The Government Of Iran Declares: We Will Not Attack Israel Directly. We Will Leave That Up To Hezbollah And Hamas

Now, fissures have opened within the Iranian government over how to respond to Mr. Nasrallah’s killing, with conservatives arguing for a forceful response and the moderates, led by Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, calling for restraint.

All of this has left Iran, and its supreme leader, in a vulnerable position.

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Mr. Khamenei struck much the same tone in public. Instead of lashing out at Israel, he issued two restrained statements, praising Mr. Nasrallah as a leading figure in the Muslim world and the so-called axis of resistance, and saying that Iran would stand by Hezbollah.

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Significantly, Mr. Khamenei signaled that it would be Hezbollah, not Iran, that would be leading any response to Israel, and that Iran would play a supporting role. “All of the forces in the resistance stand by Hezbollah,” Mr. Khamenei said. “It will be Hezbollah, at the helm of the resistance forces, that will determine the fate of the region.”

It was a striking sign, some analysts said, that Mr. Khamenei may have no way to effectively respond at the moment to Israel’s onslaught on his proxies. Faced with a choice between all-out war with Israel or lying low in the interest of self-preservation, he appears to be choosing the latter.

“They are completely checkmated by Israel at this moment,” said Sanam Vakil, the director for Middle East at Chatham House. “Khamenei’s statement is indicative of the gravity of the moment and the caution; he is not publicly committing to anything that he can’t deliver.”

After Mr. Khamenei’s statements, a flurry of reactions from senior Iranian officials and military commanders had the same cautious tone, outsourcing revenge to other militia groups in the region. Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, said that it would be “Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian militants” that would deliver blows to Israel.

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“This was an incredibly heavy blow, and realistically speaking, we have no clear path for recovering from this loss,” Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president of Iran, said in an interview from Tehran on Saturday. “We will not go to war, that’s off the table. But Iran will also not reverse course in supporting the militant groups in the region, nor in defusing tensions with the West. All of these things can be pursued at the same time.”

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Other moderate voices on the council argued that Mr. Netanyahu had blown through all red lines, and that if it launched attacks on Israel, Iran could face dire attacks on its own critical infrastructure, something the country could not afford, those officials said, particularly given the dire state of the economy.