What Iran’s missile attack on Israel says about its new president

Barely a week after calling for diplomacy at the United Nations General Assembly, new Iranian President Mehsoud Pezeshkian launched his own surprise in October – some 180 rockets aimed at Israel. Iran can now claim that it has responded forcefully to what it sees as Israeli incursions into its territory.

It is no surprise that Iran responded to Israel’s killing of a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon last week. The surprise is that the response came not from proxies but from a state-by-state attack on Israeli civilians. Tuesday marks the second state-on-state attack launched by Iran this year. Both were aimed at Israel and both were predictably blocked by the US-funded Iron Dome defense system. The Israeli military said it was not aware of any casualties in that attack. Earlier, both sides retreated to their corners after Iran carried out a dramatic, frightening but less effective face-saving operation. But for the reasons explained below, today’s measures are unlikely to spell the end. On the contrary, we will likely see Israel and Iran raise the stakes even further and drag their allies into deeper conflict.

Iran has already been embarrassed by the Israeli leadership twice: with the targeted assassination of a Hamas leader in Iran this summer and with Hezbollah’s current ground invasion of Lebanon. These measures, which Netanyahu’s government argues are aimed at de-escalating another war by permanently eliminating Iranian-backed militants, are a blow to the heart of Iranian power in the region. In fact, the Israeli Prime Minister has underlined this His statement to the UN that “there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach” was not a rhetorical phrase, but a promise that he intends to keep.

At the same time, despite the new leadership in Iran, the long-standing need to appear strong in the Middle East and on the world stage remains. Mehsoud Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who defeated hardliners in July and told the world last week at the United Nations General Assembly: “We are ready to have peace.” We don’t want to fight. We don’t want war. In what other language do we have to tell everyone this?” But even he has to give way to the Revolutionary Guards after the recent weeks of Iran’s “forward defense system,” i.e. the armed militias, operating near Israel’s borders in Syria and elsewhere operated, was decimated.

This is no longer a proxy conflict in which Israel and Iran can credibly hide behind the language of diplomacy to demand a certain distance from military action and violence. Indeed, Monday’s Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon, aimed at eliminating the threat from Hezbollah and Iran, has now united Israeli factions that disagreed over the treatment of Gazans. The United States has already implemented its promised defense of Israel, deploying warplanes and troops in the Arabian Sea. With both Iranian and Israeli leaders promising “consequences” and “devastating attacks” after each incident, this is no longer a game. It’s a race toward disaster.