Ayatollah’s Antagonism
Rare sermon portends bad things to come: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, led the Friday Prayer in Tehran today—a rare move—and warned that his country will strike Israel again in the future, calling the barrage of 181 ballistic missiles “completely legal and legitimate.”
The last time the ayatollah led these prayers was nearly five years ago; then, as now, he graced the public with his presence primarily to engage in anti-West saber-rattling.
Overnight, Israel carried out strikes in both Lebanon and the West Bank; intelligence reports indicated that Hezbollah was meeting in a bunker south of Beirut, so Israeli strikes tracked those movements and attempted to target them. Israeli military leaders said these strikes attempted to target Hashem Safieddine, presumed to be a future Hezbollah leader taking over in place of Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel assassinated a week ago.
In his sermon, the ayatollah said Iran would be fueled by Nasrallah’s killing. “It is the duty and responsibility of all Muslims…to support Lebanon’s jihad and the battle for al-Aqsa mosque,” he reportedly said. “There is no doubt that the Zionists and the Americans are dreaming—the Zionist entity will be uprooted from the ground, it has no roots, it is fake, unstable, and exists only because of American support.”
Israel “won’t last long,” the ayatollah added.
It seems, based on the ayatollah’s public pronouncements, that Iran will continue to dole out retribution toward Israel for their impressive dismantling of Hezbollah, but questions remain as to how successful future Iranian strikes will be. Another outstanding question is whether Israel will target their nuclear sites, attempting to hinder further development—a strategy Israeli politicians and military personnel have discussed, but which American officials have warned them not to pursue.
“Unlike a previous such demonstration in April, Iran’s missile command was really trying this time,” argues Bloomberg‘s Marc Champion. “They gave no lengthy notice. They used only the most potent weapons in the Iranian arsenal, ballistic missiles, and these were bunched so as to saturate and penetrate Israel’s air defenses. A significant number made it through, yet their impact appears to have been minimal.…between the outcome of two massive conventional missile strikes and Hezbollah’s incapacitation, it’s now clear to both sides that Iran has no effective deterrent against an Israeli attack—unless and until Iran develops a nuclear arsenal.”
The U.S. angle: According to new reporting from The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has been kept increasingly out of the loop by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though officials have been mulling targeting Iranian oil and nuclear sites, “Israel has not yet made a final decision about what its response will look like—and the White House has been blindsided repeatedly by Israel’s decisi
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