Israel began its two recent wars with the assassination of senior Iranian officials and continued the same policy by martyring the heroic Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the brave Minister of Intelligence during the war. But what effect will this strategy have on the outcome of the war?
First: In the 12-day war — in which Iran for the first time experienced the sudden elimination of a high level of senior military commanders — the country was able to return to the battlefield in a relatively short time, manage the war, and ultimately reach a temporary ceasefire with the retreat of the Israeli and American side. After the 12-day war, Iranian decision-makers anticipated all scenarios related to the elimination of senior officials, including at the highest level — the elimination of the Leader of the Revolution — yet no operational or tactical disruption occurred in the battlefield.
The main reason is that commanders at various levels are fully briefed on the pre-planned stages and scenarios of the war and know how to act at each stage. Additionally, the initiative and autonomy of units and levels in practice have preserved the strength and solidity of Iran’s battlefield. Therefore, Iran has practically solved the challenge of assassination in its war equations.
It is worth noting that the new experience of Hezbollah, which lost almost all of its important and senior commanders up to several levels, showed that Israel’s assassination strategy is ineffective, and Iran — being far more structured, larger, and more complex than Hezbollah in Lebanon — cannot be dismantled by such methods.
Second: Assassinations will, in another way, make the outcome of the war much more difficult for Israel than before. Iran will enter a greater state of ambiguity and hidden cover through pre-designated replacement commanders and officials at several levels.
Moreover, Iran’s responses to these assassinations will follow a more ambiguous and sharper trend. Iran’s response will not be merely security-related or tit-for-tat but will also involve intensifying the type of strikes on the battlefield. Iran will continue, intelligently and without emotionalism, and under the new conditions, to deliver heavier blows, continuing the project of strategic collapse and gradual weakening of the collective Zionist entity. Iran remains fully aware of and believes in its different resilience superiority.
Third: Israel pursues three major goals through the assassination of senior Iranian officials during the war. The primary goal — whose failure has already been seen on the battlefield — is to create disruption in Iran’s structure and battlefield cohesion. But the second goal, on which it has invested, is to weaken the collective morale of Iranians, induce a sense of defeat, and create instability in national steadfastness and resistance through psychological collapse and weakening.
What has been observed so far in Iran’s streets and popular gatherings gives hope that there is no cause for concern, and continuing this trend guarantees the enemy’s failure to achieve the second goal as well. The Israeli government, of course, seeks to exploit these assassinations for political and social gains inside the occupied territories. However, it is unclear this time, under the historical blows of Iranian missiles, to what extent this painkiller can temporarily alleviate the strategic pains of Zionist society.
By By Mahdi Jahantighi