“This cowardly crime will not go unanswered,” promised the Iranian president. Ebrahim Raïssi is not angry, while Israel is accused of having bombed an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria. This raid, launched on Monday, resulted in the deaths of 13 people, including seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Tehran quickly convened an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Because if the Iranian consulate is not strictly speaking Iranian territory (contrary to popular belief), it is nevertheless an institution which represents its interests. “This is a direct attack on Iran. Apart from an attack directly targeting the territory of a country, it is as direct as possible,” assures Thierry Coville, researcher at IRIS and author of the book. Iran, a power on the move (2022).
“This bombing is a strong and deeply significant act,” adds Mahnaz Shirali. For the political scientist specializing in Iran, by targeting Iranian leaders, Israel is attacking “the head of the octopus”. Because if Tehran denies any involvement in the bloody attacks of October 7, it openly supports Hamas. And the clashes between Iran and Israel, while the former considers the latter its sworn enemy, are not new.
The rise of strikes
“This is the logical continuation of the attacks on Iranian officers in Syria,” believes Thierry Coville. Since 2011 and the start of the civil war in Syria, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Iranian military targets or pro-Iranian groups in the country, with Tehran still supporting Bashar al-Assad. And these attacks have intensified since the start of the Israeli military response to the October 7 attacks. The raid that blew up the consular section of the Iranian embassy on Monday was the fifth to target Syria in just eight days.
While Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that Tehran would make the “perverse Zionist regime” “regret this crime”, the European Union called for “restraint”. Russia, which denounced an “act of aggression”, requested the holding of a session at the UN Security Council, which will take place at 9 p.m. (French time) this Tuesday. International observers are worried about a regional escalation of the conflict, while the Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 33,000 people and plunged the population of this strip of land into famine.
Tehran’s “strategic patience”
“Since the start of the Israeli military response to the massacres of October 7, Iran has warned Israel and the United States of the risk of an expanded conflict,” notes Thierry Coville, who recalls that Tehran has, however, expressed its discontent in a manner diverted, through the financing of Lebanese Hezbollah or even the Houthi rebels. “We cannot say that there is no chance that Iran will enter the war, but I felt an immense reluctance on their part,” reports Mahnaz Shirali, who notably followed an official discussion of generals Iranians on X.
“Sympathizers of the regime criticized the generals for their inaction when Iranian territory was hit by this attack while the generals kept justifying themselves. The space itself was titled ‘strategic patience’,” explains the political scientist. It is therefore difficult to imagine Tehran going to war tomorrow, as its representatives seem cautious. “Iran has always avoided a direct conflict with Israel and, undoubtedly, with the United States, because it knows that it will be no match,” underlines Thierry Coville.
For Mahnaz Shirali, the bombing of the Iranian consulate does not mark a turning point in the conflict, because Iran’s response will remain weak and circuitous. “They will perhaps carry out a small attack which will affect three trees and a dog and say: ‘Look, we took revenge’”, she asserts. Thierry Coville, however, insists on caution and recalls: “Many wars have started because of an error of calculation, of anticipation. And there we are on the razor’s edge. »