HOW WILL IRAN RESPOND TO DAMASCUS EMBASSY ATTACK?

TIT FOR TAT? OR FURIOUS ASSAULT?

Aftermath of Israeli Strike on Iranian Embassy Compound in Damascus Syria

Speculation or Analysis?  Certainly, you won’t get any straight information from the U.S. government or the mainstream media.

Here’s the U.S. Institute of Peace’s 2022 views on Iran.

•       Iran will continue to threaten U.S. interests as it tries to erode U.S. influence in the Middle East, entrench its influence and project power in neighboring states, and minimize threats to regime stability. 

•       Iran remains a threat to Israel, both directly through its missile forces and indirectly through its support of Lebanese Hizballah and other terrorist groups.

• Iran will remain a problematic actor across the region with its backing of Iraqi Shia militias, which is the primary threat to U.S. personnel in Iraq. Iran’s economically and militarily propping up of a rogue Syrian regime and spreading instability across Yemen through its support to the Huthis [sic]—including a range of advanced military systems—also pose a threat to U.S. partners and interests, including Saudi Arabia.

•       Iran’s hybrid approach to warfare—using both conventional and unconventional capabilities—will pose a threat to U.S. interests in the region for the foreseeable future. 

•       Iran’s growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations make it a major threat to the security of U.S. and allied networks and data.

Isn’t that astonishing?  An Institute of Peace asserts that the United States might lose its influence in the Middle East because of a nation actually there.  Iran threatens Israel!  When it’s Israel that threatens the entire region, if not the world.  Iran threatens American personnel in Iraq!  Why are the U.S. servicemen and weapons there at all?  Why is Syria a “rogue state”?  Because it resisted America’s invasion from half a world away?   Repressive Saudi Arabia is a U.S. Ally? An unconventional approach to traditional Yankee concepts of war threatens American interests?  Which are?  And Iran is a threat to American cyber operations?  After the U.S. and the Apartheid Entity unleashed the Stuxnet virus on Iran?

U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.

The Israeli-centric Associated Press (AP), in a series of articles, never comments on the heinous Zionist violation the Law of Nations with its attempt to murder the Iranian ambassador to Syria or its continuing efforts to assassinate members of the Iranian armed forces.  Instead, it bases its reporting on the biased “Syrian Observatory on Human Rights”, a questionable organization run out of Rami Abdulrahman’s spare bedroom in the U.K.  And quoting the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood as urging: “…Iran and its proxies and partners in the region — Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — to de-escalate tensions, and he repeated prior American warnings to them not to take advantage of the situation “to resume their attacks on U.S. personnel.”  Yet, Wood said nothing about the illegitimate and terrorist entity that styles itself “Israel” a well as its actions to escalate tensions in the region.

And the AP is concerned about retaliation against the United States for its support of Israeli brutality: “The U.S. is concerned the deadly strike in Damascus could trigger new attacks on American troops by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, said Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the top U.S. Air Force commander for the Middle East.”  Without explaining why Yankee soldiers are in Iraq waiting to be attacked.

Watchful Waiting.  April 5, 2024’s Washington Post notes that Israel is prepared for an Iranian backlash which might lead to widespread war.  It quotes Sanam Vakil at London’s Chatham House (a British Think Tank) as saying the Zionist strike was “part of an Israeli strategy aimed at destabilizing Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ through a campaign of assassinations…”  The paper quotes comments by Afshon Ostovar, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.  He stated Iran is “hamstrung because it is on the one hand succeeding politically …but can’t push any harder militarily…”  Continuing, he remarked that Iran “has to take some of this stuff on the chin…[it] has no real reason to change the game and get into a shooting war.”

To be sure, this has been echoed by several of my knowledgeable contacts who thoroughly understand the area.  Their views were, essentially, that Iran is pragmatic and will not be pressured into provoking an Israeli-American attack with nuclear weapons.  Additionally, they told me that Iran knows full well that the NeoCons and ZioCons in the Yankee government want a war that will destroy Iran.  They take their orders from Tel Aviv and have spent years attempting to extinguish the Islamic Republic.  Fortunately, without success.

COMMENT.  My view is Yes and No.  Yes, Iran will retaliate—at a time and place of its own choosing.  No, the Islamic Republic will not engage in any rash action that risks the political, territorial, and cultural, integrity of the country.

When I was in Iran the first time, back in 2018, at the invitation of the late, great Nader Talebzadeh and his New Horizons Conference, I and two others, met with a well-connected attorney in Qazvin, one-time Persian capital in the northwest.  Over a dinner of hamburgers, French fries, pizza, and Coca Cola, the attorney commented on his experiences during the Iran-Iraq war, fomented and promoted by the United States.  Our contact noted that he and several friends had been badly wounded in that conflict.  Additional ones, he added, had died. 

BUT he repeatedly emphasized that he and others were still willing to perish to keep the Islamic Republic whole.  Growing agitated at my compatriots’ remarks that Iran would lose in any confrontation because of Israeli and American nuclear weapons and cyberwar expertise, he hammered the point that Iran had the key to Zionist Israel’s Iron Dome plus cyber skills of its own.  And that he, and fellow citizens, were willing to see Iran, with its 5,000 years of history, destroyed rather than submit to a foreign entity.  The attorney also said that Iran’s response to attacks would be, essentially, “tit for tat”. i.e. the Islamic Republic would match the kind and level of alien assaults.  However, he stressed that should his country be struck by overwhelming force, it would respond in the same way, targeting the majority Jewish cities of Occupied Palestine with all the weight of its armed forces. 

Believing this to be a backdoor effort to contact the U.S. government, I summarized his remarks in a letter I subsequently sent to Thomas Shannon, at that time Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the number three position in that department.  Since I never received a response, I assume it was ignored.

Some years ago, while attending an Area Studies course at State’s Foreign Service Institute before my Saudi Arabia assignment, I learned that Iran operates on the basis of acts rather than talk.  If you want their attention or if they want your attention, deeds, rather than blather, are key.

So, I believe that Iran will retaliate against this latest Israeli insanity.  I believe it will pick an appropriate time and place of its own choosing.  Additionally, given its ability to engage in asymmetric warfare, I believe the Islamic Republic will act in a way other than simply blowing up an Israeli or American building.

J. Michael Springmann is an attorney, author, political commentator, and former diplomat, with postings to Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He previously authored, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider’s View, recounting how the U.S. created and used Islamic Terrorism. Additionally, he penned Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos?  Merkel’s Migrant Bomb, an analysis of the alien wave sweeping the Continent. He currently practices law in the Washington D.C. Area.  Internationally recognized as a knowledgeable pundit, he is a frequent commentator on Arab, Iranian, and Russian news programs.

Blacklisted by the US news media, he is also on the Ukraine’s “Enemies List”, having questioned, inter alia, that country’s refusal to honor the Minsk Accords and for stating that its government is Nazified.