Iran Digest Week of April 12- April 19
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US- Iran Relations
Nothing to see here: US, Israel go radio silent on strike against Iran
Hours after a senior U.S. official told ABC News that Israeli fighter aircraft struck an air defense radar site inside Iran, top U.S. and Israeli officials on Friday declined to publicly acknowledge the incident in an apparent move aimed at de-escalating the situation and keeping Iran from retaliating.
The radio silence was notable after weeks of U.S. officials publicly urging Israel to show restraint.
At the end of a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Capri, Italy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked why he wouldn't address what happened overnight.
(ABC)
Nuclear Accord
With Nuclear Deal Dead, Containing Iran Grows More Fraught
When Iran agreed to a deal in 2015 that would require it to surrender 97 percent of the uranium it could use to make nuclear bombs, Russia and China worked alongside the United States and Europe to get the pact done.
The Russians even took Iran’s nuclear fuel, for a hefty fee, prompting celebratory declarations that President Vladimir V. Putin could cooperate with the West on critical security issues and help constrain a disruptive regime in a volatile region.
A lot has changed in the subsequent nine years. China and Russia are now more aligned with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” to an American-led order, along with the likes of North Korea. When President Biden gathered the leaders of six nations for a video call from the White House on Sunday to plot a common strategy for de-escalating the crisis between Israel and Iran, there was no chance of getting anyone from Beijing or Moscow on the screen.
Women of Iran
Some Iranian women say they fear war with Israel amid violent hijab crackdown
In the wake of Iran's unprecedented airstrikes on Israel, dozens of Iranians gathered in Tehran's Palestine Square earlier this week to celebrate what the Iranian regime described as a retaliatory attack.
But interviews with women on the ground indicate that the scene, broadcast by Iranian state-run media in a country that lacks a free press, is not representative of how many other Iranians -- particularly women -- are feeling as Israel weighs its response.
ABC News spoke to several women in Iran who said the fear of an imminent war has been added to a long list of worries and hardships they have been grappling with for years. Their names have been changed due to concerns for their safety.
(ABC)
Inside Iran
What We Know About Israel’s Strike in Iran
Israel struck Iran early on Friday, according to officials from both countries, in what appeared to be its first military response to the Iranian attack on Israel last weekend.
The strike was the latest in a cycle of retaliation between the two foes that has alarmed world leaders, who fear that back-and-forth attacks could erupt into a broader war.
Here is a look at what we know about the strike and its implications.
Flood Kills 8, Damages Infrastructure In Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan
Heavy rainfalls and flooding of local rivers have so far claimed the lives of at least eight people in Sistan-Baluchestan, dealing a heavy blow to the infrastructure of the southeastern Iranian province.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, the flooding resulted in the collapse of a loader and the deaths of three employees of Iran’s Railway company in Khash to Iranshahr road.
Meanwhile, Majid Mohebbi, the director general of Sistan-Baluchestan’s Crisis Management Department, said that heavy rains and flooding caused the closure of 45 rural roads, 12 sub-roads and one main road in the south of the province.
Global Relations
US and Britain announce new Iran sanctions after missile and drone strike on Israel
The United States on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iran targeting its unmanned aerial vehicle production after its attack on Israel, and U.S. President Joe Biden said G7 leaders were committed to acting together to increase economic pressure on Tehran.
Britain announced that it was also introducing sanctions on Iran in co-ordination with Washington.
Biden said the United States and its allies had helped Israel beat back the April 13 missile and drone strike and were now holding Iran accountable with the new sanctions and export controls.
(Reuters)
Analysis
Miscalculation Led to Escalation in Clash Between Israel and Iran
By: Ronen Bergman, Farnaz Fassihi, Eric Schmitt, Adam Entous and Richard Pérez-Peña
Israel was mere moments away from an airstrike on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders at Iran’s embassy complex in Syria when it told the United States what was about to happen.
Israel’s closest ally had just been caught off guard.
Aides quickly alerted Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser; Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser; Brett McGurk, Mr. Biden’s Middle East coordinator; and others, who saw that the strike could have serious consequences, a U.S. official said. Publicly, U.S. officials voiced support for Israel, but privately, they expressed anger that it would take such aggressive action against Iran without consulting Washington.
Experts react: Israel just conducted a limited strike in Iran. Is this the end of the tit for tat?
By: Atlantic Council experts
It was a show of force. Early on Friday, the Israeli military reportedly carried out a strike on a military target near the Iranian city of Isfahan. While there is an Iranian nuclear facility nearby, early reports indicated that it was not hit in the strike, and Israeli and Iranian officials seemed eager to downplay the impact. How should we interpret the signals that both sides are sending? Is this the last move in a dangerous geopolitical chess match? Our experts are on the case.
In the early hours of Friday, Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran, targeting at least one military installation outside of Isfahan, some 275 miles south of Tehran, according to Israeli and US officials. The strikes were aimed at a military base or bases (it remains unclear) in Iran, just as one of Iran’s primary targets during its attack last weekend appeared to be Israel’s Nevatim air base. Israel appears to be sending three main messages with the strike.
Message one: This is a symmetrical, not proportional, response; but it is sufficient for Israel to close this particular chapter of direct military engagement with Iran. Unlike Iran’s significant escalation over the weekend—in which it used over three hundred ballistic and cruise missiles and drones—Israel’s strike made clear to Iran that it has the ability to successfully strike in and damage Iran, but can do so with far fewer weapons due to its superior technical capabilities.
In breaking their fragile truce, Israel and Iran have opened a Pandora’s box
By: Simon Tisdall
Israel’s retaliation, when it came, was surprisingly limited. Iran minimised the significance of Friday’s air attacks on a military base near Isfahan and other targets, denying they were externally directed. Usually voluble Israeli spokesmen fell strangely silent. It was as if a tacit bilateral agreement had been made to play down the affair – to quietly de-escalate.
Like surreptitious 19th-century duellists illicitly pointing pistols at each other across a misty English meadow at dawn, both countries required that honour be satisfied – but wanted to avoid another noisy public row. Each has fired directly at the other, causing symbolic damage. Now they and their seconds are signalling it’s over – at least for the time being.
If true, it’s a huge, though possibly temporary, relief. It suggests that intense US pressure on Israel to exercise restraint, abetted by Britain and others, paid off. President Joe Biden had urged Israel to “take the win” after Iran’s unprecedented, large-scale air attack last weekend was successfully repulsed. Its leaders didn’t wholly concur.
Iran’s “Limited Response” Pleases Hardliners and Used Channels with the US
By: Saeed Azimi
In the late hours of Saturday, April 13, the sounds of drones flying overhead startled residents of Tehran just as they were ready to go to sleep. Iran had begun a long overdue punitive operation against the “malicious Zionist regime,” as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had vowed during the Eid al-Fitr prayers on April 10.
Iran’s operation against Israel was not unprovoked. On April 1, Israel attacked the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus with F-35s, killing seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as six Syrians and a major Hezbollah official. Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Zahedi, former IRGC Ground Forces Commander and head of the Lebanon-Syria Unit of the external branch of the IRGC, the Quds Force, was the top official killed in the Israeli airstrike.
The loss of Zahedi, who was the right hand of IRGC Quds Force Commander Esmail Qa’ani, was heavy for Tehran to bear. Many Iranians immediately thought back to Jan. 3, 2020, when the U.S., under President Donald Trump, killed the then long-time commander of the Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad that also killed a senior leader of Iraqi militias. Iran retaliated then with a barrage of ballistic missiles against an Iraqi base where Americans were located but warned Iraq in advance so the Americans could take cover; still more than 100 suffered brain injuries.
