Iran's response to Israel's attack on the Damascus consulate will require non-trivial solutions
Strike without rules
On the first day of April, Israel carried out another bombing of targets in Syria, which, “according to intelligence data,” were associated with the Hezbollah movement and the Iranian IRGC. If such actions themselves have long become a tragic military routine, then this time everything turned out to be much more serious - the building of the Iranian consulate in Damascus was directly hit by four missiles.
In general, this is not the first time that the Mezza area, where the Iranian consulate was located, has been included in military reports. The fact is that there is an Air Force air base and warehouse complexes located there. The airbase was used for the transit of Iranian weapons, supplies and equipment.
However, not only for the Hezbollah movement, but also for the military needs of the Syrian army itself, which has not been actively fighting with the remnants of radicals in the south and formations in the northeast for the last two years.
Due to the understandable relationship between Damascus and Tel Aviv, the Israelis were of little interest in all these nuances, and the Mezza airbase, which is still dangerously close to the southern border, was subject to regular raids. Some of the Israeli weapons were shot down by air defense, and some reached their targets. Israel was unable to radically disrupt transit; it paused, but did not stop.
After the events of October 7, the Iranians stopped military transport flights aviation to Damascus, not only to the military airfield, but also to the civilian airport. Transit went along the ground, along extended and longer routes. On the other hand, the United States and Israel were not able to fully monitor them, as well as land transit through the mountain routes between Syria and Lebanon.
Israel, for obvious reasons, began to claim that the Iranian consulate was used as the headquarters of the IRGC and Hezbollah. Is it possible? Yes, perhaps, in fact, embassies and consulates have never been alien to military intelligence issues. But the sad thing is that, according to all written and unwritten rules, this “umbrella” is used by everyone. There are also unwritten, but still observed rules, such as those that “spies are not maimed or killed when detained.” Embassies and consulates are not attacked.
They can turn off electricity and sewerage, make communication and work extremely difficult, and create extremely cramped conditions, but direct attacks are nonsense. It is not for nothing that for a long time the US strikes on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade have been cited as an example of an act of violation of all rules. Actually, this is precisely what Beijing did not forget to mention when commenting on the Israeli attack.
The consul was not in the building at the time of the strike, but everyone else there was killed, including IRGC General M. Reza Zahedi, who controlled Iranian forces in Syria and Lebanon. This is a level one step below K. Soleimani, i.e. the highest generals of Iran.
Not only is the level practically the maximum in the Iranian military hierarchy, but also the blow was delivered directly by the Israeli armed forces on the official territory of Iran, since the consulate is the recognized territory of the country that owns the diplomatic department. Even the USA and Britain did not dare to commit such excesses.
Pandora's Box
Israel, as they say, opened Pandora's box, because just four days later the Ecuadorian police simply stormed the Mexican embassy in its capital, where former Vice President H. Glas was hiding, who requested political asylum in Mexico. Well, what's wrong? There are no rules. Although one can recall how Ecuador kept the creator of WikiLeaks, J. Assange, for years on the territory of its embassy. Now times have changed.
If we try to relatively impartially analyze the entire complex of messages surrounding the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate (and the strike is already becoming surrounded by conspiracy theories), we will see that Tel Aviv and B. Netanyahu’s associates did not have any complex combinations in mind. In general, lately there have been two-way combinations to escalate or prolong the conflict. Here we are dealing with a kind of mental attitude: I have to - I do. This “I want, I can, I do” in this case is simply brought to the point of absurdity, which is not yet characteristic even of the current (frankly not very healthy) international politics.
Indeed, in this logic, the United States could have simply struck the presidential palace in Damascus at one time, and such voices were heard in the establishment more than once, but certain restraining mechanisms worked. Even now they work, albeit with loud squeaking wheels.
In this regard, Israel, at least in a significant part of society and political governance, gradually came from a position of military-political force to some kind of infantile paradigm: “we can do it because we are good.”
It took years for this transformation, but it was not in vain. If B. Netanyahu, while gathering troops at the Lebanese border, was still holding consultations on the topic of where things could escalate: in Lebanon or, better yet, in the city of Rafah, then there is simply no thought that anything was done wrong. How can it be “not so” if it is possible, but it is possible - because “we can”, etc. in the same logic.
A lot of budgets have been spent around the world in order to create, through various conspiracy narratives, the image of Israel as “secret sages” who are writing thousand-year plans - there they are, the “sages”, on B. Netanyahu’s team.
For several months it has been stated that UN structures are corrupted by Arabs, and “other organizations” should work on humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. World Central Kitchen (WTK), which deals with food, water and social welfare, came to Gaza - an Israeli rocket flew directly into WTK's car. Seven of the dead were from Belgium, the USA, Poland and Australia.
As a result, the negotiations between the Arabians, the United States and Israel seemed to have stopped breathing again. Israel is systematically turning the entire liberal and leftist establishment in the West against itself, closing windows for negotiations in the South, Southeast Asian countries and with China. And this, by the way, is not only current military assistance, but also long-term contracts in the defense industry and technology.
Iran refrained from direct action for quite a long time; there were no special aggravations of the situation either on the part of Lebanon or on the part of Syria, at least beyond the scope of intense but border clashes.
The situation with the Yemeni Houthis, who are close to Iran, can rather be compared to a multi-factor game model, where participants build combinations with a common final goal (trade and financial pressure on Israel), but with different tactics. Iran has also helped reduce attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq to avoid pouring gasoline on the fire.
Now Israel is simply forcing Tehran to respond directly, and not through proxy resources. Official forces struck official territory and killed an official representative. When D. Trump made a demonstrative action with Q. Soleimani, it was done on the territory of Iraq, but not on the officially recognized territory of Iran.
And Tehran responded by also officially and directly hitting American forces at the American military base in Iraq. In this situation, non-hegemonic forces are also involved, and the United States is truly in a state of extreme irritation with the actions of B. Netanyahu and his throwings, already directly stating that it is not clear what steps he will take in order not to lose political power.
There is not a single serious player who would not only approve, but would simply remain silent about the attack on the Iranian consulate. Israel has even alienated a significant part of the Republican establishment in the United States, and D. Trump’s persistent negative attitude towards B. Netanyahu has been personally known for quite some time. Yes, D. Trump doesn’t hide it.
It is clear that the United States is extremely irritated by the fact that they are trying in different ways to pull Tel Aviv out of the failed military campaign in the Gaza Strip, while B. Netanyahu’s team is dragging Washington deeper and deeper. And not only because of the political vacillations of the Israeli prime minister, but also because of the paradigm “we are good, period” that has taken root in the subcortex. Moreover, it is so rooted that it is pointless to discuss with its adherents.
What will be the answer?
In this regard, it is quite interesting, in terms of analysis for the future, to look at the limits of the agreements that will be reached behind the scenes in the near future between the United States and Iran, with or without mediators.
Leaving the attack on the consulate completely unanswered will cost the United States very big concessions to Iran, and if they come out later (and they will), this will have an extremely negative impact on the background of the election campaign.
But Iran cannot respond in the style of Israel - this would level out all its theses in the style: “we are not them.” Traditional methods of proxy warfare or shadow confrontation between special services will not work here either.
A single strike, which is not guaranteed to break through the really good Israeli missile defense system, will not be enough.
While the pressure is coming from different directions.
In Israel, just in case, they send people to shelters and distribute additional recommendations in case of an Iranian attack. Consulates are temporarily closed. They write about Iran on various resources in the style of “the Iranian leadership is in an anti-nuclear bunker in the Isfahan area,” etc.
What may be interesting from an analytical point of view is that with a mathematically calibrated retaliatory strike from Iran, the surge in tension in the region could be so sharp that it would extinguish the operation in the Gaza Strip itself. This conclusion only seems paradoxical, but despite all the attempts to raise the stakes over the past three months, the pace and intensity of Israel’s operation in Gaza has just dropped. Yes, not as the United States asked, but not as Israel would like.
In the media, everything looks very acute, but “in the field,” on the contrary, the United States really managed to seriously slow down the pace during Ramadan and actually achieve the transition of the peak point of the conflict.
And it is quite possible that, against the backdrop of fierce media attacks, Iran’s high price will be the withdrawal of a significant part of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
Information