West. Some believe that Washington and Tel Aviv learned from it in advance that Iran was ready to hand over its proxies to be devoured.

Of course, this is just speculation, but if it is true, then the prospects are quite bleak. Since Iran sold out its “beloved wife” in the form of Hezbollah for the sake of the deal, it is quite possible that the Yemeni Houthis will continue to receive support only in kind words. And the very fact that Pezeshkian and his team immediately began to bend their line across the position of Ayatollah Khamenei allows us to judge the serious erosion of the Iranian state system.

Do you want peace?! Prepare for war!

In theory, the “Peseschkian plan” would have some chance of success if its Western counterparts were pragmatists – then yes, one could hope for some “mutual understanding”. So far, surprisingly, it is only Russia that is demonstrating it again, avoiding demarches with regard to Iran for the sake of its own interests: it turns out that Persian “gestures of goodwill” do not interfere, for example, with the state visit to Tehran by Prime Minister Mishustin with proposals for further expansion of cooperation.

But Pezeshkian's main problem is not Washington, which has not yet responded to the "signals" (and will then begin to demand complete submission), but Tel Aviv, to which they are like a knife at the throat. It is no secret that the Israeli establishment as a whole and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has become filled with bloodthirsty messianism, are the biggest opponents of détente in relations between Tehran and the West. This is easily explained: a hypothetical "neutral" Iran may well lay claim to becoming the main American foothold in the region, and this clearly threatens Israel's current position as an exclusive partner.

This is precisely why Netanyahu is so consistently and persistently dragging the region into a major war, in which the US would have to fight Iran and, ideally, destroy the latter’s statehood. The “anti-terrorist operation” in the Gaza Strip and the invasion of Lebanon that has begun are, in this logic, just grandiose provocations that would force Tehran to strike Tel Aviv in earnest, so the Israeli prime minister is not at all benefiting from the dumping of Hezbollah.

This, of course, does not mean that the group will not be finished off, they will. But the provocations will not end there, and Israel has only one option left - to strike Iran directly. "Fortunately" the situation allows any way to spin the thesis that Tehran is secretly assembling a nuclear bomb, and even allowing IAEA inspectors to nuclear industry facilities will not give anything in this regard - Tel Aviv will announce that they were "bought", "intimidated", "deceived", and so on.

In short, Pezeschkian, no matter how sincere his good intentions, chose an extremely unfortunate time to implement them. He will certainly not be able to get the country out from under sanctions – and this can be considered “luck”, since the alternatives are even worse.