President Vladimir Putin has reportedly told Iran to avoid civilian casualties in any retaliatory attacks against Israel for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, highlighting the constraints Iran faces in crafting a response and likely to also draw calls for restraint from many of the foreign ministers of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states when they meet in Jeddah on Wednesday amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
The conference, convened jointly by Iran and Pakistan, is expected to unanimously condemn Haniyeh’s killing as an illegal act by Israel that escalates tensions, but Iranian diplomats will try to avoid isolating themselves from more cautious Arab Gulf states.
The warning from Putin, a close ally of Iran, was reportedly conveyed by Sergei Shoigu, a former Russian defence minister and head of the National Security Council, who visited Tehran on Monday after Haniyeh’s death last week. Israel has neither admitted nor denied its role but it is widely accepted that it is responsible.
While this is not an outright rebuke of Iran, as most of the Iranian leadership is aiming to strike military targets, it does underscore Russian concerns that the response to Haniyeh’s killing could get out of hand, especially if multiple members of Iran’s semi-national resistance, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, simultaneously launch their own undisciplined military responses. The Houthis have already attacked homes in Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday vowed a “strong and effective” response to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut last week, saying he would act alone or in conjunction with regional allies. “Whatever the outcome, the resistance will not tolerate Israeli attacks,” Nasrallah said in a televised address marking one week since the assassination.
Western officials say it is now highly unlikely that Iran will be persuaded to back down from any military action and that the focus of the calls between Tehran and Oman is to persuade Iran to avoid actions that could lead to an all-out war in the region. Western countries argue that such a war would be in no one’s interest and would ultimately isolate Iran at a time when the new government of a reformist president seeks improved ties with the world.
Iran’s last major effort to win the OIC’s support came in November at a joint meeting of the group and the Arab League during then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s first visit to Saudi Arabia, where he tried in a 30-minute speech to convince Gulf states that the words were over and action was needed.
He laid out a 10-point plan that included freezing diplomatic relations with Israel, strengthening the trade boycott, banning energy sales, preventing arms transfers from U.S. air bases to Israel, and “sending convoys carrying humanitarian aid from Islamic countries to the Palestinian people.”
But the sprawling statement that was eventually released contained almost no Iranian plan of action, focusing instead on blanket condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which have since been further condemned by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice, and led to the request for an arrest warrant by International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan.
The chances that the foreign ministers will adopt such a bold plan of action in Jeddah are as low today as they were in November. Instead, the meeting gives Iran a forum to assert its sovereign claim over Haniyeh’s killing. It also gives Iran an opportunity to pressure countries like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia not to do anything that would undermine the effectiveness of Iran’s response. It is clear that when Iran launched its airstrikes on Israel in April, Saudi Arabia and Jordan either allowed the United States to shoot down Iranian missiles that crossed their territory, or their air forces intervened and shot them down. It is unclear whether they will do so again.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are also two countries that would normally be in the path of bullets fired from Yemen at Israeli targets.
Whether to point out Gulf weaknesses vis-à-vis Israel is a diplomatic decision for Iran’s new leadership, which would undermine efforts to improve regional relations with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Gulf leaders are not pleased with Iran’s efforts to anger their own people over not doing enough to protect the Palestinians.
While the Iranian Foreign Ministry is currently focused on convincing Muslim countries of America’s duplicity and building a coalition that supports its right to fight back, this cannot hide the deeper conflict between Iran and Arab countries over how to deal with Israel.
The Arab world’s reluctance to take military action against Israel is deeply rooted in the Arab psyche due to the disastrous defeats in the 1967 and 1973 wars. If Israel’s political leadership changes, there is a deep-rooted tendency towards normalization. Most Arab countries support a two-state system, while Iran, in contrast, supports holding a referendum on Israel’s future among Israelis, Palestinians in the occupied territories, and Palestinian refugees.
Israel maintains that unless Iran changes its position and stops supplying weapons to the Axis of Resistance, tensions in the Middle East will continue to rise, bringing the entire region to the brink of war of unknown proportions.
