🧵1) Israel's killing of Hassan Nasrallah is hugely consequential for the Middle East. Hezbollah is the crown jewel of the Islamic Republic of Iran-the one effective enterprise Iran’s revolutionaries have built since 1979-and Nasrallah has been crucial to Iran’s power expansion.
2 Arab Hezbollah has been Persian Iran’s bridge to the five failing Arab states-Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Gaza-that Tehran has been dominating. Iran provides the resources, but it was often Hezbollah, under Nasrallah’s leadership, that set up and trained these proxies.
3 Hezbollah had already experienced more leadership deaths in the last four months than over the last four decades. In a recent piece, @firasmaksad evoked Lenin: “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” time.com/7023965/lebano…
4 Nasrallah’s death will not compel Iran’s leaders to change course. They will continue their fight against Israel and try to resurrect Hezbollah from the ashes. Yet some Hezbollah supporters are beginning to express anger at Iran for Nasrallah's death.
5 It should be noted here that Iran's leaders have never been motivated by the welfare of Lebanese or Palestinians, but the destruction of Israel. Their official slogan has never been ‘Long Live Palestine’ (or even ‘Long Live Iran’) but ‘Death to Israel’. nytimes.com/2024/05/08/opi…
6 Will Iran now launch a major direct attack on Israel, and risk a full-blown war (including with the US) to avenge an Arab leader? It's unlikely; Tehran didn’t take such risks even after the killing of their own beloved IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani. Regime survival is #1
7 Iran and its proxies are effective attacking when its opponents aren't paying attention (ie October 7). But as the April 2024 Iranian missile attacks on Israel evidenced, when everyone is on high alert, and poised to massively retaliate, Tehran's options are more limited.
8 Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader, is not a war-time leader. He’s been ruling since 1989. He should be playing with his grandchildren now, not trying to fight a high-tech military and financial war against America and Israel. pic.x.com/molsx85lp7
9 Khamenei is now in a dilemma of his own making. By not responding strongly, he keeps losing face. By responding too strongly, he could lose his head. Like all dictators, Khamenei wants to be feared by his people. These humiliations will fuel talk about succession in Tehran.
10 While some are mourning Nasrallah today, many in Iran, Syria, and elsewhere are openly celebrating. One of Nasrallah's chief legacies, with Iran, is aiding Syrian dictator Bashar Assad kill hundreds of thousands of his people to stay in power.
11 Nasrallah’s death is huge, but its impact will take years to assess. The key to change in the Middle East remains a government in Iran whose organizing principle is not revolutionary ideology (‘Death to America, Death to Israel’), but Iran’s national and economic interests.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.