At the heart of the current conflicts in the Middle East is a long-running rivalry between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And Netanyahu appears to have expected that even if Israel cracks down bitterly on Khamenei’s so-called Axis of Resistance – the regional network of militias arrayed against Israeli and Western interests – Khamenei will not do much about it.

Yesterday, Israel’s attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader since 1992. It was just the latest in a dramatic series of attacks this month, including a sci-fi-like operation involving exploding pagers that killed high-ranking people were killed. senior commanders of the Lebanese militant group and hundreds of Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah is widely considered the greatest non-state threat to Israel. Nasrallah was by far the most powerful agent of the Iranian axis.

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Hamas is also part of this axis. And since the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, many people in the Middle East have been preparing for an Iranian attack on Israel that could plunge the region into all-out war. But the answer hasn’t come. Ultimately, Tehran decided against risking a major escalation with Israel. Khamenei has stuck to his policy of “strategic patience,” slowly building militias that surround Israel on all sides without entering into direct confrontation.

Whether Nasrallah’s death will change Khamenei’s cautious approach seems questionable. A statement from the Iranian embassy in Beirut yesterday said the “rules of the game” had now changed and threatened Israel with “appropriate punishment and discipline.” Predictably, the mouthpiece of the hardliners Kayhanwhose history includes praising Adolf Hitler and persistently denying the Holocaust, declared today: “Israel dug its own graves; Now go ahead and bury his body.”

But officials in Tehran were much more cautious. Several, after yesterday’s attack but before Nasrallah’s death was confirmed, simply pointed out that if Hezbollah’s commanders are killed, they will be replaced by others. That position was taken by Ahmad Vahidi, the founding chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, who helped build Hezbollah into the formidable force it is today. Tehran has deep-rooted reasons for showing restraint in recent weeks – reasons that still apply, no matter how egregious it considers the killing of Nasrallah.

First, Iran’s options for retaliation against Israel are very limited, and it cannot cause much damage there without risking destruction of Iran’s infrastructure, which could take decades to rebuild.

Second, Iran has been trying for months to ease tensions and continue talks with other countries in the region and with the West. Last week in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, an Iranian delegation led by President Masoud Pezeshkian defended Hezbollah and Hamas, but focused on spreading peace sentiment. Pezeshkian even told a group of American journalists that Iran would lay down its weapons if Israel did the same. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later denied that the president had made such a statement, but Iranian hardliners leaked audio recordings confirming this.

Araghchi himself is spreading the message that Iran wants the international community to prevent Israel from expanding the conflict. Araghchi said on Tuesday in Tehran, Pezeshkian spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani compared recent attacks against Hezbollah to Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. She called on the UN Security Council to “intervene to prevent disasters like Gaza and Rafah in Lebanon.”

Such calls for measured action from the global community sound very different from the stance of Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, who warned last week that the group’s war with Israel had entered “a new phase of limitless reckoning.” Tehran is not Hezbollah. Although Pezeshkian claimed on CNN that Hezbollah was unable to defend itself “on its own” and appeared to promise Iran’s entry into the conflict, his foreign minister essentially corrected that statement. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, Araghchi promised that Hezbollah “makes its own decisions and is fully capable of defending itself, Lebanon and the Lebanese people alone.”

This is another way of saying that Iran has no intention of coming to Hezbollah’s aid. Iran’s Lebanese allies are on their own. Javad Zarif, Tehran’s most popular English-speaking messenger and now vice president, repeated the same arguments on CNN Thursday.

Iranian hardliners are outraged by this attitude. Even before Nasrallah’s death, the political debate in Iran resembled the period from 2013 to 2021, when centrist President Hassan Rouhani’s negotiations with the United States and other Western countries led to a backlash in Iran. Earlier this week, a commentator accused Pezeshkian’s government of abandoning Hezbollah and claimed that if Iran did not respond to attacks on Lebanon, Israel would attack Tehran next.

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A centrist media outlet responded by criticizing “extremists who always want to stir up tensions.” The anti-retaliation case was made most clearly by Mohammad Khajoee, the head of the Lebanon section of a leading Tehran think tank and a former Beirut bureau chief of Iran’s largest news agency. In an article Thursday in a reform-oriented daily, he argued: “Iran must not enter into a military conflict with Israel. It must quickly find a way for Hezbollah to save face and get out of this latest war without suffering further damage.” Iran, Khajoee wrote, “must convince Hezbollah to end its clashes with Israel and return to the war.” conditions to return before October 7.” Khajoee even criticized Hamas for dragging Iran and the Axis powers into a war for which they were unprepared.

What Iran does next is up to Khamenei. The supreme leader has not given up his decades-long crusade against the West, Israel and the inadequate purity of his own people. But him has Understanding that intransigence could prove self-destructive for his regime, he is reaching out to negotiate with the West that could help lift sanctions and stabilize the country. His open support for Pezeshkian limits the moves of the hardliners, who are also hated by much of the Iranian population and even by many in the establishment.

Many in Tehran are cautiously hoping for a new era of talks with the West. A prominent Iranian diplomatic correspondent expressed hope this week that negotiations with European countries to revive the Barack Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and lift sanctions would resume soon, possibly followed by talks with the United States after November’s presidential election.

But what if Tehran’s reluctance encourages Israel to continue its attacks on Hezbollah? Netanyahu may feel that he has called Khamenei’s bluff and can now march on, leaving his fractious right-wing coalition happy and intact. The Axis powers could then increase their pressure on Tehran to get into the ring. Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi militias have already fired volleys in defense of Hezbollah.

Still an uneasy balance has So far, this principle has been adhered to, preventing open war between Israel and Iran. Israel would do well to view Nasrallah’s death as a resounding victory against the Axis powers and seize the opportunity to end the wars against Hezbollah and Hamas. If ever there was a time for Israel to pursue peace with its neighbors from a position of strength, this is it.