• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Security
• Iran

On Oct. 1, for the second time this year, Iran launched a barrage of missiles—nearly 200—toward Israel. This time, the attack involved more advanced missiles and came with little forewarning. The missiles did not do significant damage, but they signaled Iran’s will and ability to attack Israel—and penetrate its defense systems in potentially damaging ways. It is thus a major turning point in both the yearlong war in Gaza as well as the security and stability of the broader Middle East going forward. Why did Iran’s leaders choose to so brazenly confront Israel now—and how is Iran likely to act going forward?

The most proximate reason for this latest attack was retaliation. Iran claimed that it was responding to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July and the more recent killings of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Beirut. Beyond exacting retribution, Tehran likely hoped to establish a measure of deterrence against Israeli bullishness after a series of spectacular military and intelligence successes in Lebanon that has gravely damaged Hezbollah.

Exacting retribution is, however, a perilous gamble, as it will likely be followed by a forceful Israeli reprisal and a costly spiral into a full conflict with Israel and the United States.

Iran saw the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a strategic reset for the Middle East. It meant the return of the Palestinians’ plight to center stage, and the regional and global reaction to the war quickly created a diplomatic quandary for Israel. Since the initial attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, Tehran and its allies in the so-called axis of resistance have sought to deepen this quandary while avoiding a larger regional war that could bring Iran into direct confrontation with the United States.

Israel, by contrast, wants to break out of its quandary by expanding the Gaza war and putting Iran and the United States on a collision course. The United States has increased its military presence in the Middle East to support Israel against attacks by Iran and Hezbollah. And Washington will enter the fray in Israel’s corner if the confrontation between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iran escalates into open warfare.

Tehran concluded that the killing of Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran, and then the assassination of Nasrallah in his Beirut stronghold, were aimed at baiting Iran into that trap. Since Haniyeh’s assassination, Iran’s dilemma has been how to continue its strategy without playing into Israel’s hands. It decided not to react to Haniyeh’s assassination, but it could not do that when Nasrallah was killed.

Hezbollah is Iran’s most important regional ally, and Tehran feels compelled to protect what remains of it. Furthermore, Nasrallah enjoyed vast influence in the Arab world and was both the mastermind and critical linchpin in the network of proxies that undergird Iran’s regional influence. His assassination was a blow to Iran; not responding to it would constitute a legitimacy crisis for the Islamic Republic.

Israel’s audacious blitzkrieg to destroy Hezbollah, starting with the explosions of hundreds of pagers on Sept. 17 and culminating in Nasrallah’s assassination—and now a ground invasion—showed that Israel was confident about gaining the upper hand. Iran could not afford to let that image stand unchallenged.

Tehran’s inaction had led to a widespread condemnation of the Iranian government, both from constituencies in the Arab world that are usually sympathetic to Iran as well as inside Iran, especially among hard-liners who support the country’s regional policies. The angry accusations of abandoning Hezbollah and folding before Israeli pressure came as a shock and put pressure on the Iranian leadership to act. Tuesday’s missile attack was a risky maneuver, but it was not a knee-jerk reaction. It reflects a more complex calculation in Tehran.

Iran wanted to show that it has both the audacity and capability to strike Israel. But it also wished to demonstrate, as the tenor of the coverage that it promotes in official and sympathetic media as well as social media shows, that it is the only country in the Middle East that is willing to confront Israel head-on. This could win accolades on the Arab street, but it will likely invite a level of Israeli retaliation that could lead to the very war that Iran has thus far hoped to avoid.

Iran’s response to Israel’s attack on its consulate in Damascus in April—which involved launching approximately 300 drones and missiles against Israel—did not deter further Israeli escalations that came in the form of the subsequent assassinations of Haniyeh and Nasrallah. And this latest missile attack is unlikely to definitively deter Israel either.

It does, however, raise the stakes for the United States. In effect, Iran’s goal is not so much to deter Israel, but to compel the United States to do so. This is not just wishful thinking or a desperate long shot. Although the common refrain in Western media is that the Biden administration has little influence over Israel’s decision-making and by its own admission did not have advance knowledge of Nasrallah’s assassination, recent experience has led Iran to believe otherwise.

In April, Washington lobbied Tehran intensely through intermediaries to calibrate its response, and then leaned heavily on Israel to show restraint in its retaliation to Iran’s missile attack. Washington’s intervention was successful. Iran telegraphed its missile attack in advance, which gave Israel, the United States, and its Arab allies ample time to successfully intercept the incoming flurry of drones and missiles. When Israel assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran, Washington persuaded Tehran through intermediaries to use the pretext of an imminent cease-fire deal in Gaza as a diplomatic off-ramp not to react.

Tehran said then that it would not undermine Hamas while it was negotiating a cease-fire, and that it did not want to be blamed for a diplomatic failure. This time, too, Tehran will look to Washington to hold Israel back, hoping that the threat of a regional conflagration can marshal the United States to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iran believes that Israel wants to resolve all its security issues in the region once and for all through a larger war that will crush Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and hobble Iran. That will be a long war—and one that demands U.S. involvement.

Although the U.S. government is keen to avoid another costly military entanglement in the Middle East, it has thus far proved unable to push back against Israel’s dogged pursuit of this strategy. With the November presidential elections looming and the Biden administration already a lame duck, the United States has deferred to Israel in recent days.

President Joe Biden made no mention of civilian deaths in his statement after Nasrallah’s death or the reported use of 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs in a residential area during the attack, which leveled several high-rise buildings. Nor has the U.S. government acknowledged the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Lebanon, which has led to the displacement of close to 1 million people there. Similarly, Washington did not object to Israeli bombing of the port of Hodeida and Yemen’s fuel depots, which will deeply impact Yemenis already in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe.

The only exception to U.S. insouciance, officials in Tehran seem to believe, is when Washington is faced with prospect of imminent regional war. Tehran’s game plan is to compel Washington into action by forcing Biden to confront that scenario. It is only by exploiting the gap between the U.S. desire to avoid a larger war and Israel’s strategy of risking it, so the argument goes, that Iran will be able to protect its turf and interests. That includes keeping the door open to engaging the West on nuclear negotiations after U.S. elections—expressed openly by the new Iranian president and his foreign-policy team.

It is true that the U.S. government does not want a regional war—and that it has even less desire to become entangled in one. However, Tehran is likely overestimating Washington’s willingness and ability to prevent such a war if Iran is attacking Israel directly. As Iran gets locked into a tit-for-tat escalation, U.S. sympathies will lie with Israel, and if Washington intervenes, it will be to prevent Iran from responding to Israel, which will—sooner rather than later—lead to conflict between the United States and Iran.

An early casualty will be nuclear talks and the prospects of sanctions relief on Iran. In fact, even if the talks could somehow proceed despite clashes between Iran and Israel, whatever sanctions relief Iran could win would likely be more than matched by new sanctions in response to its escalation with Israel. Iran will not be able to sustain its current posture by relying on U.S. intervention.

Between now and January 2025, Middle East security will be caught in the vise of calculated Israeli and Iranian escalations. The preservation of that security is a matter of whether one or the other of the two protagonists miscalculates. But equally important will be the United States’ choice: whether Washington chooses to enter the fray diplomatically, to defuse tensions—or militarily, to force Iran to back down.

For Washington, too, the current strategy of managing the standoff every time there is an escalation will not avert the war that it fears. For that, the United States has to commit to shaping the endgame to the conflict that is ravaging the Middle East rather than merely reacting to its latest paroxysm