After months of deadly Israeli strikes in Syria, Iran's military commanders now felt it was safe to hold a high-level meeting inside the Iranian embassy in Damascus, believing it was protected by international norms protecting diplomatic missions, Iranian, Syrian and regional officials told Reuters. .
They were mistaken.
An airstrike on the embassy compound killed seven Iranian officers on Monday, including one of Iran's most senior soldiers, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). It was the boldest, and deadliest, in a series of attacks on Iranian officials in Syria since December.
Tehran blamed Israel for the attack, a rare military action on diplomatic premises anywhere in the world, and which drew swift condemnation from the United Nations and the European Union. Analysts see it as a significant escalation in Israel's broader campaign to weaken the influence Iran has gained in Syria over the past decade.
After the attack on the embassy in Syria, Iran is faced with a dilemma: how to respond without provoking a wider conflict in the Middle East, which, according to analysts, Tehran does not want.
"If they don't respond in this case, then it would really be a signal that their deterrence is just a paper tiger," the Reuters source said, adding that Iran could directly attack Israel, Israeli embassies or Jewish facilities abroad.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised revenge, and yesterday the head of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah repeated this, saying that the Israeli attack on the consulate in Damascus represents a "turning point" since October 7, when the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel.
"Be sure and be assured that Iran's response to the attack on the consulate in Damascus is inevitable," Sayed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address. He added that they cannot ask where, how, when and to what extent that response will be, assessing that it is up to Tehran to decide.
Israel is preparing for the possibility of a counterattack and has canceled the leave of all combat units and mobilized more troops for air defense units. Addressing Israeli forces at the airbase on Friday, Defense Minister Yoav Galant said yesterday that Israel attacks its enemies wherever it chooses to do so. "It could be in Damascus, and it could be in Beirut," he said. "The enemy has been hit hard in all places and is therefore looking for ways to respond. We are ready with a multi-layered defense."
According to analysts, Tehran has more options available. He could send his proxies against US forces, use them to attack Israel directly, or intensify his nuclear program, which the US and its allies have long sought to contain.
US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters they were closely monitoring whether, as they have done in the past, Iranian proxies will attack US troops stationed in Iraq and Syria.
Such Iranian attacks were halted in February after Washington responded to the killing of three American soldiers in Jordan with dozens of airstrikes targeting targets in Syria and Iraq linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and militias it supports.
US officials told the British agency that they had not yet received intelligence indicating that Iran-backed groups wanted to attack American soldiers after Monday's attack.
During the week, the United States repeatedly warned Tehran not to launch attacks on American forces.
"We will not hesitate to defend our people and reiterate our earlier warnings to Iran and its proxies not to try to use this situation ... to renew attacks on American personnel," Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said on Tuesday.
A Reuters source who closely follows this topic and who wished to remain anonymous said that Iran is faced with the dilemma of wanting to retaliate in order to deter Israel from further such attacks, while avoiding a general war.
"They face the dilemma that if they retaliate, they could face a conflict that they obviously don't want," he said. "They are trying to adjust their actions in a way that shows they are responding but not escalating."
"If they don't respond in this case, then it would really be a signal that their deterrence is just a paper tiger," he added, noting that Iran could directly attack Israel, Israeli embassies or Jewish facilities abroad.
The US official said that given the significance of the Israeli attack, Iran may be forced to respond by attacking Israeli interests instead of targeting US troops.
Eliot Abrams, a Middle East expert at the US Council on Foreign Relations, also said that he believes that Iran does not want a general war with Israel, but that it could target Israeli interests.
"I don't think Iran wants a big war between Israel and Hezbollah at this moment, so the answer will not be in the form of a big action by Hezbollah," Abrams told Reuters.
"They have many other ways to react... for example by trying to blow up an Israeli embassy," he added.
One US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was growing concern that Iran would follow through on its threats, raising the risk of a volatile regional escalation.
"Iran cannot afford not to respond, because its military presence in the region would become unsustainable and signal weakness to its main regional adversary," Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group said on Thursday.
However, he added that Iran is aware that Israel benefits, especially politically, from expanding the war and pointed out that "Hezbollah and Iran are unlikely to retaliate directly."
Iran could also respond by accelerating its nuclear program, which Tehran revived after former US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2018 Iran nuclear deal aimed at curbs in exchange for economic benefits in 2015.
However, the two most dramatic steps - increasing the purity of enriched uranium to 90 percent, which is considered sufficient for a bomb, or resuming activities to design weapons - could be counterproductive and trigger Israeli or American attacks.
"Any of those two steps would be seen by Israel and the US as Iran's decision to get the bomb. Therefore... it is a really big risk. Are they ready for it? I think not," said a source familiar with the matter.
John Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the CSIS organization in Washington, said that he does not expect a massive Iranian response to the attack on the embassy.
"Iran is not so much interested in teaching Israel a lesson as in showing its allies in the Middle East that it is not weak".
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