It is not the time to address the earth-shattering attack on the central command of Hezbollah, the horrific assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the regional and international repercussions of the attack. The operation crowned an unprecedented wave of escalation using airstrikes, drones, and cyber attacks (the "Pager" and "Walkie-Talkie" explosions) that left 4,000 people either dead or injured, most of them members of the party. Many of its military and field commanders perished in individual and collective assassinations, including Fuad Shukr, Ibrahim Aqil, Ibrahim Qobeissi, and other senior leaders of the Radwan Force.
Iran has failed to protect Hezbollah, its most powerful ally in the region, despite its many statements. It was negotiating and making concessions to the US as the party faced the fiercest, most dangerous, and strangest Israeli attack since its inception in 1983 and the beginning of its asymmetric war, in which Israel enjoys aerial, technological, and intelligence superiority.
Amid Israel’s escalation, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made conciliatory statements about the United States. Pezeshkian said that Hezbollah cannot confront Israel alone. He also reiterated his Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s statement that “Iran seeks peace and does not wish to enter a war with Israel,” and stressed that his country is ready to resume negotiations regarding its nuclear program.
Earlier, Pezeshkian had said, "We and the Americans are brothers... and we have no enmity towards them," elaborating on Sayyed Ali Khamenei’s assertion that "There is no harm in tactical retreat before the enemy."
According to the US media, "Iran informed Hezbollah that it is not the right time to engage in a war with Israel.” These are not the only conciliatory positions and actions by Iran. First, its retaliation to the killing of its top field commander, Qassem Soleimani, was folkloric. It then digested the assassinations of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and their guest, Ismail Haniyeh, as well as the loss of their ally Hamas in Gaza, and finally, everything Hezbollah is facing today.
These stances, which might be understandable and seen as diplomatic in peacetime, seem crude in the current context. Iran's arms, primarily Hezbollah, are engaged in fierce clashes. In reality, the party is not engaged in a war, as the media is referring to it, as a war usually involves two parties exchanging blows and the current events in Lebanon have exposed the extreme imbalance of power between them.
Hezbollah has been on the receiving end of strikes using all kinds of weapons, while its responses have remained extremely limited, failing to land anything like equally painful human and material blows, the latest being last Friday's massacre. The party’s arguments of playing a “supportive” role and of having created a balance of terror and deterrence since the end of the 2006 war, have become untenable. Is this solely the result of Israel’s technological and military superiority, or had assessments of the party's military capabilities and readiness for conventional war been excessively generous? Is the trigger for the precision-guided missiles said to be in its possession not in its hands alone? Questions of whether Iran has abandoned the party have arisen. Has Iran abandoned Hezbollah?
Iran expressing its desire for peace as its largest arm takes unprecedented hits has certainly confused some, but politics is dynamic, not static. Its conciliatory and appeasing position towards the US does not mean it has abandoned Hezbollah. Its reluctance to respond to all the attacks it has faced is born of a desire to maintain its long-term project in the region, and Hezbollah is its crown jewel. The party’s duties go beyond the liberation of Palestine and include protecting the Iranian regime.
Tehran wants the US to provide cover for the party and prevent Israel from destroying it militarily and perhaps politically. That is why it reassures the West that things will not escalate into a full-scale regional war. In this context, we must consider intra-regime divergences regarding Iran’s relationship with Washington and their ramifications on the party's performance. Iran and Israel want to take advantage of the current election season in the US. Israel wants to break Iran’s resistance proxies in the region by any means necessary, however brutal they may be, reassured by the knowledge that no American presidential candidate will stand against it.
Iran wants to make progress in negotiations on its nuclear program. This could entail preventing the party from using its precision-guided missiles, perhaps even scaling down its proxies roles and ending its support for Russia in the Ukraine war.
Iran is not calling on Hezbollah to surrender, but it is urging it to wage a limited war. It does not want to risk a war that it does not have the capacity to wage and seeks to retain the capabilities of the party so they can be used when it needs them, especially since this war has become limited in scope.
Whether Iran, as a state, has abandoned Hezbollah or not, the question is whether the Iranian revolution will abandon it. The outcome remains that Iran has not treated Hezbollah as a partner, but rather as a tool. The tragedy is that the party has reached this conclusion very late. The “earthquake” on Friday expands the dangerous void that has been creeping over Lebanon since 2005.
