Sahar Soleimany
In the wake of Iran’s October 1 ballistic missile strike on Israel—the largest such attack in history—there has been a deepening sense of fear within the White House that Israel’s much-anticipated retaliation will instigate a wider regional war. President Joe Biden has repeatedly cautioned Israel, both publicly and privately, against taking “escalatory” measures, proposing that strikes on Iran’s oil fields and nuclear facilities should be off the table. While the nature of Israel’s response is still anybody’s guess, one thing’s for certain: Iran is not interested in a broader war. The administration’s fears reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the Islamic Republic’s strategic calculus.
Iran knows that it does not have the capabilities to fight a conventional war with either the United States or Israel, which is why it has always favored acting through its proxies. For the last year, the regime has had Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias all throw their punches against Israel while safely watching from the sidelines, interjecting with empty threats of direct “retaliation” and “revenge” each time the IDF successfully eliminated a senior commander.
And when Iran finally did respond with a large-scale missile and drone attack in April of 2024, the result was a humiliating failure that inflicted almost no damage on the Jewish State. The regime didn’t even try to avenge the subsequent assassinations of Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, despite concerns, once again from the administration, that Israel had created a situation ripe for escalation.
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