Why did Iran attack? Or: The Forgotten Value of the Open Media

This piece was written by University of Haifa Professor Amatzia Baram, expert in Middle East politics and Israeli and international consultant. He identifies an elementary error in Israeli military intelligence. It is published here with his permission.

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Military intelligence services ascribe great value to the classified sources that cost them a fortune. They tend to dismiss open public media information because, perhaps, it comes free. Can anything change that opinion?

According to the Israeli media the IDF Military Intelligence assessed that Iran would not respond directly to the killing of its officers on April 1 at the consulate in Damascus. Assuming that these reports are correct, it is imperative to examine where the mistake stemmed from.

Until now, Israel has understood Iran’s “Rahbar” or “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei to be a kind of “cold fire.” There was never any doubt about his desire to bring about the elimination of Israel, but the perception has also been that he understands that it would be impossible to do this in one fell swoop.

Even if he has or will have a stockpile of nuclear missiles, Khamenei is believed to understand that Israel is a nuclear power itself; therefore, a nuclear attack on Israel would be too dangerous. His plan, then, is to bleed Israel white by a thousand small cuts, until it collapses on its own. This bloodletting is carried out by Iran’s satellites, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas — and they are the ones paying the price. Iran suffered heavy losses of hundreds of thousands of dead and about a million wounded in the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988); it is no longer is willing to sacrifice Iranian lives in a full-scale war.

This view is based on Iranian behaviour since the end of the war against Iraq. In 1998, for example, the Taliban murdered dozens of Iranians at their consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. The masses in Tehran demanded revenge and the Iranian army was already waiting on the border for an attack order, but Khamenei stopped it. In 2003, when the US-led coalition invaded Iraq, he ordered the shutdown of Iran’s nuclear program for fear of a US attack. In January 2020, the US assassinated General Qassem Soleimani. Iran promised a harsh response, but informed the Americans in advance of the location and time of the attack. There were many casualties, but no fatalities. Iran also did not respond directly to previous Israeli assassinations of Iranian officers in Syria.

What changed, then?

First, the consulate in Damascus is a diplomatic building that the Iranians consider Iranian territory. The Israeli attack was therefore perceived as a direct attack and humiliation.

Second, March 1 saw the resounding success of Jabha Paydari (Steadfastness Front Party) in both the general parliamentary elections and in elections for the 88-member Assembly of Experts that will determine the next supreme leader. If Khamenei and Lebanon’s Nasrallah are cold fire, the Paydari are a hot blaze. Even those close to the Supreme Leader himself define them as wild populists with no strategic understanding. But they are very close to the “ultra-radical” President Ebrahim Raisi, the main candidate to replace Khamenei, as well as to the top echelons of the Revolutionary Guards. This coalition endangers the status of the Supreme Leader.

The election also had another outcome that endangers him: voter turnout numbered only 41% of all eligible voters, the lowest ever. This supports my assessment from February 2020 that only “between 20 and 30 percent of the population – the Bazaaris, the upper-middle class, some of the middle class, government officials, and military officers” are dependent on the ruling regime. In other words, the regime is carried on the bayonets of one-third of the population.

The Iranian political elite consists essentially of three groups. One is the moderates, or “reformists,” people like former President Muhammad Khatami, former President Hassan Rouhani, former parliamentary speakers Ali Larijani, and Khamenei’s grandson Hassan Khamenei. Another group is so-called “conservatives” who could more accurately be seen as “radicals”. The most prominent among them is Supreme Leader Khamenei. The third is even more extreme; let us refer to them as “ultra-radicals.” Faced with the new challenge, the ruling elite understands that, despite the meaningful differences among them, they must close ranks.

Therefore, the Supreme Leader can no longer act as he had customarily done — particularly of interest to Israel, namely authorizing Iran’s satellites to act on its behalf, or to desist. He had to join the ultra-radicals and order the direct Iranian assault on Israel. He perhaps hoped that a major military operation would also silence internal criticism.

But the salient issue for Israel is that, according to the Hebrew press, military intelligence told Prime Minister Netanyahu that Iran would not react directly to the killing of the terrorist Iranian officers in Damascus. Had they considered the open-source reports about the recent radicalization of the parliament and the Committee of Experts to be as valuable as their classified material, they would likely have re-evaluated the situation.

This is not the first time that Israel’s military intelligence ignored the open media. It happened on October 7^th 2023, as it did on October 6^th 1973. Luckily, this time it caused no disaster, and even had some positive effects.

What lies in the future?

It is likely that had Israel retaliated in a way that would have humiliated the Iranian leadership, Khamenei’s automatic response would have been war.

But, since Israel retaliated in a way that only the Iranian elite understands (similar to the attack on the Syrian reactor by the Olmert government), Khamenei decided not to attack Israel directly.

If Israel continues to assassinate Iranian officers at military installations in Syria, the Paydari Party, President Raisi and senior IRGC officials will demand a direct attack. Evidence of this can be found in the ultra-radical position of IRGC commander General Hossein Salami:

From now on, Iran will attack in response to any harm perpetrated by the Zionist regime on our interests, assets, personnel, and civilians everywhere.

Muhammad Jamshidi, senior advisor to President Raisi, was more forceful:

The era of strategic patience is over! Israel’s strategy of ‘war-between-wars’ (in Syria) has been defeated. The formula has changed. Attacks by the [Zionist] regime on Iranian individuals and assets (anywhere?) will be met with direct punishment.

By contrast, Iranian Armed Forces (Artesh) Chief of Staff Muhammad Bagheri warned that only an Israeli attack on Iran itself would receive an “even harsher” response. This is probably also the position of the Supreme Leader.

It seems that the Iranian ruling elite is now teetering between these two positions.

It is unclear how Iran’s radicalized collective leadership will react to resumed Israeli attacks on Iranian officers in Syria. The effective Israeli air defense on April 14, and the successful Israeli operation in Iran a few days later, illustrate Iran’s technological and intelligence backwardness. This is a restraining factor. The new regional defense against the Iranian attack and the ambiguity of who attacked in Iran also reduce the chances of a direct response. However, with the new extremism in Tehran it must be understood that activist pressure there is mounting.

And it must also be understood that Israeli military intelligence needs to pay more attention to open mainstream and social media as part of their arsenal of intelligence sources.

This is a slightly modified version of his article, originally published in Hebrew in Maariv on 21 April 2024. Prof. Baram’s bio appears here.