Eye on the Middle East | Iran’s revival of strategic patience amid slow-burn ceasefire negotiations
Iran can symbolically retaliate with sufficient elements of escalation control or let the pressure from its rhetoric act as an instrument of coercion
Across August 15 and 16, key mediators including Egypt, Qatar, and the United States met in Doha for “intensive” discussions in a renewed effort to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.
Even as this meeting adjourned with parties set to reconvene in Cairo next week, a joint statement from the three states asserted that the talks were “serious and constructive”, with parties focused on a ‘bridging proposal’ that can lay the foundations for a ceasefire which they expect to finally conclude in Cairo. The positive undertone in both this statement as well as one by the White House, has been seen as part of an attempt to further check Iran’s hand and ward off its promised retaliation against Israel.
Indeed, it is now close to 20 days since Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on July 31 and Iran’s subsequent declaration of its intention to ‘harshly punish’ Israel. In the weeks since then, numerous news reports and analyses have speculated on whether Iran will ‘respond’. However, Iran’s acts thus far prove that it is a far more cautious actor than anticipated.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a pragmatic actor; its self-declared war against Israel is timeless and historic, meaning that Iran’s fight is not defined by the need to act decisively or comprehensively at any particular point in time. This has long allowed Iran to weather multiple losses to Israel (such as the assassinations of its nuclear scientists) and adopt what Khamenei has roughly termed “strategic patience” — the term freshly did the rounds in January, following the Kerman bombings.
To understand whether this concept is presently at work, it is necessary to re-look at what retaliation might mean for Tehran as well as its current strategic priorities.
First, the semantic of ‘retaliation’ in the current context needs to be re-evaluated, since Iran has evidently let the early window of attack pass. While a replication of Iran’s drone missile barrage in April (with any variation of scale) remains on the table, Iran is not bound by this precedent. In any case, Hezbollah itself is arguably already having its revenge — it has fired salvos of 50-100 rockets in numerous exchanges with Israel in the weeks since Fuad Shukr’s killing. Beyond the April template, Iran itself is left with few substantial options that go beyond symbolism – short of a full-scale war.
This column showed in April that Iran’s priorities then were to establish deterrence, with Tehran letting 13 days pass before retaliating against Israel for its strike against Iran’s consulate in Damascus. Presently, Iran has kept up a dual approach — repeating its commitment to responding against Israel, while also indicating that it does not wish to adversely affect ceasefire efforts.
The latter is evidenced both by the Iranian Ambassador’s statement at the UN as well as the time elapsed since Haniyeh’s killing. This approach allows Iran to inject a fresh variable into the ceasefire talks, adding pressure on states to push Israel towards a deal and making them more wary of regional escalation. Both the post-Doha joint statement, as well as direct appeals from the UK, France, and Germany to Tehran, have ensured that Iran is factored in even more as a direct actor with leverage.
For Iran, playing up its rhetoric of retaliation and punishment is yielding enough value as a pressure point, allowing Tehran to assert its strategic patience. Notably, in an August 14 commemorative gathering, Khamenei ventured into Quranic concepts of war strategy. He asserted that retreating from the enemy for “non-tactical” reasons would incur divine wrath; easily read as a commitment to military engagement with Iran’s enemies. Interestingly, however, Khamenei stressed on clarifying that retreats made for tactical reasons are justified. Regardless of whether these reflect Iran’s calculus in the current context vis-à-vis Israel, they reaffirm the fundamentals of Iran’s outlook towards its opponents.
Second, Iran’s hostile relationship with the United States has not changed, but its immediate priorities have shifted to requiring sanctions relief, even as it keeps up appearances. Since January of this year, Iran’s behaviour has been privately conciliatory beneath public hostility, with the United States keeping Iran engaged through indirect backchannels. Even as Iran has decisively moved away from the question of reviving the old nuclear deal, it now appears even more open to Western engagement for sanctions relief. A cabinet shuffle in Masoud Pezeshkian’s new government has brought in Abbas Araghchi as foreign minister– a seasoned veteran of the 2015 nuclear deal, one that he has publicly defended as having benefited Iran.
Pezeshkian’s appointment of Araghchi, a well-travelled (western-educated) diplomat with significant experience engaging the West, is a far-cry from former President Raisi’s earlier appointment of Hossain Abdollahian, an IRGC thoroughbred with relatively limited global experience. While Araghchi himself carries battlefield experience with the IRGC and is firmly loyal to Iran’s revolutionary values and to Khamenei, his appointment has only furthered Pezeshkian’s image as the potential harbinger of small openings.
Hence, while Iran has seemingly made its response contingent on the success/failure of ceasefire talks, any significant Iranian retaliation after a ceasefire is even harder to envision. It will allow Israel to focus more assets on Iran and Hezbollah, risk Iran’s détente with Arab partners, jeopardize the ceasefire itself (along with a prisoner-hostage exchange), and unarguably derail Iran’s potential engagement with Washington on sanctions relief.
With a revival of strategic patience, Iran can choose to either symbolically retaliate with sufficient elements of escalation control or let the pressure from its rhetoric itself act as an instrument of coercion. While its long, grand, fight with Israel continues, Iran’s focus on economic betterment while simultaneously also furthering its nuclear programme, is arguably garnering more benefits for Tehran than any full-scale war with Israel presently can.
Within Iran at least, as a Tehran Times column put it, its April template with Israel was viewed as being a “sub-threshold” response; on the line between deterrence and escalation. Presently, as it considers its own long- and short-term interests, such sub-threshold options continue to work best for the Islamic Republic. Moreover, like in April, any Iranian attack at this point can expectedly meet stiff resistance from Israel and its allies, given increased preparations in anticipation of an Iranian attack.
Bashir Ali Abbas is a research associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi, and a South Asia Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center, Washington DC. The views expressed are personal.
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