Iran has raced to reassure Hizbullah of its commitment to the militant group after unease within its ranks over Tehran’s restraint in the face of increasingly aggressive Israeli operations in Lebanon.
Iran’s reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian, who took office in July, has said his country wants to usher in a “new era” of foreign policy and re-engage with the West to ease sanctions on the Islamic republic and repair the economy.
Iran believes avoiding direct conflict with Israel is crucial to this goal, despite what Pezeskhian has described as Israeli “traps” to lure Tehran into war.
But Israel’s decision to ramp up its offensive against Hizbullah, Iran’s most important regional proxy, has become the biggest test so far of whether the regime can follow through on this new tactic.
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Tehran has had to dispatch envoys to Beirut to scotch fears that it had deserted Hizbullah, according to people familiar with the matter, following a series of devastating blows including Israel’s most deadly air raids in Lebanon for decades.
One senior regime insider told the Financial Times that Tehran has been working to “allay their concerns”, emphasising that Iran’s decision not to intervene to support Hizbullah served specific short-term purposes.
“What we are witnessing is a shift in tactics rather than a change in our core strategy towards the axis of resistance,” said the insider, who is close to reformers. “Inevitably, some important issues are being set aside for more urgent ones, at least temporarily. This is the price you pay when you adjust your approach in battle.”
[ Israeli foreign minister rejects Lebanon ceasefire proposalOpens in new window ]
Israel’s military chief on Wednesday told troops to prepare for a potential ground offensive against Hizbullah in Lebanon, following thousands of strikes on militant group targets and several assassinations of its leaders.
Some in Hizbullah’s support base and beyond have felt a stinging sense of abandonment by Iran, which has long cast a protective shadow over the group and Lebanon’s Shia Muslims.
“Why aren’t the Iranians doing more to help us? We’re brothers, when they need us, but where are they when we need them?” said Mahmoud, a Hizbullah supporter in Beirut.
After Iran’s foreign minister said on Monday that Tehran was ready to negotiate with the West over its nuclear programme, independent Lebanese MP Mark Daou posted on X that “they negotiate over our corpses”.
While Iran’s overall foreign and regional policies are controlled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the powerful Revolutionary Guards, Pezeshkian’s conciliatory stance suggests there has been a change of short-term priorities in the republic.
Iran has long been locked in a shadow war with Israel through its axis of resistance, which includes Hizbullah, the Houthis in Yemen, Iraqi Shia militias and Hamas.
While regime insiders say the overarching strategy of leading and supporting the axis remains unchanged, Pezeshkian has been permitted to try to ward off a war and test the waters for negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear accord.
Pezeskhian told the UN General Assembly in New York this week that he was “ready to engage” with the countries that signed the accord, known as the JCPOA, from which the US pulled out.
But Israel’s attacks have also rattled the Islamic regime, fuelling concerns about the threat posed by Israeli sabotage and intelligence networks inside the republic. In July, Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran, hours after he attended Pezeshkian’s inauguration, a humiliating security breach.
The explosion of thousands of Hizbullah’s communications devices last week, which the group blamed on Israel, also shook Iran. Iranian advisers arrived in Beirut last Tuesday, shortly after Hizbullah’s pagers detonated across Lebanon, to help manage the fallout, investigate what happened and assess the risks posed to devices used by Tehran and its allies, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Senior Iranian officials were told not to use their phones and walkie-talkies until they were checked to ensure their safety, said an Iranian official. “What happened made Iranians think it would be possible they are also penetrated,” said the official. “It gives lots of doubts and vulnerability to the system.”
Hostilities between Iran and Israel have increased after Hamas’s October 7th attack. In April, Iran launched the first direct strike against Israel from Iranian soil, firing more than 300 drones and missiles, after an Israeli attack on its embassy compound in Damascus that killed senior commanders.
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But Iran did not respond in the wake of Haniyeh’s assassination despite vowing to avenge his death. One person close to hardline factions acknowledged that Iran was in a “difficult position”, saying its reluctance to intervene to support Hizbullah granted Israel space to “push boundaries”.
He dismissed suggestions of a rift between Iran and Hizbullah as “false and a deviation from reality” even though the regime “will maintain its policy of restraint”.
“Iran wants to handle the situation in a way that doesn’t involve itself because it wants to open a new chapter for a dialogue with the West,” another one of the officials said.
Even if Iran puts off explicit intervention, other members of the axis of resistance may yet seek to do so.
Iraqi Shia militias, who in the first few months of the Gaza conflict undertook a wave of attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria, have offered to help Hizbullah by sending men and weapons.
“We have been wanting to help our brothers in Lebanon for months, but Iran is worried things will get out of control ... so we have held back,” said one member.
Saeed Laylaz, a reformist analyst specialising in Iran’s political economy, acknowledged that Khamenei’s strategy is to pressure Israel “with white gloves” — keeping its hands clean while pushing the axis members to keep targeting Israel.
“Iran lacks the financial resources to afford a costly war,” said Laylaz. “Even if Iran’s proxy forces expect direct involvement, any discontent on their part would be short-lived.”
— Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
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