The tension between Israel and Iran appears to be heightening.
Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), recently said: “Hezbollah has 100,000 missiles that
are ready to hit Israel to liberate the occupied Palestinian
territories if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes.”
He added: “Today, the grounds for the annihilation and collapse
of the Zionist regime are [present] more than ever.” Salami warned
that if Israel made the “wrong move,” it would come under
attack.
A few weeks ago, a senior adviser to the IRGC’s elite Quds
Force, Ahmad Karimpour, said Iran could destroy Israel “in less
than eight minutes” if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave the
order.
There are several reasons why Iran’s repeated anti-Israel
statements may be pure rhetoric. They are most likely meant as a
type of psychological warfare, because Iran cannot afford direct
conflict with Israel.
Although Iran is larger geographically and in terms of
population, its military capacity is inferior. Even regarding
missile capabilities, which Iranian generals boast about, Israel’s
are greater in range and number.
What fundamentally changes the balance of power is Israel’s
nuclear capacity. It is widely believed to have some 200 nuclear
warheads that can be used with intercontinental ballistic missiles,
as well as nuclear-armed submarines.
As such, Iran’s policy toward Israel is to not strike first, as
doing so would be suicidal for the ruling political establishment,
whose main objective is to maintain power. It would be more
effective to fight Israel via its Lebanese Shiite proxy
Hezbollah.
Tehran’s repeated boasting about IRGC capabilities is aimed at
invoking nationalist sentiment among the public, because Iranian
leaders know that the overwhelming majority of Iranians are
dissatisfied with the hardliners and the political
establishment.
Kazem, 29, PhD student majored in public health, pointed out “I
would like to see a regime change in Iran, but I want Iran, ruled
by any government even the current clergies, to be stronger than
any country in the region including Israel. Iran should be the most
powerful nation in the region militarily, technologically and
economically as it was under Shah era or thousands of years of the
Persian empire”.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/majid-rafizadeh/iran-is-ready-to-attack-i_b_11382198.html
