news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

two days after the lebanese hezbollah armed leader nasrallah was killed in an israeli air strike, israel continued to bomb hezbollah and houthi armed targets, and regional conflicts escalated. how iran, which stands behind hezbollah, expresses its stance has become the focus of attention from all parties.

iranian president pezhiziyan said on the 29th that israel’s killing of many leaders of hezbollah in recent days was a “criminal act” and iran needed to make a “decisive response.” does this mean that iran will intervene militarily in the lebanese-israeli conflict? how should we view the relationship between iran and hezbollah? what are the goals of both sides in this round of conflict?

observer.com talked with mr. qiu ganshu, a cultural and cultural worker who lives in tehran, and brought his observations.

[text/observer.com guo han]

observer network: as nasrallah was killed in an israeli air strike and the armed conflict between israel and hezbollah in lebanon escalated, the outside world has widely paid attention to whether iran will directly intervene. what is your judgment?

qiu ganshu:i do not think that because of nasrallah’s assassination, iran will choose to end up directly involved in the war.

to use a popular analogy, hezbollah is to iran what "bodyguards" are to "important officials." at present, hezbollah has been severely damaged by a 10-day surprise attack by israel. it cannot be said that the entire organization is completely paralyzed, but the leaders of the military department have been "beheaded" and the communication tools used for grassroots communication have also been destroyed or interfered with. if a "bodyguard" is stabbed, should the "important person" be asked to block the "bodyguard's" gun? no. the reasonable logic is that the "important personnel" will assign other "bodyguards" to continue to protect themselves and provide treatment for the injured "bodyguards".

therefore, we see that with the personnel and material support of iran, the houthi armed forces and the iraqi militia continue to launch drones and missiles towards israel as a deterrent to israel; iran also sends experts and key forces to support hezbollah, and in politics , repairing his organization at the military level, retraining personnel, and so on. but iran will not personally take advantage of the fire, and let "important officials" take the bullet for the "bodyguards".

on september 28, local time, iranian people gathered in the rain on the streets of tehran to mourn nasrallah and protest against israeli air strikes. visual china

observer network: to what extent will the death of nasrallah weaken hezbollah’s power? could the israeli military take advantage of hezbollah's military leadership to launch an offensive?

qiu ganshu:in hezbollah's organizational structure, there is no irreplaceable leadership role. hezbollah has a complete leadership team.israelin addition to hitting nasrallah as the military chief, this attack also hit people at the top of his military command chain, causing the chain of command to be cut off.

however, hezbollah's political leadership, including the executive committee, parliamentary committees, etc., have not been destroyed, and the grassroots organizations are still there. as long as the organizational structure at the political (including economic and cultural) level remains operational, hezbollah will not lose popular support and will still have talented people to take over the position of military command. so i don't think this attack will have much impact on hezbollah's organizational operations.

as for whether the israeli army will take the opportunity to launch an attack, including a limited ground attack, i think this situation will be beneficial to the hezbollah armed forces. because they are very passive in the face of air strikes and cannot fight back; but if the israeli ground troops attack southern lebanon, hezbollah can use guerrilla warfare and tunnel fortifications to deal with it. for both sides, the probability of killing is 50% vs. 50%. you can hit me, and i can hit you.

it can be said that hezbollah continues to fire rockets into northern israel in order to force the israeli army to step down and launch a ground attack, so that the exchange of fire between the two sides can achieve reciprocity to a certain extent. hezbollah's goal is mainly to cause a relatively large setback to israel militarily, which is different from the "aqsa flood" operation launched by hamas armed forces mainly based on political goals.

hezbollah's military strength is already far stronger than that of hamas. another advantage they have is that they can continuously obtain weapons aided by iran through syria. hamas, on the other hand, is under siege and unable to receive foreign aid.

observer network: how should we view the relationship between iran and hezbollah? hezbollah was founded in the 1980s as a military resistance to israel, during which it received strong support from the newly established islamic revolutionary republic of iran. how deep is the connection between the two sides based on shia religious identity?

qiu ganshu:first of all, iran actually began to intervene in lebanese politics as early as the pahlavi period. this is not a trend that emerged with the establishment of the islamic republic of iran. secondly, combined with israel's special alliance with the united states, iran's only choice is to support hezbollah. after all, considering geographical factors, hezbollah is a force that can directly threaten israel and thus form a check and balance on the united states.

iran supports hezbollah based on its identity as a shiite and has invested a lot of resources. the purpose is to threaten israel and use hezbollah to restrict threats or attempts by israel or the united states to iran's own interests (including its nuclear program). from iran's perspective, this is a defensive, deterrent strategy, and its goal is not to completely eliminate the entire state of israel through hezbollah.

this kind of thinking actually has a weak relationship with the ideology of iran's islamic revolution, but stems from iran's geopolitical thinking that has been at the crossroads of the eurasian continent since ancient times. such a position has led to a "lack of security." therefore, especially after iran became a modern country, its basic national policy was to expand its front beyond its borders. this is not based on religious fanaticism, but rather a defensive line of thinking.

a representative case is that large-scale public protests broke out in iran because of the increase in gasoline prices. the people opposed the use of a large amount of resources to aid foreign powers. they shouted slogans including "no gaza! no lebanon! just iran!"

general qasem soleimani, the then major general of iran’s islamic revolutionary guard corps and commander of the quds force, responded at the time that if we did not consume our enemies in iraq and syria, they would come to our doorstep. make bloodshed in our land.

file photo of former iranian islamic revolutionary guard corps commander general soleimani meeting with representatives of the syrian government forces

over the past decade or so, the "arc of resistance" forces led by iran have shown a trend of expansion, which seems to be driven by religious fanaticism or ideological motivation. however, it is not entirely a reflection of the improvement of iran's overall national power, but includes the united states. strategic mistakes made in the middle east, such as overthrowing saddam hussein's regime in iraq and besieging assad's regime in syria by supporting the "arab spring", have indirectly benefited iran.

it seems that iran is promoting an offensive strategy, but in fact, iran is just taking advantage of the mistakes made by its opponents to achieve its goals, that is, to improve its strategic environment. at that time, the united states wasiraqwhen it stationed troops in afghanistan at the same time, iran felt strategic pressure, so it penetrated and strengthened its influence in iraq by supporting shiite armed forces. as for the assad regime, which had good relations with the west and iran at the same time before falling into civil war, only wait until"arab spring"when it burns to your own head,syriathe only option left for the government is to turn to iran.

iran itself does not have the huge resources to implement an offensive strategy. its economic source is mainly revenue from oil exports, and its crude oil refining and processing facilities and capabilities are very limited. if the country's oil industry infrastructure is destroyed due to the outbreak of war, iran's economy will be hit hard. therefore, avoiding direct involvement in the war is iran's main goal. the purpose of supporting the shiite armed forces is only to divert the energy of the united states and prevent the united states from thinking too much about iran. this is a defensive strategic thinking.

from the perspective of iran's top political elites, they are not "religious fanatics" as demonized by western media, but have a very rational understanding of their country's national interests. if a country is compared to a liquid, then the ideology reflected externally is like a container. water is put in a bottle and takes on the shape of the bottle, but its essence is still a liquid, and it emits the taste of a liquid, not the taste of a bottle.

some netizens may be willing to imagine iran as "one of the pawns in a grand chess game that checks and balances the united states." however, iran is a sovereign country after all, with its own interests and judgments about its own interests. to some extent, we should respect iran's own judgment more.

observer network: iran’s newly-appointed president pezhiziyan expressed his willingness to negotiate on the iran nuclear agreement at the united nations general assembly on the 24th. soon after, news came out that hezbollah leader nasrallah was killed by an israeli bombing. . what do you think of the discussion about the changing attitude of the iranian leadership?

qiu ganshu:the "iran nuclear agreement" is essentially a game. signing the "iran nuclear agreement" does not require iran to give up its support for shia armed forces or regional proxies. it only requires iran to stop developing nuclear weapons in exchange for external conditions for economic development. but iran has mastered the basis for developing nuclear weapons, so iran can use the "iran nuclear agreement" as a card to gain more benefits from the west by "inciting but not launching" its nuclear project. in doing so, iran has left itself greater room for maneuver than other countries facing similar situations.

the key to the problem is that many people in the outside world believe that iran will "surrender" to the united states, but the relaxation of iran-us relations does not depend on iran, but on the united states. even if iran disbands the "arc of resistance", stops supporting hezbollah, or breaks off diplomatic relations with palestine, the united states will still find other reasons to punish iran. the united states' "offshore balancing" strategy in the middle east requires the existence of a "hostile force" like iran. otherwise, countries in the middle east will gain more diplomatic options and turn their attention to more major countries.

observer network: in the nearly one year since the new round of palestinian-israeli conflict broke out, iran’s attitude towards intervening in the conflict has always made the outside world feel "conservative". even after being bombed in turn and assassination attacks in the capital, iran was unwilling to expand the conflict. escalate the situation. what are iran’s considerations behind this?

qiu ganshu:regarding this issue, we must first go back to iran's basic judgment: that is, they believe that time is on their side. without a large-scale war, the israeli regime will gradually die. taking into account the gap in fertility between the two nations of palestine and israel, the continued integration of the population will eventually turn the palestinian-israeli issue into "one country, two nations", and time is not on israel's side.

iranian president pezhechiyan said that the us and european countries promised to use a ceasefire in exchange for iran giving up its response to the assassination of haniyeh. this is a complete lie. iranian media

in addition, iran believes that as u.s. power slowly withdraws from the middle east, it can slowly wear away israel's strength as long as it does not make mistakes. therefore, iran is not inclined to take the initiative to take more risky actions.

finally, due to the repeated missteps in the middle east policies of the bush administration and the obama administration more than a decade ago (the invasion of iraq and the syrian crisis), iran has gained many interests by filling the power vacuum, but these are interests that iran’s national strength is not enough to maintain. . therefore, after the trump administration began to exert "maximum pressure" and the biden administration failed to substantially ease u.s.-iran relations, iran believed that it would be difficult or cost more to maintain the status quo, and began a certain degree of strategic contraction. .

this does not mean that iran will spit out its previously expanded interests and influence, but it is similar to if the united states hijacked an iranian oil tanker in the past, iran would reciprocally destroy or hijack another ship through the houthi armed forces. iran will not choose to do this now. but it will still maintain a red line, which is its own national security and avoid being directly involved in war.

the strategic dividends that iran received in the past also had an element of luck to some extent, that is, the mistakes of its opponents were factors in it. today, iran has begun to become more pragmatic, but this does not mean capitulationism.

this article is an exclusive manuscript of observer.com. the content of the article is purely the author's personal opinion and does not represent the platform's opinion. it may not be reproduced without authorization, otherwise legal liability will be pursued. follow the observer.com wechat guanchacn and read interesting articles every day.