Placards bearing a kneeling Netanyahu, slogans “Death to America”, Palestinian flags and Hezbollah emblems brandished by children: in Tehran and in many Iranian cities, the usual celebrations of the hostage taking of the American embassy in 1979 have transformed into pro-Palestinian rallies in the fall of 2023. “The Iranians are using the Palestinians today to put themselves back at the center of the discussion and embody the spokespersons for the Palestinian cause,” comments Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, in Washington. The shadow of Tehran has loomed over Israel since the massacres by Hamas on October 7, an organization aided and financed for years by the Iranian regime.
Between the Jewish State and the Islamic Republic, the clandestine war has lasted for several decades and has intensified since the 2010s. Israel has targeted nuclear facilities with cyberattacks, carried out targeted assassinations of scientists, attacked Shiite militia positions in Syria… Through Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Islamic Jihad, Tehran, for its part, seeks to permanently pose an existential threat to Israel. The Israelis continued their pressure, notably with strikes in mid-October against the Damascus airport and Aleppo to prevent the delivery of weapons to Lebanese Hezbollah.
Tehran has already achieved its first objectives in this crisis: to weaken Israel and derail the normalization process between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia. But the Iranian project goes further. On October 17, in a minimalist setting, Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei delivered an anti-American and anti-Western diatribe. Displayed behind him are the faces of seven Iranian scientists murdered in the 2010s, murders that Tehran has always attributed to the Jewish state. The message to Americans and Israelis is clear: the Islamic Republic has launched its revenge.
“Since October 7, Iran has been very active diplomatically to isolate Israel and the United States. They have called on the countries of the Muslim world to cut their relations with Israel, with some success,” notes Alex Vatanka . Bahrain, which had normalized its relations with the Jewish state as part of the Abraham Accords in 2020, recalled its ambassador in early November to denounce Israeli reprisals in the Gaza Strip.
Destabilize the United States in the region
Iran is trying to position itself as a leader of the Global South. Strengthened by its alliances with China and Russia, Tehran is also much less ostracized in the Arab-Muslim world, long divided on his support for Bashar al-Assad. As proof, the Islamic Republic chaired the social forum of the UN Human Rights Council on November 2 and 3 in Geneva. Despite the death of a new young woman, Armita Garavand, at the end of October, few voices are being raised, even in the West, to support the protest born in September 2022 against the mullahs’ regime. The country also appears to be an increasingly credible diplomatic actor: the Thais negotiated in Tehran to try to free their binational hostages held by Hamas.
One of Iran’s central objectives remains to destabilize the United States in the region. In his November 3 message, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that “the United States must pay for Israel’s crimes in Gaza and for crimes committed in Iraq.” A rhetoric echoed the next day by Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, who spoke of a “genocide carried out by the Zionist regime with the support of the United States and certain European countries”. Raz Zimmt, an expert on Iran for the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, believes that “what is certain is that American commitment helps dissuade the Iranians from join the war. Iran would have much to lose in an all-out war. “The Americans have reinforced their troops in the region and transported two aircraft carriers to the Middle East for a specific purpose: to send a message. If Tehran gets involved in this conflict, it will find itself at war with America,” underlines Yaakov Amidror, researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy.
In this zone where only Israel possesses atomic weapons (unofficially), the Iranians are continuing their nuclear program, convinced that it constitutes the only means of having a definitive basis against the Jewish state. A weapon also useful in a tense domestic context: following the death of Mahsa Ahmini in September 2022, the country is experiencing its strongest protest since 1979. On nuclear power, international negotiations are no longer moving forward and suggest that renewal of the JCPOA, the 2015 agreement torn up by Donald Trump, will not happen. And so much the better, say the most conservative voices in Tehran. “The Iranian nuclear program remains at the top of our strategic priorities, assures Ambassador Joshua Zarka, director of strategic affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They have enough material for a small arsenal. They could very soon have enough to build four bombs. Iran will take advantage of this period to advance its nuclear program, when the international community is looking elsewhere.”
No real Western strategy on Iran
In the absence of nuclear negotiations, the West must raise the question of how to “manage” Iran. “The West has no strategy on Iran, deplores Alex Vatanka. If they think that the solution to peace in the Middle East is for Iran to stop interfering, then we must “take it directly on them. Is it through military strikes or through an ambitious regime change plan? For the moment, it’s just “sanctions, sanctions, sanctions.” It’s not a strategy, but just a way for Western countries to feel better. But that doesn’t change Iranian behavior.” For Bilal Saab, Middle East specialist at Chatham House, “the Biden administration and Congress cannot simply allow themselves to be dragged into a war by Iran, they must be methodical and develop a strategy for the aftermath . Deterrence is very good, but deterrence regularly fails. Probably more than we are willing to admit…”
For the Jewish state, American caution is no longer convincing after the October 7 massacre, as Sarit Zehavi, a former member of the Israeli intelligence services, explains: “I no longer believe in deterrence. The Iranian ayatollahs work like the Russians in Ukraine, who do not stop despite the immense number of deaths. They don’t care how many Palestinians will be killed. They don’t care how many Lebanese will be killed. And I think they don’t care how many Iranians who will be killed, since they themselves are killing their population to stay in power.”
For the mullahs, the main objective, which dictates their overall strategy, remains the same: to retain power by all means. Tehran will not sacrifice its security in the name of the Palestinians. “But, warns Raz Zimmt, the Iranian strategy could very well change towards more commitment if, at some point, they have the feeling that they must preserve the “axis of resistance” and restore the balance against their enemies .”
.