What are Iran’s interests from the potential Israeli-Lebanese war?

By Azza Dridi Department of Strategic Studies and International Relations 28-06-2024

Amid the undiminished tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine, and the risks of an all-out war expanded to Lebanon, Iran plays a key role in the region where it aims to ensure its regional geopolitical dominance as an emergent power.

If it has close ties with pro-Palestine armed groups, it also had historic ties with Israel and the West during the cold war.

Indeed, Iran shares with the Arab countries the Israeli threat, and is involved in the Israeli-Palestinian war as the principal ally for Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iraq, funding them financially and supporting them with arms in their battle with Israel in order to dismantle it and eliminate its regional threat. This makes Iran a regional geopolitical power.

Yet, like the West, Iran has also always been in a competitive rivalry with the Arab world since history, such as Iraq, until nowadays with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, two powerful sunni-countries, not only for economic, military and diplomatic dominance but also for religious supremacy in the region, since Iran is a supreme Shiite-country.

Certainly, Iran’s intentions in supplying Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis with arms is to help Palestine win its war against Israel. And undoubtedly, this made her have a major role in defending the Palestinian cause through its proxies.

 Since we have witnessed how Hamas was able to block Israeli advancement in Gaza, and how the Houthis joined Hamas’ efforts by attacking the western ships in the Red Sea and carrying out strikes in Israel along with Iraq, as well as Hezbollah’s hits on Northern Israel to distract its military attention from Gaza. This will count for Iran as an important diplomatic and military success, and be considered as a regional geopolitical dominance.

However, distracting Israel is until now limited to dispersed attacks. The problem is if unsteady limited attacks turn into a long-term war with Lebanon.

Especially that Lebanon is going through a severe economic crisis restricting its autonomous military capacities and reducing its resilience, particularly in front of an international scale military superpower like Israel, which will disable her from surviving a war against it and might lead to its destruction, particularly if Iran changes its support plan for Hezbollah during the war.

Thus, the escalation of tensions between Lebanon and Israel encouraged by Iran puts only Beirut, not Israel nor Iran or Hezbollah, under the Israeli threat. Which makes us question the Iranian interests behind encouraging Hezbollah to be in a war with Israel.

Since the 7th of October, tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have been arising.

 Hezbollah took part in the war to defend Hamas, resulting in 7400 cross borders attacks between South Lebanon and North Israel, which caused an important damage for both of them, since displaced refugees reached 60 000 in north Israel and 95 000 in South Lebanon, while death reached 564, mainly in Lebanon.

A situation that represents an alarming threat to Israel which made it warn Hezbollah with a globalized war entirely destroying Lebanon.

Yet, Hezbollah has not chosen the de-escalation, they rather decided to threaten back with a war that targets the center of Israel with 3000 missile a day for 3 weeks demolishing its defense iron dome, and that includes Cyprus and the Mediterranean, considered as Israel’s allies used in the war.

Iran since the beginning of the 7th October war in 2023, tried to avoid an armed confrontation, but the Iranian consulate in Syria, that has been attacked in April 2024 by Israel targeting a key figure in its personnel, led to an exchange of attacks, 300 missiles from Iran on Israel and an Israeli attack on an important military infrastructure basis in Isfahan. But since the death of Ibrahim Raissi in a helicopter accident in May, the tit-for-tat attacks have stopped. But a globalized war between Hezbollah and Israel has been looming ever since.

Even though Iran declared its engagement in defending Hezbollah in case of Israeli attack on South Lebanon, its support only serves its own interests.

             Iranian Military Power Parade

Iran has always been a threatening military and nuclear enemy to the West and to Israel, which has led to a nuclear deal between the US and Iran in 2015.

Nonetheless, Iran’s developed military arsenal is still menacing to them since it’s considered as one of the most powerful arsenals in the Middle East. Especially that Iran does not skip an opportunity to demonstrate its power against Israel through its proxies, notably Hezbollah.

 Even though Israel is the one trying to engage Iran in the war by attacking its consulate in Damascus, yet the Iranian retaliation on Israel was not proportional, holding in its meaning a military parade for its power.

 Besides, declaring a full help to Hezbollah by supporting it militarily in case it enters a war, is as well a showcase for its developed and powerful military capacities that it’s capable to arm its proxies with it, and also a way to prove their effectiveness on the battlefield.

However, Iran, besides its limited retaliation, has not threatened to engage in a war against Israel itself.

            Iranian Fortunes from selling arms

Moreover, wars have always been an opportunity for arms companies to gain fortunes from selling their weapons.

Which is the case for Iran, which the total of its arms export has reached 1 Billion dollars in 2023, threatening the US and severely competing with Russia to replace it as the first arms exporter in the world.

 Iran smuggles to Hezbollah an important amount of advanced weaponry as its principal ally and supplier, despite of their denial of these accusations.

            Iranian Political dominance

Entering in a war with Israel will make Hezbollah and Lebanon for a very long time more dependent on Iran and its assistance than ever, in exchange for serving Iran’s national interests.

A situation from which Iran will benefit. Lebanon will be Iran’s new market economically and commercially, and be an extension for its national politics where Iranian influence grows deeper.

Furthermore, even though Iran is supporting Hezbollah and has interests in Hezbollah entering and winning the war against Israel, yet Iran won’t lose if Hezbollah does not win the war, but Lebanon will.

            Iran historically to Israel

Until 1990, with the end of the cold war, Iran had close commercial, energy and military relations with Israel, especially against their biggest enemy the Arab countries, such as Iraq, that has been weakened especially after the US invasion in 2003 while Iran and Israel became regional powers in the Middle East.

And despite of their evident hostile rivalry nowadays, the two countries historically cooperated together from the start in order to achieve their shared goal of becoming a superpower with a wide connection in the region, and covertly helped each other to develop their weaponry.

Thus, an Iranian-Israeli arm wrestle through Hezbollah raises worries more than questions. And under the light of these facts, the potential all-out war will not benefit Lebanon, but it will benefit Iran, Israel and the West.