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On July 31, Hamas leader Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, the capital of Iran, adding a special fuel to the already raging flames of conflict in the Middle East, making the situation in the Middle East, which has long been plagued by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its spillovers, even more tense.

Over the past few days, various forces seem to be pouring fuel on the fiercely burning fire in the Middle East: Iran has continuously sent out various signals of large-scale retaliation against Israel; the United States has rapidly increased its military presence in the Middle East; the conflict between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel has continued to escalate; Hamas, after a painful period, elected hard-line military leader Sinwar as the new leader of the Politburo; Israel, which is at the forefront of the conflict, is on high alert and actively guarding against Iranian retaliation, while continuing to bombard Gaza and Lebanon without mercy, and hunting down many senior officials of Hamas and Hezbollah. But even so,The main parties involved in the conflict, Iran and Israel, have not had any direct conflict so far, and even the situation of launching missiles to attack each other's homeland like in April has not occurred.

At the beginning of Haniya's assassination, the author wrote an article pointing out thatHaniyeh's assassination has limited impact on the situation in the Middle East."Iran and Israel will not go to a full-scale conflict because the 'resistance axis' led by Iran has limited capabilities, a full-scale conflict is not in the interests of Iran and Israel, and the United States, a supporter of Israel, has no intention of expanding the conflict at a critical time in the election. The impact of this incident on the Hamas organization, the overall trend of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and internal reconciliation in Palestine is also relatively limited." (See Liu Zhongmin, "The assassination of Haniyeh has limited impact on the Middle East pattern, but is "toxic" to the Middle East situation"). At present,Even though it is still difficult to rule out Iran's retaliation against Israel in some way, Iran and Israel will not move towards a large-scale conflict.

From the perspective of timing, Iran can only achieve better results in military, diplomatic, public opinion and moral aspects if it retaliates against Israel as soon as possible.The development of events shows that nearly ten days have passed since Haniyeh was killed in the attack, and the "most appropriate time" for Iran to retaliate against Israel should have passed.Under the circumstances of pressure from the United States, mediation by Russia, and joint calls for peace by Egypt, regional countries and China, if Iran launches large-scale retaliation against Israel, escalates the conflict and worsens the situation, the effectiveness of its retaliation will obviously be greatly reduced.

In my opinion, the political storm triggered by Haniyeh’s death may have passed its most dangerous moment. At least the risk of Iran launching a large-scale military retaliation against Israel has been greatly reduced. The following article briefly analyzes the reasons why Iran did not launch a large-scale retaliation and the complexity of Middle East politics behind it.

Countries inside and outside the region work together to prevent the escalation of conflicts

World powers and regional countries have curbed the escalation of conflicts in different ways and played an important role in crisis management.After Haniyeh was killed in an attack, the United States, Russia, China, and regional countries such as Jordan and Egypt have all exerted influence on regional tensions in different ways.

first,The United States is using military pressure to deter Iran.Militarily, the United States has sent a strong deterrent signal to Iran by quickly dispatching an aircraft carrier fleet and increasing its military presence in the Middle East, aiming to deter Iran from escalating the conflict indefinitely. The United States' increased military presence in the Middle East is not to support Israel in provoking conflict, but to control and de-escalate the crisis. At the same time, US President Biden also expressed strong dissatisfaction with Israel's recent practices such as undermining negotiations.

Secondly,While expressing support for Iran, Russia urged Iran to exercise restraint.According to reports, Russian National Security Secretary Sergei Shoigu visited Tehran at a sensitive time. While strengthening the strategic cooperation between Russia and Iran, he also sent a signal to Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei that President Putin hopes Iran will "restrain its response." With Russia deeply involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia's current influence in the Middle East and the support it can provide to Iran are greatly limited.

at last,China is actively playing a constructive role in cooling down the regional situation.During the phone call between the Chinese foreign minister and the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, China strongly condemned the assassination of Haniyeh and called on all parties to exercise restraint and for the international community and regional countries to contribute to ending the Gaza conflict as soon as possible. Given that China facilitated the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year and recently facilitated the signing of the Beijing Declaration by various Palestinian factions to end division and strengthen unity, China's voice will naturally attract great attention from Iran and other parties.

Blindly escalating the conflict is not good for Iran

Choose to launch large-scale retaliation against Israel or even escalate the conflict,It will do more harm than good to Iran, which is in a special moment and special environment.

first,The scale of Iran's retaliation against Israel is difficult to gauge.Since Iran and Israel fired missiles at each other in April this year, if Iran retaliates against Israel, repeating the previous restrained and symbolic retaliation mode of both sides, it will be difficult to achieve the effect and purpose of retaliation. And expanding and escalating the retaliation will inevitably lead to greater retaliation from Israel, and even lead to the conflict getting out of control and the two sides heading for a large-scale conflict, but this is not what Iran, which is in a difficult domestic and international situation, wants.

Secondly,At this critical time when the new Iranian government is just being established, blindly expanding the conflict will not be conducive to creating a new situation in Iran's domestic and foreign affairs.After the death of former Iranian President Lehi, the presidential election and the inauguration of the new president, Iran is facing tremendous pressure and challenges at home and abroad. The reformist President Pezhichyan's policy of internal reform and external détente was not implemented before the diplomatic crisis of Haniyeh's death in Iran. Against this background, if Iran retaliates against Israel at all costs and even triggers a huge conflict, it will not only be detrimental to the stability of domestic reforms, but also to Iran's improvement of foreign relations, and may even reverse the reformist's governance strategy. And undermining Iran's foreign policy of détente, especiallyBlocking the door to improving relations between Iran and the United States and continuing to stimulate confrontation between Iran and the United States is precisely one of the goals Israel hopes to achieve through the assassination of Haniyeh.Against this backdrop, Iran faces a huge challenge in maintaining strategic focus.

Iran's policy towards Palestine and Israel and its policy of confrontation with Israel are no longer sustainable

Iran's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the unsustainability of its confrontation with Israel have brought Iran to a critical moment of deep reflection.

If we look back and think about the relationship between Iran and Israel from a historical and rational perspective, it is intriguing. In the more than 2,000 years of historical exchanges between the Persian and Jewish peoples, the current confrontational relationship between the two sides is just a blink of an eye compared to the long-term friendly exchanges between the two sides. The two sides not only have long-term friendship in history, but also have worked closely together as allies of the United States in modern times.

The contradictions between Iran and Israel began with the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, and anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism became important parts of Iranian ideology. Even so, the contradictions between the two sides in the 1980s remained mainly at the level of public opinion. Israel maintained close cooperation with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, especially selling a large number of arms to Iran. The real deterioration of relations between the two sides began after the end of the Cold War. The contradictions between the two sides over the Middle East peace process, especially the Palestinian-Israeli issue, the Iranian nuclear crisis and the Iranian nuclear agreement, the "Arab Spring", especially the Syrian civil war, continued to intensify, and the tit-for-tat confrontation between the two sides in the military and security fields became increasingly prominent. (See Liu Zhongmin: "Iran and Israel have always been friendly in history, why are they now completely at odds?")

For a long time, Iran's tough policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been closely related to its "export of revolution" diplomacy. On the one hand, Iran insists on an unrealistic anti-Israel policy on the Palestinian-Israeli issue (for example, former Iranian President Ahmadinejad advocated wiping Israel off the map). On the other hand, it supports radical religious political organizations such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, Palestine's Hamas, and Yemen's Houthi armed forces to confront Israel. Although this approach has expanded Iran's regional influence,Iran's radical policies toward Israel and its support for religious political organizations in the "grey zone" have largely made its policies lack sufficient political legitimacy, and of course lack a basis in international law. This is also the reason why Israel dares to strike hard on issues such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

To some extent,Many of Israel and Iran's policies and practices are irrational behavior of radicalism against radicalism, and have caused backlash on both sides.This is an issue that both sides must face up to.

Neither Iran nor Israel can withstand the pressure of a full-scale conflict

The main themes of the new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its spillover are the contradiction between Hamas and Israel, and the contradiction between Iran and the "resistance axis" led by it and Israel. However, it is the contradiction between Israel and Iran that determines the scale, degree and manner of the spillover of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.In essence, Israel has fallen into a dilemma both internally and externally, and its long-term conflict policy is not sustainable; Iran has been in a very difficult internal and external environment for a long time, and the "axis of resistance" led by it is also difficult to sustain.

Judging from the general trend of development in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, the Arab world, Turkey and other regional countries are all reconciling with each other. Iran and Israel themselves were also committed to reconciliation with regional countries before this round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict (except between themselves). Egypt, Jordan, Syria and other countries surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have no intention of getting involved in the conflict.Iran's irrational policies on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have no market in the Arab Islamic world, and Israel's extreme policies in the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict have caused it to fall into serious isolation in the international community and even in the West.

In short, everything in the world is bound to reverse when it reaches its extreme, and there is no creation without destruction. The same is true for the relationship between conflict and peace in the Middle East. Sadat, Rabin, Sharon and other fighters in the Arab-Israeli conflict battlefield have all chosen peace after the conflict reached a dead end. To this extent,Although there is no sign of peace in the Middle East yet, the inevitable outcome of conflict reaching its extremes is peace. This is the dialectics of history, but the price paid by the conflicting parties in this process is very heavy.I hope that all parties in the Middle East can learn from history, end the conflict and move towards peace as soon as possible.

"Middle East Wise Comments" is a column by Professor Liu Zhongmin of the Institute of Middle East Studies at Shanghai International Studies University. It adheres to the combination of realism, theory and basic principles, and responds to real-life issues with the depth of history and theory.