After the Israeli attack, Iran is faced with a difficult decision on whether to choose to respond and further expand the vicious cycle of retaliation, risking a stronger retaliatory strike from Israel.

However, how the Islamic Republic chooses, if it moves in that direction, to respond could determine whether the region is driven further toward all-out war or remains stable at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence.

In the coldly calculating realm of Middle Eastern geopolitics, a blow of the magnitude Israel delivered Saturday to hardliners inside Iran calls for a forceful response. One possible option would be another barrage of ballistic missiles.

Military retaliation would allow Iran’s clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the militant groups fighting Israel that form the vanguard of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance.

The most likely thing at this point is that Tehran will decide not to retaliate directly for now, mainly because doing so could expose its weaknesses and provoke a stronger Israeli response, analysts say.

In a latest development and despite the blows received by Iran’s air defenses, the US estimates that it is still able to respond with the same magnitude of the October attack, that is, to launch hundreds of ballistic missiles against Israel.

However, the US assessment is that damage to the missile production capability will affect the nature of the Iranian response.

Tehran is threatening

In this context, Iran’s leaders stressed on Sunday that they had the right to respond to Israel’s attack, but their rhetoric was expressed in a more moderate tone than in the past, which could be interpreted as an attempt to de-escalate tensions and by extension to allay concerns that the region’s two largest armies are preparing for all-out war.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who has the authority as commander-in-chief to order strikes against Israel, in his first public comments, said Sunday that the result “should neither be magnified nor downplayed,” according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA.

However, in a later statement, Khamenei returned to his earlier extreme rhetoric, writing in a post in Hebrew “that Israel was wrong in its retaliation yesterday morning against Iran and will soon understand the power of Tehran.

“We will make it understand what kind of strength, ability, initiative and will the Iranian nation has,” said Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi, in a letter to the UN secretary-general requesting an emergency meeting of the Security Council, said Iran “reserves its inherent right to lawfully respond to these criminal attacks at the appropriate time.” .

In the wake of the dramatic developments, responding to the request from the Iranian side, the United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on Monday evening over the Israeli attack.

For his part, Iranian President Massoud Pezheskian assured today that Tehran does not seek war but vowed to give an “appropriate response” to Israeli strikes against Iranian military targets.

“We do not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country,” Pezeskian told the cabinet. “We will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime,” he added.

Pezheskian attributed the rise in tensions in the region to Israel’s “aggressiveness” and US support for that country, which is not recognized by Tehran.

“If the attacks of the Zionist regime and its crimes continue, tensions will worsen,” he predicted. He added that the US “promised to end the war (including in Gaza) in exchange for our restraint but did not keep its promise”.

Israel hit air defenses around critical Iranian energy sites

Israel’s strikes in Iran early Saturday destroyed air defense systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries, as well as systems protecting a major natural gas field and a major port in southern Iran, the New York Times reported.

In addition to the strikes that hit facilities tasked with protecting energy sites, according to Iranian and Israeli officials, Israel’s strikes effectively destroyed four S-300 air defense systems that Iran had purchased from Russia. Israel had already hit one system in April’s attack on a military base in Isfahan province and three more on Saturday at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and the Malad missile base on the outskirts of the capital.

Iran is vulnerable to future attack

“This looks like a possible prelude to a much more effective strike against Iran’s infrastructure, including its nuclear facilities,” said Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group on Iran. “The Iranians do not have the ability to replace these systems in a timely manner, which makes the country much more vulnerable in the future.”

In addition to air defense systems, three major missile manufacturing bases belonging to the Revolutionary Guard Corps were also attacked, according to Iranian and Israeli officials. The military sites of Partchin and Parad were also attacked by drones, the same sources said.

Israeli officials said the attacks damaged Iran’s missile-making capability, but Iranian officials trying to downplay the attack disputed the claims, saying the damage was minor and the setbacks short-lived.

The energy facilities whose defense systems were hit are critical to Iran’s troubled economy, which has been struggling with US sanctions, inflation and other problems for years.

Israel’s destruction of air defense systems has deeply alarmed Iran, the three Iranian officials said, as critical energy and economic hubs are now vulnerable to future attacks if the cycle of retaliation between Iran and Israel continues.

What is the USA afraid of?

By Saturday, US and Israeli officials were calling the attack a success, but behind the satisfaction with the tactical gains lurked a long-term concern, the New York Times reported. With Iran’s Russian air defenses weakened, many fear that Iran’s leaders may conclude that they have only one defense: building a nuclear weapon.

This is exactly what American strategists have been desperately trying to avoid for a quarter of a century, using sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomacy to prevent Tehran from crossing the threshold to become a fully equipped nuclear power.