The issue isn’t whether Iran will retaliate but rather how.
Israel recently conducted its most daring operation against Iran since the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, used a remote-controlled machine gun to kill Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the godfather of Iran’s nuclear program, more than three years ago. On Monday, April 1, Israeli aircraft dropped their payloads on one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps‘ (IRGC) most notorious figures, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was meeting with Palestinian militant factions in Damascus, Syria. Strikes like this aren’t new for the Israelis, who have conducted hundreds of them in Syrian government-controlled territory over the years. But this one was different, not only due to the individual in the crosshairs but also because the building targeted was an Iranian diplomatic facility.
As one would expect, the Iranians are furious, calling the Israeli strike a massive breach of diplomatic protocol akin to an assault on Iran itself. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used a speech this week to warn Israel that there will be an Iranian response. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly shot back at Khamenei on X: „If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will react and attack in Iran.“
It’s difficult to overstate Zahedi’s importance to Iran’s regional strategy, nor is it a shock that Israel was waiting for the right time to take him off the board. Zahedi is an IRGC veteran, joining only two years after the Islamic Revolution swept the U.S.-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi from power. He once commanded the IRGC’s ground and air forces and served for years as the IRGC’s top man in Syria and Lebanon, which means he had an integral role in saving Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from going the way of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi—that is, dragged out of a storage drain and killed by his opponents.
