| Since 2018, when Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal designed to limit Iran’s nuclear programme, “there has been a very clear political shift in Tehran toward the conservative end of the spectrum”, Shabani said. “We have seen reformist, and even moderate conservative, voices eliminated.” The reformist former president Hassan Rouhani, who signed the nuclear deal, was disqualified from re-election to the Iranian assembly of experts in last month’s elections. “There was no genuine range of candidates – just a contest between hardliners and more pragmatic conservatives.” Today, Shabani added, “all centres of power in Iran are completely dominated by conservatives, and the hardliners are in the ascendancy. That means that there are fewer people in the room arguing for options that are less escalatory.” At the same time, Shabani said, “even with the US out of the nuclear deal and Biden keeping the Trump-era sanctions, they are still talking – maybe through intermediaries, but they are still talking. They could have done a North Korea and cut off all contact, but they haven’t. What that suggests is that even with the conservatives building power, there is still a strong constituency in favour of diplomacy.” What are Benjamin Netanyahu’s calculations? “The attack in Damascus was not an isolated event,” Shabani said. “There have been multiple, quite public, assassinations of very high ranking figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. I would guess that the Israeli view was that this either attracts a response, which could drag the United States into a war on their side, or there is not a response, in which case they have eliminated a threat. It’s win-win.” Another possible incentive for the initial attack: the $14bn US funding package for Israel currently stuck in Congress. “Suddenly, you have American politicians saying that the US must do everything in its power to support Israel,” Shabani said. There is now new pressure for the Republican-controlled House to pass an aid bill also covering Ukraine – and the public conversation has shifted from tensions between Israel and the US to Biden’s “ironclad” commitment of support. Yesterday, Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, said that “we will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us”. While that language might appear belligerent, it was at least interpreted as an indication that Israel will not act immediately and without consultation. But that does not preclude an escalatory response – even if, as Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum report from Jerusalem, many ordinary people hope that the confrontation is over. “I would distinguish between Netanyahu’s interests and Israel’s,” Shabani said. “The only way for him to remain in office is to continue the conflict, and the only way to continue it is to expand it. But we don’t know what will happen next. An attack on mainland Iran would be a further step up the escalation ladder – a cyber-attack is much lower risk.” What will the US strategy be? The US has indicated that it was given no prior warning about the Damascus attack. And Biden, pictured above with his national security advisers, is reported to have suggested to Israel that its success in thwarting the Iranian airstrikes was a sufficient victory in its own right. But Netanyahu is perhaps more likely to respond to concrete incentives than persuasion. “Since 7 October, Biden has been increasingly critical of Netanyahu, but there has been no cessation of arms exports or conditions attached,” Shabani said. “After the bombing of the embassy complex, the US refused to condemn it, and there was no statement from the UN security council because of the US’s stance. Iran has claimed that a UNSC condemnation would have meant that it did not feel compelled to respond. We don’t know if that’s true, but it is a measure of how the diplomatic game is being shaped.” Even so, he added, there is a curious sense in which US interests are better aligned with its old adversary Iran’s than with its ally Israel’s. “It is a bizarre dynamic that doesn’t escape anybody watching closely. Neither side wants an all-out war.” That may help lay the ground for indirect concessions from Washington to Tehran – for example, in nuclear talks – to avert further escalation. “It makes sense for the Iranians to try to use this as an opportunity in other fields, and I think that’s not a bad bet,” Shabani said. “But it would be politically catastrophic for Biden to be seen to be dealing with Iran right now.” In all, he said, “I think it’s not useful to try to predict the future in black and white forms. But the risks of misunderstandings are very real. And we still don’t know where the two sides’ thresholds will be.” | 