Iran’s military strikes: “No interest in direct confrontation”

Iran consciously chose the targets of the recent military strikes in Iraq and Syria, says expert Zamirirad in an interview: They were intended to send a signal to Israel and the USA without increasing the potential for escalation in the region.

tagesschau.de: Iran has shelled targets in Iraq and Syria. Officially these are retaliatory strikes for attacks on Iran. Do you think this reasoning is credible?

Azadeh Zamirirad: Tehran is reacting to two events that were embarrassing for the Iranian leadership. On the one hand, there is the terrorist attack in Kerman, for which the “Islamic State” claimed responsibility. Iran is trying to save face and project control with retaliatory strikes. For years, the deployment of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria has been justified, among other things, by the fact that IS is being fought here and terrorist attacks would be kept away from Iranian soil. But that didn’t work, as the largest terrorist attack in the history of the Islamic Republic with more than 90 deaths has just shown again.

On the other hand, this is the reaction to the death of a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who died in an attack in Syria at the end of December, for which Iran blames Israel. Tehran is now trying to rebuild the deterrent backdrop. Iraq and Syria primarily serve as locations to send appropriate signals to Israel and the USA.

tagesschau.de: Why did Tehran choose these specific targets in Syria and Iraq?

Zamirirad: The selection of targets suggests that Iran still has no interest in a direct confrontation with Israel or the USA. They have chosen places in northern Syria and especially in the Iraqi Autonomous Republic of Kurdistan where no Israeli or American deaths are expected. Because that would mean that a direct military conflict could hardly be avoided. At the same time, for example, it was claimed that an Israeli intelligence base in Kurdistan had been hit. Tehran is still trying to avoid a direct military conflict.

“Iran prefers to act from the second row”

tagesschau.de: Several ballistic missiles fell near a US consulate near Erbil that was still under construction. Did the Iranian military deliberately miss the mark?

Zamirirad: The signal to the Americans that they are targeting the vicinity of this consulate, but not the building itself, is consistent with the type of military response and attacks we have seen from the Islamic Republic in recent years, especially since 2019. The idea behind this is to build deterrence and at the same time retaliate while remaining below the escalation threshold to a military conflict.

This is of course very risky because errors can occur very quickly, as attacks cannot be 100 percent calculated and controlled. However, Iran still prefers to act from the second line – through its non-state and sub-state allies in the region, the so-called Axis of Resistance.

tagesschau.de: Iran also supports the Houthis, who are now attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both are parts of the “Axis of Resistance.” Why is he now undertaking direct combat operations and not sticking to his role as a supporter of other forces?

Zamirirad: The attacks directly on Iranian soil and the killing of a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard commander cross red lines that Tehran has set for itself when it comes to taking direct action itself. All actors in the region have such red lines. These are not formalized or stipulated anywhere, but are generally known. But here there are always shifts and mutual testing.

However, Iran continues to focus primarily on expanding its own influence in the region, including through financial, logistical and military support for groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and a number of other militant groups in Syria and Iraq. In doing so, Iran is actively undermining the sovereignty of numerous states in the region.

“Tehran sees itself on the rise in foreign policy”

tagesschau.de: Do you assume that Iran will now hold back on its own missile attacks again?

Zamirirad: In any case, it would be part of the overarching Iranian calculation that one would benefit most from the war between Israel and Hamas by remaining in the second row. At the moment, Tehran sees itself on the upswing in foreign policy. It is believed that a fundamental shift in power is taking place in the Middle East in favor of Tehran and the axis of resistance.

The so-called revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the most powerful person in the Iranian state, spoke after the Hamas attack on October 7th that Israel had suffered irreparable damage. Iran sees the war as a turning point for the geopolitical order in the region, but also beyond. This perceived position of strength would be threatened by a direct military confrontation. In a direct conflict, Iran would clearly be militarily inferior to Israel and the USA.

tagesschau.de: What exactly does Iran benefit from in the current situation?

Zamirirad: On the one hand, Iran benefits from the fact that Israel has been at war with Hamas for months and has to devote considerable financial and political resources to this end. The Israeli ground offensive in Gaza and the humanitarian emergency there have already had consequences for Israel’s reputation at the international level. Tehran is trying to exploit this in propaganda: images of dead children in Gaza, of the suffering and humanitarian need that we actually see in Gaza.

At the same time, Iran is celebrating foreign policy successes, such as the normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, which has at least partially reduced years of tension in the Persian Gulf. From Iran’s perspective, the US’s security policy importance in this region is decreasing. From Tehran’s perspective, the balance of power is shifting all over the world in favor of the Islamic Republic. Of course there is some wishful thinking involved.

The interview was conducted by Jasper Steinlein, tagesschau.de