Jason M. Brodsky

Israel’s audacious strike against the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization in Qatar exemplifies the Jewish state’s new security doctrine – one of boldness and risk-readiness. The Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, was a watershed moment that reset security calculations in Israel in a significant way. The results are Iran’s proxy network defanged, and a Tehran shaken after its own 12-Day War with Israel. Many observers believe that Israel’s strikes in Qatar risk unraveling the Abraham Accords and undermining U.S. interests. But as past episodes have demonstrated, there is likely to be immediate outrage followed by a reversion to the status quo.

On Saturday, Iranian and American diplomats met in Oman to discuss a nuclear deal. The talks were a clash of styles, tone and substance. In the past, talks in locations like Vienna allowed the international press to watch the Iranian and American delegations leaving and arriving at different hotels. This time, the discussions are hidden away from prying eyes and journalists inside Muscat’s palaces.  Iran’s foreign ministry began by seeking to tightly control and dominate the early media narrative. Iranian diplomats told media outlets that the talks took place in a positive atmosphere. These Iranian expressions of optimism were commonplace during the Iran nuclear deal revival negotiations from 2021 to 2022 under president Biden.

Iran’s Axis of Resistance is falling apart. Israel has significantly degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities and decapitated its leadership. Hamas has been left decimated in Gaza. The regime of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has collapsed. Intact for now are the Shiite militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Such a situation is not only a product of geopolitical trends but also an indictment of the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. This will necessitate a reorienting of Iranian strategy. 2024 has been Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s annus horribilis.

On Saturday, Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran which targeted around 20 military sites across the country, using over 100 combat aircraft. This was an unprecedented operation by Israel against Tehran – in both its breadth and depth. Israel’s aim was to degrade and deter. And in the process, it has reminded the world of the weaknesses of America’s current policy towards Iran. So far, Iranian media has been downplaying the Israeli strikes. Even as the bombing campaign was underway, pro-regime Telegram channels were posting videos showing placid scenes of Iranian cityscapes. In April, when Israel launched an attack on Esfahan, Iranian state television broadcast the morning traffic with soothing music.

The death of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on Thursday is an incredible achievement for Israel. It is also a blow to Iran and its axis of terror across the Middle East.  Since July, Israel has decapitated the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah – with the killings of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, and now Sinwar himself. There has also been the killing of two commanders of the IRGC Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps – Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Abbas Nilforoushan – in this year alone. While the Islamic Republic has suffered from eliminations of its regional henchmen for years, the breadth and depth of Israel’s recent operations is unprecedented.

At age 85, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been risk-averse for much of his time in office. He has preferred to operate through proxies and partners like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis rather than directly engaging in combat with Israel and the United States. This is how he has survived. Since becoming supreme leader in 1989, Khamenei has pursued a gradual approach to eradicating the state of Israel by encircling it in a ring of fire to bleed it slowly.  His risk calculus has now changed, as shown by last night’s missile attack on Israel. According to Israeli officials, Iran launched around 200 missiles towards Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defences.

The helicopter crash that killed Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will not fundamentally change the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader, remains the constitutional commander-in-chief and is still in charge of strategic decision-making in the country. But Raisi being removed from the scene has the potential to scramble the politics of succession in Iran. This is not the first time an Iranian president has died while in office. On August 30, 1981, president Mohammad Ali Rajai was killed alongside prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar and other government officials in a bombing. The current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei succeeded Rajai as president.

Today, there have been reports of explosions in Isfahan, in central Iran, in what is presumed to be a strike by Israel. The world had been waiting for Israel’s promised retaliation after Iran launched an unprecedented attack at Israel directly from its own territory, using 300 missiles and drones. Despite the hysterical commentary that Israel is trying to drag the United States and its allies into war, its strikes in Iran appear to have been carefully calibrated to avoid escalation. After all, Israel has plenty of experience operating in Iran, and particularly Isfahan. In January 2023, the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, launched a drone attack on an Iranian military facility in the heart of Isfahan.

This weekend, the Islamic Republic of Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel. For the first time since 1979, Iran’s leadership launched strikes from Iranian territory at Israel proper using more than 300 drones and missiles, with the vast majority shot down. In the handful of cases where Biden has responded militarily, it has been mostly aimed at Iran’s proxies and dispensable facilities in the region These strikes took place ahead of Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 85th birthday on April 19. His regime is deeply unpopular at home and planning for succession. Yet Khamenei has demonstrated a surprising willingness to take risks in his old age. His strategy towards Israel has certainly come full circle.

A month before the targeted killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, few would have expected the US government to eliminate him in a drone strike. Fast forward to this month, and the United States and its allies have launched a military operation to degrade and deter the Houthis. Last night, they launched strikes against more than a dozen Yemeni locations, with explosions reported in the capital Sanaa, the Red Sea port of Hudaydah, Dhamar and north-western Houthi stronghold Saada. The Houthis are armed, financed, and resourced by the IRGC and have been targeting commercial vessels in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a sensitive global chokepoint.