After Israeli air strike on Iranian consulate: is there a threat of direct war between the arch enemies?

The Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus ultimately left 13 people dead, including 7 Iranians. 2 of them were generals in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. “A major political and military power in Iran.”

The Iranian regime is therefore under high internal pressure to respond. Both the Iranian president and the supreme spiritual leader have already announced that Iran will take revenge. It is not yet clear how.

A few years ago, an important Iranian general was murdered in Iraq by an American attack (then under President Donald Trump). There was no real response from Iran at the time. “If the ayatollah (the highest spiritual leader in Iran, ed.) does not respond now, he will be considered weak,” Debeuf says. “But at the same time, Iran does not want a regional war and a war with the US (as an ally of Israel, ed.), because it will not win and the country would be destroyed.”

According to Debeuf, there is a good chance that the Iranian response will be via Hezbollah, “but relatively limited, because Hezbollah has also said many times that it does not want another war.”