Iran’s Tepid Response (So Far)

We explore why Tehran has responded so meekly to recent attacks on its top officials and close allies.

It has become a mystery in the current Middle East conflict: Why has Iran responded so meekly to recent attacks on its top officials and close allies?

The pattern began in 2020, when the U.S. killed a top Iranian military official in a drone strike. This year, Israel killed several other military officials by bombing Iran’s consulate in Syria. Then Israel assassinated a leader of Hamas — a group that Iran supports — while he was staying in a government guesthouse in Tehran. Over the past two weeks, Israel has decimated the leadership of Hezbollah, a militant group in Lebanon that’s even closer to Iran than Hamas is.

In response, Iran has done little. It fired some missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq in 2020 and shot hundreds of missiles into Israel this past April. But neither attack did major damage, and Iran didn’t follow up. So far, it has not responded to Israel’s stunning recent attacks on Hezbollah, either.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why Iran has been so quiet, with help from my colleagues who are covering the conflict.

Iran’s ambitions

The lack of response has been notable partly because of Iran’s history as an ambitious Middle Eastern power.

Its government celebrates its hostility to the United States — with cries of “death to America” — and repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel. Iran has fostered a network of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, known as the “axis of resistance,” that attack Israel. (These maps help explain the axis.) Iran has also antagonized Saudi Arabia, the most important Arab ally of the United States and a country run by a Sunni Muslim monarchy, in contrast to Iran’s Shiite clerical government.

“Iran’s power in the region is intertwined with its image as the one country that has stood up to Israel, not just rhetorically but by taking aim at Israeli sites and individuals, directly and indirectly” Alissa Rubin, a senior Middle East correspondent for The Times, told me. “The Iranian regime is in many ways defined as anti-Israel and anti-Western.” Iran’s goal, as Alissa has explained in this newsletter, is to become the most powerful country in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, Iran has shied away from conflict even as its enemies have attacked.

Weakness exposed

The biggest explanation appears to be simply that Iran is weaker than it wants the world to believe. And its leaders may recognize that they would fare badly in a wider war.

The events in April were telling, my colleagues say. Iran’s attack on Israel, in retaliation for the bombing of its Syrian consulate, was a bust: Israel, with help from the U.S. and other countries, shot down nearly all of Iran’s missiles and drones. Julian Barnes, who covers U.S. intelligence agencies for The Times, has heard from some of his sources that Iran was disappointed. “Iranian officials had believed more of their attacks would penetrate Israeli and American defenses,” Julian said.

The following week, Israel launched its own successful retaliation — a targeted strike on an antiaircraft system that protects an Iranian nuclear facility. “That was all the Israelis did,” Alissa said, “but the message was clear: We can enter undetected and take out your antiaircraft system that protects your most sensitive sites.” The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader killed by a bomb in a Tehran guesthouse in July, was similarly chilling for Iran.

These events seem to have fed fears inside Iran’s government about the likely outcome of a larger conflict with Israel. As my colleague Ben Hubbard, who writes about the region from Istanbul, put it: “Iran knows that there are plenty of people in the current Israeli government who would love to have an excuse to bomb Tehran, and any direct attacks from Iran would instantly provide such an opportunity. If that happened, Iran knows that Israel’s superior military would likely do very serious damage to a country that is already largely an international pariah and dealing with severe economic problems.”

Already, many Iranians are dissatisfied with their government because of its religious extremism and the troubled economy. “You cannot win a war in the long run without popular support from your own people,” Alissa said.

What’s next

As humbling as the past few months have been for Iran, they don’t seem to have threatened the government’s authority at home. The heaviest losses have come among fighters for Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran has historically tolerated a high death toll among its regional allies.

In the short term, Iran’s leaders seem to have chosen caution, hoping events may present better opportunities in the future. And the situation seems to be changing. Israel this morning began a ground invasion of Lebanon that could further weaken Hezbollah — but also leave Israeli troops vulnerable to counterattacks. Iran also knows that Israel’s flattening of Gaza and its settlements in the West Bank have hurt Israel’s international reputation. Even if Iran can’t win an all-out war, the axis of resistance isn’t likely to disappear.

Finally, there is one other possibility — that Iran will in fact respond aggressively to its recent setbacks, but that it just hasn’t done so yet.

More on Israel and Hezbollah

• Israel launched an invasion into southern Lebanon. It said its operation is targeting Hezbollah.
• It’s the first Israeli ground invasion of the country since 2006. Read why Israel is invading.
• The military was conducting limited raids in a narrow strip of land near the border, Israel said. However, the number of troops deployed in northern Israel has fueled speculation of a broader operation.
• Lebanon’s government is in economic crisis and will struggle to handle an invasion.
• The U.S. is sending thousands more troops to the Middle East.

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Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. —David

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