The Iranian Perspective on Hizbullah’s Massive Attack on Israel

Arab society is based on shame, in contrast to Western society, which is based on guilt. The response to shame is often revenge, while the response to guilt is punishment or forgiveness. What is the response to the failure of revenge? Especially when it is publicly evident and results in greater shame, lies, confusion, attempts to dissimulate, and lack of coordinated messaging? The question then arises whether we are trapped in a vicious cycle, leading back to revenge, or if the current struggle is over the image of victory.

This is the second time during the Swords of Iron War that we have seen Nasrallah lie in his assertions, with lies that are eminently provable as such. The first lie was his denial of responsibility for the disaster in Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights, in which 12 children were killed and others injured. His speech on August 25 marked a new plateau in the ongoing lies. It is clear that he was delivering a speech written before the Israeli preemptive strike, reviewing the “achievements” that were planned and precoordinated with Tehran.

It is clear that the original plan was to fire 340 rockets at bases in northern Israel to engage the Iron Dome and other Israeli interception systems there, and to launch drones at the Glilot military base, which is near Herzliya and home to the Mossad intelligence agency and Unit 8200 of the IDF Intelligence Corps. The only change required after Israel’s preemptive strike was to state that the enemy was concealing the damage. Nasrallah also claimed Israel had failed to hit its rocket launchers because they had been successfully evacuated.

Just hours before Hizbullah’s planned attack, an Iranian-affiliated channel on Telegram, likely linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), published the Iranian regime’s and its proxies’ planned response to Israel’s recent targeted killings:

1. Iran is planning to target a high-level decision-maker and a strategic structure;it is likely that the intention is to strike an individual Israeli figure.

2. Hizbullah would hit a noncivilian target, an important site where the killing of Hizbullah military leader Fuad Shukr was planned, with no intention to harm civilians.

3. The Houthis would target essential Israeli infrastructure indiscriminately, including civilians.¹

At 2:36 a.m., the channel announced that the resistance axis was preparing for a large-scale missile offensive to begin immediately.

The Iranian regime, for its own reasons, chose not to join the attack. Possible reasons included a lack of operational readiness, fear of escalation into a full-scale war, but primarily U.S. support for Israel, which was bolstered after Israel’s preemptive strike in Lebanon. Other considerations included Iran’s economic plight, fear of Israeli retaliation in light of Israel’s demonstrated operational capabilities in reaching the Houthi-controlled Hudaydah port in Yemen, the outdated Iranian air force’s lack of offensive capability, and the geographical distance between Israel and Iran, because missile attacks can be readily detected.

Hence, Tehran shifted the responsibility for revenge against Israel to Hizbullah. This could also be inferred from statements by the Iranian chief of staff indicating that the Iranian revenge attack might be carried out either by Iran itself or the resistance axis. It is clear that the regime was preparing for victory celebrations, and aimed for a symbolic achievement by dubbing the attack “Operation Arba’in” and planning it for the most symbolic day for Shi’ites.²

Hizbullah’s operational and propaganda failure constituted a significant blow to the entire resistance axis and especially Iran. Iranian officials have clearly tried to create a victory image for Hizbullah’s failed attack. For example, initially, Iranian media claimed that the damage to the Israeli Dvora-class ship in the Mediterranean and the killing of the sailor were inflicted by a Hizbullah missile rather than an errant Israeli interceptor. In addition, the Tasnim News Agency published footage of a Hizbullah missile allegedly in flight, which turned out to be a Hizbullah drone that was intercepted.

This failure clearly prompted rapid and uncoordinated reactions by Iranian propagandists in an attempt to cover for the failed attack. For instance, Hossein Fak, a prominent communications activist for the IRGC, published an article in the Tehran municipality’s newspaper claiming that Hizbullah’s attack was only the first part of the revenge for Shukr’s death.³ However, after Nasrallah’s speech, in which he declared that the revenge had ended, Fak was forced to clarify on his Telegram channel that his statements were made before Nasrallah’s speech.⁴

In another case, the Kayhan newspaper featured on its front page Hizbullah’s claim that the Israeli preemptive strike was fake news,⁵ while the Jam-e Jam newspaper, published by the state broadcasting authority, reported that the Israeli preemptive strike had “failed” to prevent Hizbullah’s retaliation.⁶

Iranian efforts to attribute a military achievement and victory to Hizbullah’s attack on Israel were clearly unsuccessful. Instead, these efforts were greeted with mockery from the Lebanese and the Iranian public. The “revenge” was lampooned as only harming chickens because of a chicken coop that was damaged.

Although the status of the Iranian revenge is difficult to assess given the opacity of Khamenei’s personality cult, it can be conjectured that he is currently in a “tactical retreat,” as he defines it. This may last until Iran goes nuclear, or reaches the operational maturity to strike a high-ranking Israeli official. Meanwhile, it might not be carried out as long as the Iranians assess that the United States is backing Israel and are unwilling to be drawn into a full-scale war.

The image of victory for Hizbullah’s operation was sorely needed, and since it did not materialize, it had to be fabricated.

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Notes