Smoke from an Israeli airstrikes rises above the city’s southern suburbs on October 1, 2024 in Beirut, Lebanon.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

On April 1, 2024, when Israel bombed the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus killing Brig. Gen. Mohammed Reza Zahedi and other officers, Iran saw the war coming towards it. In December 2023, Israel had killed another senior general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in a strike in Damascus. In retaliation, Iran launched a missile attack towards what it called a Mossad base in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. It was a token response. But the April 1 attack marked a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty. On April 14, Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel, by firing over 300 drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.

Iran wanted to change the rules of the game in its hostile engagement with Israel. The message Tehran was trying to send was that if Iranian sovereignty is breached or its officers were targeted, Iran would respond directly. And the message was well-received in Jerusalem in April. Israel’s retaliation for the Iranian attack was a meek, unclaimed air strike. But the situation would change in the following months, with two key developments in Iran.

In May, President Ebrahim Raisi, whose political and security views aligned with those of Iran’s conservative establishment, was killed in a helicopter crash. Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate who preferred engagement with the West and restraint in West Asia, was elected President in June. In Iran’s transition, Israel found an opportunity to test its resolve.

Israel’s double strike

On July 30, Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of Hezbollah and a close confidant of Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s Secretary General, in an air strike on a Beirut suburb. A few hours later, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Doha-based political chief who was in Tehran to attend Mr. Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony, was killed in the Iranian capital. In two strikes in two geographies, Israel hit three of its enemies — Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas — within 24 hours. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed retaliation. Iran later reportedly decided to hold back its fire to give Gaza peace talks a chance. But Gaza ceasefire talks reached nowhere with Israel continuing to pound the enclave, killing hundreds of Palestinians every week. Iran, wary of triggering a wider war, still did not respond. Hezbollah, on the other side, fired some 300 short-range rockets, after Israel carried out air strikes, most of which were intercepted. Immediately after the rocket attack, Nasrallah said the retaliatory strikes were complete, signalling that he did not want escalation.

By that time it was evident that neither Iran nor Hezbollah wanted an all-out war with Israel. Iran wanted the axis, mainly Hezbollah and Houthis, to continue to bleed Israel through rocket, drone and missile strikes. Nasrallah, when he started firing rockets in the aftermath of the October 7 attack, wanted to keep some military pressure on the Israeli troops in the north at a time when they were waging a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the south. But Israel was ready for a wider war, for a number of reasons.

One, it knew that the Arab countries would do nothing besides issuing statements. It has absolute deterrence against its neighbouring Arab states. Two, if Israel’s actions trigger a wider war with Iran, Israel knew that the U.S. would come to its defence. In the early stage of the conflict, the U.S. had moved its carrier strike groups to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. When Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel on April 14, it was the U.S. that put together a defensive coalition which intercepted most of the projectiles. Three, a larger war, with direct support from the U.S. and its allies, would be an opportunity for Israel to hit Iran’s critical infrastructure and weaken the regime in Tehran.

Two approaches

So the two sides that were in the conflict had two different approaches towards the conflict. Iran wanted the axis to fight Israel. The axis (Hezbollah) wanted a limited war. But Israel was ready for escalation. And when Israel sensed reluctance on the side of its rivals, it decided to go with full force. Israel had been preparing since 2006 for the next war with Hezbollah. When Hezbollah expanded more like a conventional military force, particularly since its involvement in the Syrian civil war, Israel was preparing like a militia to attack Hezbollah. Once it decided to escalate the war, it first exploded the pagers and walkie talkies, indiscriminately targeting Hezbollah’s ground functionaries, its communication system as well as Lebanese civilians—these are tactics typically used by militias and terrorist entities. And then, Israel launched waves of massive air strikes on Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah’s senior commanders (also killing 1,000 people in a week). And then, the IDF went for Hassan Nasrallah, dealing the heaviest blow to Hezbollah.

It was a bottom-up attack, aimed at degrading the most powerful non-state actor in the world. And when Hezbollah was still in shock, Israel launched its fourth ground invasion of Lebanon. It wants to push Hezbollah to the north of the Litani River and create a buffer along the Israeli-Lebanese border, something which Israel had tried to do and failed in the past.

Next stage

It’s to be seen whether Hezbollah would be able to quickly regroup itself and fight back, like it did in 2006, or whether Israel, which is yet to meet its declared objectives in Gaza even after a year of fighting, would be able to achieve its goals in Lebanon. But a bigger question, irrespective of the result of Israel’s Lebanon invasion, is what would be the next stage of the conflict. Israel’s real target is Iran.

As of now, Iran’s strategic reluctance has not been rewarding. Nasrallah was a central figure in Iran’s axis and Hezbollah was a key constituent of Iran’s forward defence doctrine. When Iran waits, Israel is going with full force against its axis. And the weakening of the axis would invariably weaken Iran’s deterrence and embolden Israel further. If Iran responds with force, that would provide a perfect excuse for Israel to launch direct strikes on Iran, dragging the U.S. also into the conflict. There is no off-ramp.

An armed civil defence woman holds a Kalashnikov assault rifle while patrolling an empty street due to a curfew in Kyiv, Ukraine. The U.S. has transferred to Ukraine 1.1 million rounds of small arms ammunition that it seized from Iran, U.S. Central Command said on October 4, 2023. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia has long turned to Iranian-made drones to attack Ukraine. Now Ukrainian forces will be using bullets seized from Iran against Russia troops.

A U.S. Navy ship seized the 1.1 million rounds off of a vessel that was being used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to arm Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Those 7.62 mm rounds have now been transferred to Ukraine, U.S. Central Command said on October 4. The much-needed ammunition has been sent at a time when continued U.S. financial support for Kyiv’s fight to defend itself remains in question.

The 7.62 mm ammunition is the standard round for Soviet-era Kalashnikov assault rifles and their many derivatives. Ukraine, as a former Soviet republic, still relies on the Kalashnikov for many of its units.

“With this weapons transfer, the Justice Department’s forfeiture actions against one authoritarian regime are now directly supporting the Ukrainian people’s fight against another authoritarian regime. We will continue to use every legal authority at our disposal to support Ukraine in their fight for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law,” Attorney-General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and its allies have intercepted numerous ships believed to be transporting weapons and ammunition from Iran to Yemen in support of the Iranian-backed Houthis. This is the first time that the seized weaponry has been handed over to Ukraine, Central Command spokeswoman Capt. Abigail Hammock said.

This shipment was seized by Central Command naval forces in December off of a vessel the command described as a “stateless dhow,” a traditional wooden sailing ship, that was being used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to arm the Houthis.

A fragile cease-fire is in place in Yemen after the almost decadelong war, but Iran has continued to supply the Houthis with lethal aid, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, head of U.S. Air Forces Central, told reporters on October 4. He said this was a major threat to Yemen finding a durable peace.

U.S. Central Command said the U.S. “obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

A United Nations arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014. Iran insists it adheres to the ban, even as it has long been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis via the sea.

Independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced components seized aboard detained vessels back to Iran.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Even though the shipment of more than 1 million rounds of small arms ammunition is substantial, it pales in comparison with the amount that the U.S. has already sent to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, much of which has already been used in the intense ground battle.

The U.S. has provided more than 300 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades as part of the almost $44 billion in military aid it has sent to help Ukraine.

Further U.S. funding for Ukraine’s war was not included in a stopgap measure that prevented a government shutdown last weekend. With the ouster of Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, it was unclear whether the future leader will be able to generate enough support from the party’s hard-liners, who have opposed sending more money to Ukraine.