How Iran could take revenge against Israel

I recently returned from a trip to the southeast Syrian province of Deir ez-Zur, where I witnessed Kurdish and American soldiers in a tense face-off against Iranian and proxy forces along the Euphrates River line. After making my way home to Jerusalem via Iraq, Jordan and northern Israel, I had hoped for a couple of days respite from the Middle East and its attentions.

No such luck. A terse message arrived in my community WhatsApp group: “The Home Front Command has this evening updated the list of required items, in an article at its national emergency portal. In contrast to the previous list, the current list includes food and water in accordance with the needs of the household. It remains subject to change.”

Either way, I’ve stocked up on bottled water and tinned tuna.

A day after I left Deir ez-Zur for the Syrian border, on March 26, an Israeli air raid on Iranian targets in the province killed sixteen Revolutionary Guardsmen (IRGC).  The attack was part of an ongoing Israeli bombing campaign in Syria that used to be called the “war between wars” in Israel. No one calls it that anymore: since October 7, we are no longer “between wars.”

The outbreak of war in Gaza and the efforts of Iranian client militias to strike at Israel from Lebanon and Syria has led to a sharp intensification of Israel’s bombing campaign against these forces. Defense minister Yoav Gallant is known for wanting to take a particularly hard line against Iran’s efforts to advance and consolidate its area of control in Syria. Iran seeks a contiguous path through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Israel. Jerusalem is engaged in an ongoing effort to disrupt and frustrate this ambition.  

On April 1, the Israeli campaign against Iran in Syria took a further sharp escalatory turn. The killing of IRGC Quds Force Brigadier-General Mohammed Reza Zahedi, along with two other Quds Force generals and nine additional personnel, was probably the most vicious blow for Iran’s proxy warfare capability since the US killed former Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani on the road from Baghdad Airport on January 3, 2020. Zahedi, a veteran IRGC operator, was the commander of Iran’s proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon. The attack came just a day after Zahedi’s arrival in Damascus — Israeli intelligence capacity in the Syrian capital is clearly very advanced.

Zahedi is not the first senior IRGC commander to die at the hands of Israel in Syria since October. Sayyid Reeza Mousavi, a senior Quds Force officer, was killed in a strike on his south Damascus home on Christmas Day. Sadegh Omidzadegh, an IRGC general who ran the Quds Force’s intelligence operations in Syria, was killed along with four other senior Iranian officials, in an Israeli airstrike on the Mezzeh district of Damascus. Neither of these men, however, nor any of the other Iranians killed on Syrian soil since October 2023 held the stature, influence and power of Zahedi.  

The Iranians have unsurprisingly vowed revenge. “We will make them regret this crime and other similar ones with the help of God,” was the response of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. “No move by any enemy against our sacred system goes unanswered,” IRGC head Hossein Salami said in a televised speech over the weekend. Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy militia, said that the killing of Zahedi marked a “turning point” in the current conflict on Friday. In another speech Sunday, Nasrallah said: “The Americans and Israelis recognize that the Iranian response to the attack on the Iranian consulate is coming.” Ramadan ended Monday: the period has always been one of heightened antagonism between Israel and Iran.

Tehran has essentially four broad options. It could hit an Israeli or Jewish facility overseas using either Iranian state forces (option one), or proxies (option two). In 1992, IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives struck at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1994, eighty-five people were killed at the Amia Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in a car bombing organized once again by the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah. Since then, Iran has attempted attacks on Israeli diplomatic facilities and personnel on many occasions, in India in 2012 and 2021, in Georgia in 2012, in Azerbaijan in 2023, without notable success.  

Then there’s the third option: Tehran could also direct its proxies to strike Israel directly. Just a week ago, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (a group of Iran-supported Shia proxy militias) claimed responsibility for the launch of a suicide drone at a target in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. Eilat has also been targeted by the Houthis, Tehran’s clients in Yemen. The Houthis succeeded in penetrating Israeli airspace for the first time on March 24, when a ballistic missile landed north of Eilat. Finally, Iran could strike Israeli soil directly (option four). It is the most risky option for Tehran, and would be likely to precipitate open war between the regime and Israel.  

Tehran will consider all four options carefully. It has failed to retaliate in kind for a number of high-profile assassinations of its operatives in recent years Soleimani’s death in 2020, the killing of nuclear supremo Mohsen Fakhrizadeh outside Teheran in the same year and the killing of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008 all went without serious retribution. A failure to respond, or staging too small a response, risks conveying a message of weakness.  

Iran usually favors using proxies over staging direct attacks. In an unkind formulation common in Israel, Tehran is prepared to “fight to the last Arab.” (Iranians are obviously Persian, unlike their Arab proxies.) Tehran will also know that open conflict with Israel might well eventually draw in the United States. Because of all this, the Iranian response to General Zahedi’s demise will most likely not be a direct Iranian attack on Israel. Either way, I’ve stocked up on bottled water and tinned tuna. Just in case.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.