Why Iran may still have the upper hand against Israel

Despite the race against time to evade a total war in the Middle East, it seems increasingly plausible to suggest that the current state of asymmetric war and occasional measured tit-for-tat attacks between Iran and Israel is likely to persist. Tehran, like Tel Aviv, feels that it is fighting an existential war against forces bent on eclipsing its regime.

Iran has spent the best part of three decades funding, training and arming groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine as an extension of its power and clout, even under the discredited banner of liberating Palestine and resisting the occupier.

The question everybody is asking today is how much will Iran risk in its efforts to protect the forces it has groomed for decades? Also, is a direct war between Israel and Iran inevitable, especially if the former fails to strike the latter in a way that forces it to retreat and abandon its regional militias, which are key to its asymmetric battle with Israel?

Since last year’s Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Israel’s right-wing government has been vowing to destroy Hamas, even if that resulted — as the world has been witnessing — in it killing tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza and reducing their homes to rubble.

With Hamas decimated, Israel has turned its attention to Lebanon, where a campaign of targeted assassinations of Hezbollah’s leadership figures has been followed by ground incursions to try to push the Iran-backed militia away from the Lebanese-Israeli border. This is in the hope of removing the threat of another Oct. 7 attack, this time launched by a superior and more heavily armed Hezbollah.

It is no secret that Tehran’s appetite for an all-out war with Israel continues to be minimal, mainly due to domestic calculations

Mohamed Chebaro

Iran’s posture has remained unchanged over recent months, encouraging its proxy forces in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to mount symbolic but costly attritional strikes against Israel.

It is no secret that Tehran’s appetite for an all-out war with Israel continues to be minimal, mainly due to domestic calculations related to the fragility of the regime and its ability to withstand a “precise and lethal” strike, as Israel has vowed. Tel Aviv is yet to respond to the nearly 200 missiles Iran launched against it on Oct. 3, an attack that was itself in retaliation to the assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran.

It is also no secret that Iran’s forces are no match for Israel’s air, land, sea and cyber capabilities. But that advantage could be handicapped by distance, which would make it very costly for Israel to launch a protracted air and sea campaign against Iran. The two countries are separated by more than 1,500 km and several nations.

Iran, on the other hand, is virtually on Israel’s doorstep thanks to its committed proxy militia in Lebanon. Iran has long boasted about its Mediterranean, Gulf and Red Sea access, while often reminding the world that it effectively controls several Arab countries, namely Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

It is for these reasons that Iran is still feeling emboldened. And though diplomatically it tries to assure the world that it is not seeking escalation, its leadership seems bent on pushing Hezbollah to resist, despite the heavy toll being paid by areas in Lebanon.

Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be repeating the same mistakes of the past, when it deployed troops to fight the tentacles of the octopus instead of its head. Its troops have fought Hezbollah repeatedly since unilaterally withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000. But Hezbollah, along with Hamas in Gaza, have repeatedly managed to regroup, rearm and live to fight another day.

Israel’s limited but widening incursions in Lebanon are only likely to help Hezbollah regain, with direct help from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard advisers, some of the balance, capabilities and reputation it lost as a result of the deaths of the majority of its top commanders.

Israel has one shot still available to try to strike Iran in a way it hopes will push the regime to dismantle its proxy militias

Mohamed Chebaro

Throughout this month, Israel has been upping the ante in terms of threats of what will befall Iran. Despite the negligible damage inflicted on Israel, Iran’s ballistic missile strikes have — for the second time this year — crossed a red line that will be difficult to reestablish. Therefore, Israel has one shot still available in its arsenal to try to strike Iran in a way it hopes will push the regime to dismantle its proxy militias.

Today, the US administration is distracted by next month’s presidential election, which could change the country forever, China continues to play the role of mere observer, despite its clout, and Russia finds itself needing to mediate its strategic relationship with Israel while not sacrificing its newfound ally in Tehran. This all means that Iran or Israel could commit an act that would be difficult to reverse and may plunge the whole region into further death and destruction. This would not help Israel’s long-term security or benefit the Iranian regime’s viability.

So, I am minded to believe that an expanded war between Iran and Israel is not on the table. Once again, Iran is proving able to absorb any blows its regime might receive and to retaliate forcefully through its proxy militias, despite Israel’s aircraft, missiles, drones, cyber weapons and covert operations superiority.

Israel’s maximalist approach to threats has not made it safer in the past and it will not today. Meanwhile, Iran’s diplomacy, backed up by deniable asymmetric missiles and drones, is a strategy that has been exposed and could topple the regime from within if it fails to withstand any forthcoming Israeli strike.

While the region and the world already fears the worst from the wars underway in Gaza and Lebanon, a wider conflict pitting Iran directly against Israel remains a serious prospect, despite the constraints of distance and the diplomatic efforts. Everybody in the region is hoping this will remain a mere prospect and not a reality.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.