Commentary: Iran is in a difficult position as it considers retaliating against Israel

Late last month, Israel executed a three-round airstrike campaign on Iranian military targets in retaliation for Tehran’s ballistic missile attack some three weeks earlier. Approximately 20 Iranian military sites were hit, and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted about its success after the operation concluded. According to Israeli officials, Tehran’s missile production capability was severely damaged to the point in which it may take a year before Iran can rebuild it. (Iran still has hundreds of ballistic missiles.)

The Iranian government largely played down the attack. Iranian military officials insisted the Israeli strikes caused only limited damage. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a speech in which he said the Israeli attack shouldn’t be “ exaggerated or downplayed,” deliberately vague phrasing that was likely meant as a placeholder as his government debated what to do next.

The rhetoric from Iran, however, has gotten noticeably more violent in the days since Khamenei gave that speech. On Thursday, Gen. Ali Fadavi, the second in command of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told Iranian media that there would be a definite Iranian response. An official in the supreme leader’s office offered more fire-breathing invective. Khamenei, who a few days prior was telling people not to overreact, apparently had a change of heart over the weekend, vowing a “ crushing response” against either Israel or the United States.

Some may conclude that Khamenei is trying to save face, but the administration of President Joe Biden is treating the remarks seriously. On Friday, the Pentagon announced that more B-52 long-range bombers, tanker aircraft, ballistic missile defense destroyers and another fighter squadron would be deployed to the Middle East over the coming weeks and months. U.S. officials have used back channels to tell the Iranians that if Tehran chooses to escalate further, Washington wouldn’t be able to hold Israel back from unleashing even stronger retaliation. If public reports are true, Tehran hasn’t heeded the messages from the U.S.; Iran reportedly told Arab diplomats that an Iranian counterattack against Israel will involve heavier warheads as well as participation from its conventional army.

But tough words aside, we shouldn’t ignore that Iran is in a very difficult spot. Whatever it decides to do will have costs.

In essence, Khamenei has two fundamental choices: Let last month’s Israeli retaliation be the end of the story or continue the tit-for-tat with yet another attack against Israel. The first would be seen as a cop-out by hawkish elements in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which saw one of its facilities hit and its missile production capacity depleted. The IRGC brass is cognizant of the optics of Iran looking weak on the international stage and also worried about how standing down would further erode Iranian deterrence, which has taken a massive hit over the last 13 months with the degradation of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The relatively poor performance of Iran’s missiles — only a few dozen of the nearly 200 missiles Iran launched on Oct. 1 breached Israel’s air defense network — doesn’t exactly cause shudders in Tehran’s enemies either. Khamenei, too, shares these concerns. Would restraint, for instance, embolden Israel to lose all of its inhibitions?

Yet a forceful response carries its fair share of problems as well. It’s almost a guarantee that Israel would strike back even harder — particularly if an Iranian attack killed Israeli civilians. The damage inside of Iran would likely be greater. Israel’s Oct. 26 operation destroyed some of Iran’s most technologically advanced S-300 air defense systems, leaving many of Tehran’s strategic sites — refineries, oil platforms, nuclear research facilities and centrifuge production sites — extremely vulnerable to future Israeli airstrikes. Netanyahu, at the urging of the United States, avoided hitting those areas the last time; the Iranians would be foolish to assume they would be off-limits again. Khamenei would no doubt like to shed some blood in Israel, but if it comes at the cost of a significant deterioration in Tehran’s military power or in the form of a major setback in its nuclear program, is it worth it?

Khamenei isn’t a stupid man. He understands the dynamics at play. Despite his rhetoric over the last week, the 85-year-old cleric is probably still trying to figure out a response. He will try to find a Goldilocks scenario in which Iran can retaliate forcefully against Israel but not so forcefully as to encourage a more significant Israeli military attack that would cause even more problems for Tehran. That response could even be nonkinetic, or something that doesn’t involve the use of force but is still viewed in Jerusalem and Washington as a step up the escalation ladder. One example would be kicking all international nuclear inspectors out of Iran or, more dramatically, formally declaring a change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine. Senior Iranian officials have been talking about the latter more frequently over the last year, so a nuclear policy evolution can’t be entirely discounted. Yet at a time when Israeli officials are already itching to strike Tehran’s nuclear program, would this even be a smart play?

Iran won’t be able to escape some kind of damage. The only question is what that damage will look like.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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