Iran has communicated to the United States through intermediaries that a direct attack on Iranian soil would cause Tehran itself to strike back against American assets in the Middle East, drawing the two countries directly into conflict.
The warning comes as Iran weighs in on how Joe Biden will respond to the killings of three U.S. service members who the U.S. government deemed to have been killed by Iranian-made weapons fired by Iran-backed Syria-based militias. The announcement was made while people were watching on high alert.
U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq have suffered more than 160 attacks of varying severity since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Amid fears of U.S. retaliation, the Iranian rial has fallen to a 40-year low against the dollar. Iran has reiterated that weekend attacks on US military bases on the Jordanian-Syrian border were the work of an independent “resistance group.” – Iran’s standard response to US accusations that it is behind the military chaos spreading across the region – is to arm and train the group. Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
The value of Iran’s national currency has fallen by 15% since October 7. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced a liquidity crisis in a meeting with business leaders, reflecting concerns that inflation is squeezing living standards and creating a difficult atmosphere ahead of national parliamentary elections in November. He called for stronger management. Inflation is running at 40%.
Currently, Iranian media are openly speculating about the nature of possible retaliation, based primarily on US media reports. Although both sides stress that they are not seeking war, the Iranian government believes that any attack by the United States on its territory is a red line that cannot be crossed and that an appropriate response will be taken.
Amid rising tensions, Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned British Ambassador Simon Shircliffe to demand that Britain stop claiming that Iran was trying to intimidate Iranian dissidents living in Britain.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian confidently pointed out that events across the region are still moving in Iran’s direction. He said the White House is well aware that a “political solution” is needed to end the carnage in the besieged Gaza Strip and the current Middle East crisis.
He said: “Diplomacy is moving forward along this path. Benjamin Netanyahu is nearing the end of his criminal political career.”
Iran’s Deputy Interior Minister Seyyed Majid Mirahammadi met with his Syrian counterpart to discuss the crisis, with a so-called “axis of resistance” on the brink, with a US strike on Iranian positions in Syria seen as the most likely option. he claimed. of victory.
Former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said he believed there had been a crack in Israel’s “aura of invincibility.” In an interview, he claimed that “the Israeli regime’s foreign policy is based on two axes: repression and invincibility.”
Zarif said Israel’s war policy has three pillars: the war must be outside Israel, it must be surprising, and it must end quickly. He said both the two axes of Israel’s foreign policy and the three pillars of its military policy were destroyed by the October 7 attack.
But Iran itself faces its own challenges. Four Kurds executed on Monday He was accused by the regime of collaborating with the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Images circulating online show deserted streets and shuttered shops in cities such as Sanandaj, Sakkes, Mahabad, Buchan and Degolan.
The four men, all members of the left-wing Komala party, were executed last summer on suspicion of collaborating with Israel to plan the Isfahan bombing.
Mehdi Saadati, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said: “This execution is a lesson for those who seek to rebel against the will of the Iranian state, because the Iranian state will not tolerate their actions. “This is because they will be punished for it.”
However, it remains unclear whether the latest crackdown is related to tensions within Iran over the level of support for the Iranian government’s interventionist foreign policy.
Support for the Palestinians is widespread across Iranian society, but the regime is concerned that economic conditions and general political dissatisfaction could reduce turnout in March’s parliamentary elections, undermining its own claims to legitimacy. ing.
To encourage participation, the number of ballot boxes will be doubled and candidates will be given more airtime on TV and radio in an effort to create an atmosphere of excitement. There will be no “postal voting,” but a large number of mobile stations will be deployed.
Voter turnout in the 2020 parliamentary elections was recorded at less than 42.5%, with turnout in the capital Tehran dropping to 26.2%, the lowest since the 1979 revolution. We expect the same to happen this time as well. However, a turnout below 40% would be a blow to the regime’s prestige and confirm that the revolution is surviving in a mix of repression and marginalization.
