Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile offensive against Israel on Saturday has brought the long-running shadow war between the two countries into the open. For more than four decades, Tehran and Tel Aviv have been confronting each other indirectly through Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Though the IRGC (The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) has, in the past, ordered its proxy militias to launch acts of terrorism against Israeli citizens and interests in the region or beyond, the Iranian regime never admitted having been involved directly in a conflict with the state of Israel. Similarly, Israel neither confirmed nor denied its role in the killings of the Iranian nuclear scientists, three years ago.
More recently, Iranian authorities did not spell out clearly their role in the attacks initiated by Hamas on Israel on October 7. The Hamas and Hezbollah leaders were careful to not mention the Iranian role in this operation. However, the Iranian state has benefited from the Gaza conflict and the chaos in the Middle East to strengthen its hegemony in the region.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions
The Islamic Republic of Iran has never considered itself as a passive player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three weeks ago, Senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials travelled to Iran likely to discuss their ongoing confrontation against Israel in the Gaza Strip, and across the Middle East, with Iranian officials. In February, the head of Iran’s Quds Force visited Beirut to discuss the possibility of a joint operation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. This was after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had indicated Israel’s plans to increase attacks on Hezbollah in the event of a possible ceasefire in the Gaza conflict. As a result, over the past months, the Iranian regime has been mindful that a wider war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah could lead to strikes on Iran’s nuclear installations.
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Iran’s nuclear programme continues to remain largely unchecked, creating additional complexities and problems for the Americans, Europeans and the Middle Eastern countries already embroiled in the Gaza crisis. Iranian officials have repeatedly insisted that Tehran is not seeking an atomic bomb and that the only thing that could provoke it to develop one would be an Israeli attack on the Iranian homeland. Despite Tehran’s diplomatic efforts in persuading the Biden administration and the Europeans about the absence of an Iranian bomb, Israelis continue to believe that there is no other way to contain Iran’s nuclear programme except through military intervention.
An anti-missile system operates after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel April 14, 2024. REUTERS
Iran-Israel’s cat and mouse game
As for Iran, despite its past “prudent” tactics regarding Israel, the situation in Gaza and beyond has been highly critical. The Iranian regime has had to constantly assure Iranians and the regime’s proxies in the Middle East that it had not lost the game against Israel in the Gaza conflict. Therefore, the more the war in Gaza dragged on, the chances of a direct conflict between the two countries increased.
It is interesting that Israel did not publicly claim responsibility for the April 1 attack against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus and did not notify Washington of the strike. The urgency for Iran to retaliate for the attack on its Consulate in Damascus could have been avoided had the UN Security Council condemned the strike. In response to the Israeli attack, the naval forces of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a Portuguese-flagged vessel connected to Israel near the Strait of Hormuz. In addition to this, Iran’s drone and missile attack against Israel was the only way for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the IRGC to not lose face in the great power conflict in the Middle East.
Self-appointed Middle East leader
The Iranian strategy towards the Middle East has overdetermined its desire for hegemony over the region, including the Palestinian territory. Iran considers itself as a model state, with a special task to create geopolitical changes in the Middle East. Since 1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader and his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, have helmed a foreign policy in which Iran acts as the self-appointed leader of the world’s Shia Muslims. It aspires for direct influence in Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese politics. The IRGC relies upon its subordinate element, the Quds Force, which according to Ayatollah Khamenei, is committed to “establish popular Hezbollah cells all over the world.”
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Iran’s response to regional challenges and opportunities in the aftermath of its war with Iraq involved an offensive and defensive strategy that involved the creation of a network of proxies. This vast network of allies and proxies was built and maintained by the Quds Force which was led by Qassem Soleimani after 1998.
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The Syrian conflict served as a powerful test of Iran’s external military doctrine. Consequently, the Iranian regime used the US’s alleged role in the assassination of Soleimani as a new source of legitimacy for the IRGC. By driving religious and nationalist sentiments and turning attention away from the failings of the Shiite leaders in Baghdad and Lebanon, it gave a lifeline to the Iranian leadership and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.
In the past few years, Israel and the US have been dealing heavily with most of Iran’s proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. While the Houthis no longer have the upper hand in the conflict in Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah will also have many difficulties in securing the support of the non-Shiite Lebanese population if it enters a war with Israel.
At this stage, Tehran does not support any widening of the fighting with Israel, especially because its young population does not seem ideologically inclined to go to war. Yet, it also seems to believe that the Netanyahu government’s failures have restricted Israel’s options in case of a confrontation with Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel will remain the two great military powers in the Middle East. In case their conflict escalates into a war, both could be handicapped by the lack of common sense.
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The writer is Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Nonviolence and Peace at OP Jindal Global University
