Hamas political leader Ismail Haniya was assassinated in Tehran on Wednesday, after attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masud Pezeshkian. On Thursday, at a funeral in the Iranian capital that official media have described as a “state funeral”, the speaker of parliament, Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, deplored how “difficult” it was for his country that a “guest” had been killed on its soil. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, personally led the funeral oration. At his side, a contrite Pezeshkian, the devout and moderate surgeon who during his campaign took on the challenge of detente abroad, which was expected to lead to a possible resumption of negotiations on the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers – the United States, under Donald Trump, unilaterally abandoned it. The deal allowed for the lifting of international sanctions against Iran in exchange for supervision of the country’s atomic programme to ensure that it does not intend to manufacture nuclear weapons. The explosion that killed Haniya not only blew up a possible ceasefire in Gaza. It also complicated the foreign relations scenario for Iran’s first reformist president in 15 years and reinforced the theses of the ultra-conservative faction of the Islamic Republic, hostile to understanding with the West, according to several experts.
Iran has vowed to respond to an attack it blames on Israel, while the government of that country, its regional nemesis, remains silent. The “recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon [Israel sí ha reconocido el asesinato el martes de Fuad Shukr, considerado el número dos del partido-milicia chií Hezbolá, en Beirut] and, more importantly, in Tehran, will definitely complicate Pezeshkian’s ability to initiate a small reset in Iran’s foreign relations with the Western world,” explains Rouzbeh Parsi, head of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs think tank, via WhatsApp.
Immediately after Haniya’s assassination, Iranian sources quoted by the website Amwaj.mediaIran’s Supreme National Security Council, the body that decides on matters of security and foreign policy, has been confirmed to have held an emergency meeting. While the supreme leader has the final say on the country’s foreign relations, Pezeshkian presides over the body as head of government. It also includes military leaders, especially those of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, the shadow army that executes Iranian regional policy through its Al Quds (Jerusalem) Force. This elite unit supports and trains Iran’s allied non-state actors that make up the “Axis of Resistance,” an alliance against Israel and American influence in the Middle East. Its most prominent ally is Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen.
Khamenei himself participated in the meeting to study how Iran will respond to the assassination of the Palestinian leader – confirmed by an analyst who spoke to this newspaper anonymously from Iran. Rouzbeh Parsi believes that, beyond how that response is carried out, “one of the consequences” of the attack “has been to ruin the negotiations with the West.”
The precedent
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On April 14, Iran responded to an Israeli attack that destroyed its consulate in Damascus and killed General Mohamed Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Quds Force. In response, Tehran attacked Israeli territory for the first time with drones and missiles. This measured offensive, which caused no deaths, allowed the theocratic regime to claim that mutual deterrence with Israel had been restored, a balance that Haniya’s assassination has upset again.
Since then, the analyst notes, “Iran’s strategy has shifted from strategic patience to active deterrence, which involves a direct response to Israeli attacks. The need to respond to assassination has become a requirement for the Islamic Republic. In this sense, no reformist will oppose a response,” he says, referring to Pezeshkian.
Rouzbeh Parsi agrees that while “the perception of Iran’s security needs does not necessarily differ much among reformists [como Pezeshkian] and the more conservative elements of the system,” there can be divergences “on the exact methods.” This is where the difference lies between a response that would trigger a war in the Middle East and a mere measured exchange of mutual aggression, such as in April, when the Iranian onslaught was followed by a symbolic attack by Israel against Iran.
“There are those in the Revolutionary Guard who believe that Israel is a strategic rival and that war is inevitable. But it is also clear that no one in Iran necessarily wants this war now, so they understand that Israel has once again set a trap for them,” the expert from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs stresses. The question is “how Iran can defy the trap without falling into it. Falling into it would mean responding to Israel in such a way that [el primer ministro israelí, Benjamín] Netanyahu can return to the US and say: ‘We are under attack’, thus forcing the president [Joe Biden] to intervene, in which case we would be facing a total regional war.”
Haizam Amirah Fernandez, an analyst specializing in Middle Eastern international relations, believes that Israel “has no interest at all in Iran having a normalized relationship with the West,” something that “an Israeli government dominated by extremists cannot tolerate.”
The assassination of Haniya, just as the Iranian president had just taken office, is “one of the toughest tests a country can be subjected to.” [Irán] which already feels harassed and surrounded by enemies; an attack on its territory, its capital and supposedly well-protected facilities [Haniya se alojaba en una residencia oficial]”. This expert believes that “extremists around the world often try to push their rivals into extreme positions as well.” He then points out that, on this occasion, “the Iranian regime is being much more restrained than the Israeli regime.”
Mohamed Marandi is an Iranian academic, professor of English Literature at the University of Tehran, who is considered close to the authorities. From Tehran, he predicts that “the Iranian response will undoubtedly be decisive” and that we are already “in an escalation.” Now it is up to the US to “control its rabid dog in Tel Aviv,” he says, referring to the Netanyahu government, so that a regional war does not break out. In his opinion, the one who has the most to lose if such a conflict breaks out in the Middle East will be Washington.
“Iran’s priority is not a nuclear deal, which is irrelevant to the assassination of Ismail Haniya,” says the Iranian analyst, who stresses that Pezeshkian’s position is that “the US has to change its mentality and behaviour towards Tehran if it wants a deal. Iran is not going to make any concessions.” His country, he continues, “will punish the Israeli regime regardless of what the US wants to do regarding the negotiations.” His country’s new president is, Marandi says, “one of the staunchest supporters of the Palestinian cause, in whose defence Iranians almost universally believe. The question of Palestine is not something that belongs to one faction or another.” [conservadores o reformistas]”.
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