[Salon] Parsi: What Iran does if Israel insists on hitting Lebanon



Great analysis as always, from Trita Parsi this morning:

"The logic is brutally simple. If the broader US-Iran arrangement tolerates Israel attacking an Iranian ally in Lebanon, then Tehran may conclude that the same arrangement can tolerate Iran targeting an Israeli ally in the Persian Gulf. Under such a scenario, Iran could retaliate against Emirati territory or Israeli operatives based there for every Israeli strike conducted in Lebanon. Rather than collapsing the agreement outright, Tehran would seek to exact a calibrated price for Israeli noncompliance.

Such a strategy would carry grave risks. Emirati retaliation could follow, potentially igniting a wider regional confrontation. Yet it remains unclear whether Washington would rush to the UAE’s defense if doing so meant destroying the very agreement it had negotiated with Tehran. In that sense, the strategy would place the burden back on the United States: either restrain Israel or watch the conflict metastasize across the Persian Gulf."


Read full at RS this morning: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-iran-ceasefire/

Best,
Kelley V
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Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Editor-in-Chief, Responsible Statecraft
Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
Washington, D.C
703-470-3759
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/




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