On Tuesday, Iran’s newly inaugurated President Masoud Pezeshkian was greeted with the now all-too-familiar frenzied chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” in the streets, cafes and public squares of Tehran.
The crowds should have tried screaming “Death to Haniyeh.” It would have been far more prescient.
That day, just hours after meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran by an apparent precision-guided missile, no doubt courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces.
Good riddance.
Haniyeh, the terror group’s top political honcho, was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people — including hundreds of Americans — in the war against Israel he started.
He was a primary driver of the Oct. 7 attacks and directly culpable in the murder and kidnapping of US citizens — seven of whom are still being held dead or alive by Hamas in Gaza.
Israel is showing the White House how to win.
After months of self-defeating handcuffing by the Biden administration and its insistence on restraint and “proportionate responses,” Israel said “enough” — and went for Hamas’ jugular.
Killing Haniyeh in Tehran wasn’t the only victory of the day.
Earlier, in Beirut, Israel claimed responsibility for killing Fuad Shukr, the third-ranking member in command of Hezbollah.
Shukr is widely believed to have been responsible for last Saturday’s attack that killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field in the Golan Heights in Northern Israel.
The two targeted actions were a continuation of the IDF’s overall strategy to disassemble, on a top-down basis, Hamas, Hezbollah and the military command structure of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — one leader at a time.
Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, Iran’s Hezbollah toady, suffered left and right hooks from Israel in the span of 24 hours.
Both men likely now are wondering if their own bunkers are deep enough — and fear now may drive them to all-out war with Jerusalem.
They’re also likely looking over their shoulders, wondering who in their orbit clued in the Mossad — Israel’s intelligence service — to Haniyeh’s and Shukr’s locations, deep behind enemy lines in Beirut and Tehran.
Khamenei cannot let this pass: After all, Haniyeh died in his capital and on a day that the Axis of Resistance had gathered in Tehran to witness the inauguration of Pezeshkian.
What was to be a gathering of the mighty and defiant enemies of Israel and the West proved to be the assembly of the weak and vulnerable.
Regime survival demands a response, and losing face to this enemy could rapidly destroy Khamenei’s grip on power throughout Iran.
Yet Iran’s first attempt at hitting Israel directly on April 14 proved to be a spectacular failure — and an embarrassment all of its own.
Only a handful of hundreds of Iranian drones, ICBM missiles and glide bombs got through Israeli defenses, and none hit a significant target.
The first reprisal move made by IRGC Brigadier General Esmail Qaani might be to unleash his proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen to target American military forces.
The goal would be to kinetically exploit what Iran likely interprets to be the growing wedge between Vice President Kamala Harris and Netanyahu.
Harris last week — wittingly or not — sent that message to Khamenei and Nasrallah as she crassly pandered to Gen Z and progressive voters by opting to embarrass Netanyahu at the White House, using their bilateral meeting to criticize Israel over its war against Hamas.
The presumptive Democratic nominee said she wouldn’t be silent — and on Tuesday, Bibi in effect responded, saying with Israel’s actions that he will not be cowed by ill-advised White House obstructionism.
Iran will have to try to hit Israel; Khamenei has vowed revenge — including, purportedly, a direct strike.
But his calculus must include doing so without threatening his nuclear-weapons program, which is rapidly approaching breakout.
Unleashing Hezbollah might, in Khamenei’s view, be the only option that ensures regime survival and preserves his nuclear facilities.
Israel, however, may not wait.
The IDF sent Khamenei and Nasrallah the same message Tuesday: Israel is not afraid of you — and we are willing to take you on alone, with or without White House support.
Doubt Israel?
Just ask Haniyeh or Shukr.
They just learned how to negotiate a permanent cease-fire the hard way.
Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer.
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