On Sunday morning, Iran followed through on its threat to respond to the attack on its consulate in Damascus, which was attributed to Israel. The barrage of Iranian missiles and drones ended speculation about what form the promised retaliation would take – retaliation that the United States had predicted 24 hours earlier.

It is the first time that Iran has attacked Israel from its territory. Will it be the spark that ignites a regional war? This will depend on Israel’s response, which will likely depend on the damage caused by the attack.

Despite alarm in Tel Aviv, Washington and Israel’s neighbors, the Iranian operation was expected. And there are indications that Tehran has informed several of Israel’s neighbors of its intentions in order to warn Israel and minimize the risk of escalation.

In fact, the Israeli military had been preparing for this moment since April 1, when a rocket struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing seven senior soldiers, including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a key link with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, the most important and a strong ally of Iran in the Middle East.

As usual, Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack, but few had any doubts. Hostility between the two countries, which dates back to the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, has intensified since the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Israeli officials accuse Iran of supporting and funding the Palestinian group. It was not the first time that Israel directly attacked Iranian interests in Syria and even inside Iran (where it is accused of killing several nuclear scientists). However, this time, the fact that the target was a high-ranking military commander and the war in Gaza put Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a difficult position.

“When they attack our consulate, it means they have attacked our territory. Israel must be punished and will be punished”, promised Khamenei, who has the final say on national security matters. After six months of intense anti-Israel rhetoric, not responding to this insult would weaken Iran’s image among its allies (the so-called “Axis of Resistance”). But above all, Iran ran the risk of widening the division in the regime, where the Revolutionary Guard demanded a forceful response.

Iran

At the same time, Khamenei faced a dilemma. Since the start of the Gaza war, Iranian diplomacy has tried to make it clear that Iran was not interested in a regional war. Its military leaders know that the United States supports Israel and that American intervention would endanger the regime.

As such, it took Iran two weeks to gauge the scale of its response (and how to warn Iraq and Jordan in advance of missiles and drones flying over their airspace, information that no doubt relayed to Washington) in an attempt to contain Israeli anger and the potential for escalation with unintended consequences. It is still too early to know whether Iran has achieved its goal.