Iran’s top commander in Syria, Seyed Razi Mousavi, was assassinated Sunday by an Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA and Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
This has led Tehran to call for reprisals, ratcheting up fears that this might be the match that ignites a wider Middle East war.
Syria state news did not issue a statement, and Israel has declined to comment.
Israel either killed Mousavi as a warning to Iran — given Tehran’s support for the Houthis’ attacks on ships in the Red Sea — or as a provocation to beget an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war, or as a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response. Either one points to trouble.
The action preceded U.S. airstrikes in Northern Iraq that killed a number of Shia militants linked to Kataib Hezbollah, a Shia armed group and its affiliates, presumed to be backed by Iran. The strikes, ordered by Biden, were in retaliation for an attack on U.S. troops there that led to the injuries of three American service members, including one in critical condition, according to the Pentagon.
It is very likely that Israel is behind the assassination of Mousavi since it is the only power with both a motive and capacity to pull off such a killing — not to mention a long history of assassinating Iranian operatives. The U.S. has the capacity but not necessarily the motive. The analysis below rests on the rather safe assumption that Mousavi was assassinated by Israel.
U.S. intelligence believes that Iran has been actively involved in the Houthi movement’s targeting of ships in the Red Sea, which has effectively closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for Israel and cost the Israeli economy billions of dollars. The Houthis insist they will continue the attacks — despite threats of retaliation from the US — until Israel ceases its bombardment of Gaza.
Israel of course refuses, and Biden is loath to press Israel for a ceasefire. From Israel’s perspective, Iran is not paying a price for its alleged role in the Red Sea attacks. The assassination may, as a result, be a warning to Iran that Israel has the capacity and willingness to exact a price from Iran — even in areas where the Iranians may have presumed that they are safe.
In a second scenario, the assassination may be a deliberate provocation to engender an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war. While the Biden administration has given Israel the green light to bomb Gaza to smithereens, Biden opposes an expansion of the war since that very likely could drag the U.S. into it.
The debate inside the Israeli government is increasingly leaning toward expanding the war. They have already mobilized more than 300,000 troops, and there is a growing belief in Israel that it simply is intolerable for Israel to live next to Hezbollah.
Israel thought it could manage the threat from Hamas — and they couldn’t. Even though it wasn’t Hezbollah that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli argument is that next time it might be Hezbollah, and as a result, Israel has no choice but to expand the war. But unless there is an attack from Iran or Hezbollah itself, the U.S. may continue to oppose such a move.
But the assassination of Mousavi may cause Iran to retaliate against Israel via Hezbollah, the reasoning goes, and Israel can then use Hezbollah’s action as a pretext to not only expand the war to Lebanon — but also force the U.S. to go along with it.
There is also a third explanation. According to Amwaj Media, Mousavi was in charge of facilitating the entry of Iran-led forces and arms shipments to Syria as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. If Israel intends to attack Lebanon, taking out Mousavi could be a logical first step to disrupt the arming of Hezbollah as well as its supply lines. As such, the assassination may be a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response to the killing of Mousavi.
All of these scenarios point to one undeniable reality: As long as Biden refuses to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, tensions in the region will continue to rise and the Middle East will gravitate towards a regional war that very likely will engulf the U.S. as well. Biden may think that he can control these events and allow Israel to slaughter the people in Gaza while keeping a lid on the escalation risk.
He is likely wrong — and the American people may soon find themselves in yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East because of Biden’s strategic incompetence.
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![Following a largely preordained election, Vladimir Putin was sworn in last week for another six-year term as president of Russia. Putin’s victory has, of course, been met with accusations of fraud and political interference, factors that help explain his 87.3% vote share. If this continuation of Putin’s 24-year-long hold on power makes one thing clear, it’s that he and his regime will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. But, as his war in Ukraine continues with no clear end in sight, what is less clear is how Washington plans to deal with this reality. Experts say Washington needs to start projecting a long-term strategy toward Russia and its war in Ukraine, wielding its political leverage to apply pressure on Putin and push for more diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. Only by looking beyond short-term solutions can Washington realistically move the needle in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. has focused on getting aid to Ukraine to help it win back all of its pre-2014 territory, a goal complicated by Kyiv’s systemic shortages of munitions and manpower. But that response neglects a more strategic approach to the war, according to Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke in a recent panel hosted by Carnegie. “There is a vortex of emergency planning that people have been, unfortunately, sucked into for the better part of two years since the intelligence first arrived in the fall of 2021,” Weiss said. “And so the urgent crowds out the strategic.” Historian Stephen Kotkin, for his part, says preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty is critical. However, the apparent focus on regaining territory, pushed by the U.S., is misguided. “Wars are never about regaining territory. It's about the capacity to fight and the will to fight. And if Russia has the capacity to fight and Ukraine takes back territory, Russia won't stop fighting,” Kotkin said in a podcast on the Wall Street Journal. And it appears Russia does have the capacity. The number of troops and weapons at Russia’s disposal far exceeds Ukraine’s, and Russian leaders spend twice as much on defense as their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine will need a continuous supply of aid from the West to continue to match up to Russia. And while aid to Ukraine is important, Kotkin says, so is a clear plan for determining the preferred outcome of the war. The U.S. may be better served by using the significant political leverage it has over Russia to shape a long-term outcome in its favor. George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, says that Russia’s primary concerns and interests do not end with Ukraine. Moscow is fundamentally concerned about the NATO alliance and the threat it may pose to Russian internal stability. Negotiations and dialogue about the bounds and limits of NATO and Russia’s powers, therefore, are critical to the broader conflict. This is a process that is not possible without the U.S. and Europe. “That means by definition, we have some leverage,” Beebe says. To this point, Kotkin says the strength of the U.S. and its allies lies in their political influence — where they are much more powerful than Russia — rather than on the battlefield. Leveraging this influence will be a necessary tool in reaching an agreement that is favorable to the West’s interests, “one that protects the United States, protects its allies in Europe, that preserves an independent Ukraine, but also respects Russia's core security interests there.” In Kotkin’s view, this would mean pushing for an armistice that ends the fighting on the ground and preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, meaning not legally acknowledging Russia’s possession of the territory they have taken during the war. Then, negotiations can proceed. Beebe adds that a treaty on how conventional forces can be used in Europe will be important, one that establishes limits on where and how militaries can be deployed. “[Russia] need[s] some understanding with the West about what we're all going to agree to rule out in terms of interference in the other's domestic affairs,” Beebe said. Critical to these objectives is dialogue with Putin, which Beebe says Washington has not done enough to facilitate. U.S. officials have stated publicly that they do not plan to meet with Putin. The U.S. rejected Putin’s most statements of his willingness to negotiate, which he expressed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in February, citing skepticism that Putin has any genuine intentions of ending the war. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said in response. But neither side has been open to serious communication. Biden and Putin haven’t met to engage in meaningful talks about the war since it began, their last meeting taking place before the war began in the summer of 2021 in Geneva. Weiss says the U.S. should make it clear that those lines of communication are open. “Any strategy that involves diplomatic outreach also has to be sort of undergirded by serious resolve and a sense that we're not we're not going anywhere,” Weiss said. An end to the war will be critical to long-term global stability. Russia will remain a significant player on the world stage, Beebe explains, considering it is the world’s largest nuclear power and a leading energy producer. It is therefore ultimately in the U.S. and Europe’s interests to reach a relationship “that combines competitive and cooperative elements, and where we find a way to manage our differences and make sure that they don't spiral into very dangerous military confrontation,” he says. As two major global superpowers, the U.S. and Russia need to find a way to share the world. Only genuine, long-term planning can ensure that Washington will be able to shape that future in its best interests.](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/following-a-largely-preordained-election-vladimir-putin-was-sworn-in-last-week-for-another-six-year-term-as-president-of-russia.jpg?id=34283894&width=600&height=600&quality=90&coordinates=483%2C0%2C483%2C0)
