John Raine
Israel’s war on Hizbullah and its strikes against Iran have left the leadership in Tehran in a strategic limbo. Weakened both by its inability to project power through its partners and by damages to its air defences, the leadership’s long-standing strategy, championed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of fighting Israel below the threshold of war has lost credibility. That strategy has resulted in the destruction of Iran’s air defences, damage to its missile capability and a devastating blow to the capabilities of Hizbullah, the strategy’s keystone. The leadership must now face up to a renewed threat to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, its key state-level ally and protégé that it cannot afford to lose.
However much revolutionary zeal and rhetoric it may be displaying, the parameters for Iranian strategy and ambitions will be constrained by new, and difficult, operational realities.
Four problems
Firstly, Israel’s ability to acquire and attack targets at pace and with accuracy, including individual leadership figures within Hizbullah and the IRGC, has effectively demonstrated that the IRGC’s battlespace is now transparent.
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