A Trap for Pezeshkian
A Trap for Pezeshkian: Pezeshkian and Haniyeh met before his assassination
As of the writing of this report, Israel has not yet condemned this assassination or the allegations of involvement in this operation.
In Haniyeh’s assassination, Israel has hit two targets with one bullet. The second target is the new government of Masoud Pezeshkian.
On the day the reformist president came to power, a foreign leader and ally of Iran was assassinated, and Pezeshkian, as the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, must examine this security crisis and its international repercussions.
If Saeed Jalili, Pezeshkian’s rival in the presidential election, had won, despite his radical and extremist positions and his style of grandstanding, he would have aided Israel’s efforts to convince the international community that diplomatic engagement with Iran yields no results and that the country should be subjected to maximum pressure.
However, Pezeshkian is a moderate, and despite regularly condemning U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war, imposing severe economic sanctions on Iran, and withdrawing from the nuclear deal or JCPOA, he emphasized dialogue with the U.S. during his election campaign and presented himself as pragmatic.
Pezeshkian has repeatedly announced that he will pursue negotiations with the U.S., a stance that apparently has the support of Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of Iran, to suspend economic sanctions.
Negotiation between Iran and the U.S. is the last thing Israel, and especially Benjamin Netanyahu, would want to happen at this time.
After all, Netanyahu drags the war to Lebanon in hopes that Iran will react more intensely and directly enter the war. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran wants to engage in war with Israel at this stage, but no one should assume that if a full-scale war with Lebanon and Hezbollah begins, Iran will stand by.
Unlike the Sunni Islamist group Hamas, which has had differences with Iran over the past 20 years, especially when it refused to support Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war and angered Tehran, Hezbollah is an organization of Shia Muslims considered Iran’s most important asset in the Middle East.
If Israel starts a full-scale war with Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran does not act to defend Hezbollah, it will lose all the credibility it has built with its allies in the Middle East.
Iran is already being criticized by the Houthis in Yemen for not defending Hamas in Gaza.
Since Iran has shown no sign of entering a direct war with Israel, the best next scenario for Israel is to place Iran in an indefensible position.
The assassination of a leader allied with Iran, especially in Tehran, in the middle of the night when the new government was sworn in, is precisely the trap that will place Pezeshkian and his allies in a very difficult situation.
