Extracts: Tehran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are likely carefully weighing the cost and benefit of different responses and in the meantime trying to raise fears in Israel while assauging their own
Several experts told Breaking Defense while a response is inevitable, it’s likely Tehran is taking its time to consider precisely how to retaliate in a delicate, high-stakes moment — and weighing their own vulnerability to Israel’s expected counterpunch afterwards
The situation “necessitates a careful calculation of their response — a strike that must be perceived as more than nothing and less than a thing”
Firas Maksad, director of strategic outreach and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, likewise said Iran
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“cannot respond with haste when the stakes are so high for its national security interests"
Ali Bakir, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, told Breaking Defense
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“In other words, it should be seen as more than a face-saving strike and less than a serious blow that would trigger a full-scale war. This is not an easy mission to execute, as any miscalculation could inadvertently lead Iran into a war it neither desires nor is equipped to win.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies agreed that it was “the simplest and most likely explanation” that Iran is still weighing exactly what to do, while sorting through the geopolitical consequences of action. He said
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“Namely, the regime is trying to figure out how to generate the political dividends of another overt and direct military attack against Israel and bolster its deterrence while also not eliciting a greater military response by Israel that could lead to both ruin and embarrassment,”
according to Bilal Saab, head of US-Middle East Practice and advisor in the Scientific and Academic Council at TRENDS research and advisory, a consulting firm
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“In other words, they want to sow fear and panic in Israel.”
Saab added that this strategy is also designed “to attract as much world and media attention as possible on Iran and its status and military capabilities. They want everyone to watch the upcoming spectacle”
An added bonus, Saab said, was the “financial strain” put on the US military which has rotated forces to the region to potentially help with air defense and deter wider conflict.
Bakir and analyst David Des Roches suggested another potential cause for delay: personal fear in Tehran about what Israel may do in response to an attack
Bakir said Iran is likely first trying to root out any Israeli infiltration of its security apparatus that made the strike in Tehran possible in the first place before responding
Des Roches, associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Security Studies, told Breaking Defense
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that part of Israel’s “strategic deterrence” keeping Iran from going overboard is the fact they’ve shown “they can assassinate anybody in Iran. “[And] so I think that [the response] will be limited
As the Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, indicated however the psychological aspect of waiting to attack is also very real that the waiting was partly psychological warfare designed to keep Jerusalem on edge
