Iran’s New Policy Could Be a Middle East Game Changer
Iran says it will no longer wait for threats, declaring new strategic regional defense doctrine, so says Sadeq Larijani. Larijani is a prominent Iranian Shia cleric, conservative politician, and senior regime figure. He is best known for serving as Chief Justice (Head of the Judiciary) of Iran from 2009 to 2019 and as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council since late 2018. His now deceased brother, Ali Larijani, was the Speaker of the Parliament and National Security advisor to the Ayatollah before he was killed by Israel. The Larijanis are clerical and political royalty in Iran.
As the current head of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, chairman Larijani announced that Tehran’s intervention in support of Lebanon constitutes a formal declaration of a new strategic doctrine. Under the terms of this doctrine, attacks on any component of the Resistance Axis (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) will trigger an Iranian response that extends beyond geographical boundaries and reshapes regional equations.
Larijani explained that Iran has entered a new phase in which it no longer waits for threats to emerge before acting to preserve its regional position, but instead will take the initiative. He also warned that any expansion of the conflict or attack on critical Iranian infrastructure would be met with a comprehensive and deterrent response.
This introduces a new, dynamic variable into the calculus of the Levant. This marks the first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979 that Iran has committed itself to taking military action on behalf of Hezbollah and the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians. The conservative Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, reported that security officials admitted Israel did not expect Iran to fully follow through on threats, viewing it as a miscalculation. There was noted frustration that Iran dictated terms via the new “equation” and that Israel faced pressure (including from the U.S./Trump) to limit its response to avoid full war.
Israel continued its attacks in southern Lebanon on Monday, hitting the city of Tyre and killing more civilians. So far, Iran has not reacted. If Israel continues these attacks we will find out if Mr. Larijani was making an idle threat or if Iran is serious about punishing Israel with a new barrage of missiles for its attacks on the Lebanese civilians.
Meanwhile, Iran’s UN Ambassador confirmed today that Pakistan is playing a central role in trying to broker a peace deal between Iran and the United States. Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir-Saeid Iravani said:
We have not yet reached the final text, but we are pursuing it.
The US and Iran are providing and exchanging views and opinions to reach the final text through Pakistan.
This partially confirms the story that Pepe Escobar and I broke last Monday and conforms with Donald Trump’s recent claim that the US and Iran are closing in on an agreement to end the war. This also explains why Israel, according to a recent NY Times report, has intensified its spying on key members of the Trump administration in order to ferret out the details of the proposed agreement. Trump’s former lawyer, Robert Barnes, told the Jim Webb podcast today that US and Iranian negotiators had reached consensus on six separate MOU’s during the last three months and that Trump has rejected every one at the last minute. We’ll see if this one makes it over the finish line.