Iran has fired missiles at Israel in response to Israeli air strikes on Beirut, while Israel has retaliated by hitting a petrochemical plant and air defence facilities across Iran.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says they have ceased their operation against Israel after firing 30 missiles. Israel says it will not attack Iran, but it will continue strikes in south Lebanon, from which 1.2 million people have been forced to flee.
Yet, the exchange of fire marks a new phase of the war launched 100 days ago by the US and Israel against Iran. Iran has made it clear that the war in the Gulf will not end while the war in Lebanon continues, something that Israel cannot agree to without suffering a strategic defeat. President Donald Trump keeps on saying that he “holds all the cards”, but will he really pressure Israel into a genuine ceasefire in Lebanon? The Iranians believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does nothing without a green light from Washington, so an intractable war in the Gulf is now linked to an intractable war in Lebanon.
Having declared that Beirut is off limits for Israeli air strikes, Iran is fully committed to the Lebanese war. The next time Israel crosses its red lines it will launch its missiles against Israel again. This is a big change from the past when Iran’s active support for the powerful Shia paramilitary movement, Hezbollah, was primarily in the shape of arms, money and belligerent rhetoric. If bringing a permanent end to the US-Iran war looked hard before, it just got harder.
Prior to ending its missile strikes on Israel, Iran threatened to retaliate in kind for attacks on non-military and energy targets in Iran, with “consequences for the global economy”. In other words, it would probably attack the Arab oil states on the south side of the Gulf.
Iran has evidently concluded in the last week or so that if, in its eyes, the US or Israel violate the already rickety ceasefire, then it will escalate rapidly and hit back hard instead of a proportionate tit-for-tat. It did this earlier in June when one of its drone or missiles damaged Kuwait International Airport in retaliation for US airstrikes on targets in Iran and around the Strait of Hormuz.
In a further sign of regional escalation, the Houthis in Yemen, closely allied to Iran, launched their first missile against Israel since the ceasefire on 8 April. One escalatory measure the Iranians have not yet taken is getting the Houthis to close the Bab al Mandab strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, seriously limiting Saudi oil exports.
Escalating military action throughout the Middle East makes Trump’s boast about defeating Iran and claim to be close to a peace deal sound ever more fantastical. “Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting’,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, telling Netanyahu to stop further attacks on Beirut because they were undermining the peace talks with Tehran. No doubt Israel would like to sabotage such a deal, but that does not necessarily mean it is going to happen. For all Trump’s well publicised stories of how he swore at Netanyahu, while seeking to restrain him in Lebanon, the Iranians are clearly sceptical about this, convinced that Israel and the US remain hand in glove in a joint bid to defeat Iran and establish a lasting hegemony over the Middle East.
Both the US and Iran ultimately want a peace deal but very much on their own contradictory terms – and neither is convinced they will not get what they want.
Trump may be under domestic political pressure because of the unpopularity of the war, the high price of oil and the approaching midterm Congressional elections, but Trump knows that his war with Iran will dominate his legacy. And, if it is viewed as a disastrous failure, it will taint his reputation forever, just as the Iraq and Afghanistan war destroyed the reputation of their architect, President George W Bush.
Iran is also under short term pressure: the country was in a calamitous economic state before the war, provoking mass protests which were savagely suppressed by the regime. Economic conditions can only deteriorate under the impact of the US naval blockade. National solidarity in wartime has strengthened the Iranian leadership, but that does not mean that the protests might not resume after the war – unless Iran can largely free itself from sanctions.
The Iranian leadership has had a successful war so far simply by surviving, closing the Strait of Hormuz and keeping enough of their missiles and drones to fire at Israel, the US and the Arab states of the Gulf. But it is unlikely that the US and Israel will be willing to end the conflict on which they embarked with such confidence of victory three-and-a-half months ago – Iran is stronger than it was before the war. Iran, for its part, fears that the US and Israel might simply bank any compromise Tehran makes over its nuclear programme and control of the Strait of Hormuz – and resume the war later against a weakened Iran.
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