Saudi media quoted Reuters as reporting that after Hamas leader Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, the capital of Iran, Iran announced that it would punish the Israel aggressors in order to strengthen the deterrence of Israel's adventurism and ensure stability and security in the Middle East.
It is widely predicted that Iran's retaliation will be unprecedented in scale, because Iran will not only have to give an account to its allies such as Hamas and Allah, but also to itself, because the assassination site is in Tehran, which is a blatant violation of Iran's sovereignty and even directly threatens the safety of high-level Iran government personnel.
Now, when the outside world is speculating about when Iran will retaliate and how large-scale it will be, under the pressure of United States, Iran first showed his timidity, revealing the background color of "lust and inwardness". On August 5, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry commented on the prediction of retaliation against Israel, saying that Iran does not want tensions in the Middle East to escalate, but Iran must respond to the matter and punish Israel to prevent the Middle East from falling into further instability.
At the heart of this statement is that Iran will punish Israel in a way that does not lead to an escalation of tensions in the region. To put it bluntly, it is both heavy and light, how to understand this sentence? The "important" is to let the outside world see Iran's determination and attitude to safeguard its own sovereignty and the security of its allies, that is, to give an explanation to its allies and Iran at home. "Light" means that it cannot be fought in one wave, and then provoke United States and Israel, causing the situation in the Middle East to slide into the abyss of a major war.
This is reminiscent of Iran's retaliatory strike against Israel in April this year. At that time, Iran was hit by Israel air strikes on the Iranian embassy in Syria, resulting in many casualties, and then Iran retaliated against Israel in order to protect its sovereignty. Specific measures in retaliation were the firing of 300 missiles into Israel, as well as unmanned aerial systems. However, it is worth mentioning that before the strike was launched, Iran disclosed the timing and target of the strike to the United States in advance, which also gave the United States, United Kingdom and Israel "sufficient" time to prepare for the response.
In the end, the retaliation was spectacular and large-scale, but the effect was limited, as most of the drones and missiles were intercepted by United States, Israel and their allies, and only one radar base in Israel territory was partially damaged.
To some extent, Iran's retaliatory tactics and determination to retaliate in April are grossly at odds with their determination to retaliate. At that time, Iran raised the "black flag", that is, the "revenge flag", to show that Iran would resolutely retaliate, but the fact did not achieve this effect. This time, Iran raised the "black flag" again, and the spokesman of the Iran Foreign Ministry stated in advance that it did not want the situation in the Middle East to escalate, and it is almost certain that Iran's retaliatory actions against Israel will most likely continue the form in April this year. The only difference may be that this time there is an assistant to the Lebanon Allah Party, and according to United States predictions, the Iran and Allah Party will launch retaliatory strikes against Israel in two batches.
We know that Israel and United States' assassinations against Iran and Iran's allies have never stopped, but Iran's retaliation has always been painless. By the time of Haniyeh's assassination, five of Hamas's six leaders had been assassinated.
Soleimani, a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was assassinated in 2020, and Zahedi, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Rahimi, deputy commander, were assassinated in Syria. In addition, Iran's nuclear experts have been assassinated one after another, many even in Iran.
Iran's response to this series of assassinations has actually been relatively low-key, and even if it is retaliated, it is mostly symbolic.
Iran has made it clear that it will retaliate against Israel, but it does not want to cause tension in the Middle East, let alone a full-scale conflict between Iran and Israel. And United States also said that it hopes to promote the cooling of the situation in the Middle East. After Israel's assassination of Chania, United States President Joe Biden and United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken took positive actions to avoid further escalation of the situation in the Middle East and threaten United States' strategic stability in the Middle East.
Biden spoke by phone with King Abdullah of Jordan, and Blinken called senior diplomats in Qatar and Egypt directly to try to get the countries to mediate before Iran retaliated against Israel. Blinken also said after the White House meeting that United States diplomats are engaged in round-the-clock diplomacy, and they only want to send a very simple message to the outside world, that is, to avoid further expansion and escalation of the Middle East.
This also fully shows that neither United States nor Iran want new large-scale conflicts to emerge in the Middle East at present. For United States, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war and the Indo-Pacific strategy, United States will never hope that this Palestinian-Israeli conflict will eventually turn into a sixth Middle East war, which will be a fatal blow to United States's global strategy. Iran, on the other hand, prefers to support armed groups in the Middle East to attack Israel instead of Iran than to get involved in a direct conflict with Israel or even the United States and the West, because Iran does not think it can win. This is also a key reason why Iran has repeatedly "thundered and rained".