It's Iran's move now The Associated Press by Adam Schreck Asia-Pacific news director 28 October 2024
“Iran is boxed in”
Extracts: How the Islamic Republic chooses to respond to the unusually public Israeli aerial assault on its homeland could determine whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence
In the coldly calculating realm of Middle East geopolitics, a strike of the magnitude that Israel delivered Saturday would typically be met with a forceful response
A likely option would be another round of the ballistic missile barrages that Iran has already launched twice this year -- Israel now got THAAD and 100 American troops operating it
Retaliating militarily would allow Iran’s clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the militant groups battling Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance
It is too soon to say whether Iran’s leadership will follow that path
Tehran may decide against forcefully retaliating directly for now, not least because doing so might reveal its weaknesses and invite a more potent Israeli response, analysts say
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“Iran will play down the impact of the strikes which are in fact quite serious”
said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House
Satellite images show damage from Israeli attack at 2 secretive Iranian military bases
Vakil said,
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“Iran is boxed in” by military and economic constraints and the uncertainty caused by the US election and its impact on American policy in the region
Even while the Mideast wars rage, Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling his nation wants a new nuclear deal with the US to ease crushing international sanctions
