Iranian military chief says overnight attack ‘achieved all its goals’, adding that US bases are under threat if it backs Israeli retaliation.
Iran has warned Israel of a larger attack on its territory should it retaliate against Tehran’s overnight drone and missile attacks, adding that the United States should not back an Israeli military action.
“If the Zionist regime [Israel] or its supporters demonstrate reckless behaviour, they will receive a decisive and much stronger response,” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said in a statement on Sunday. ⠀
However, in a signal that Iran’s response was calculated in an attempt to avoid any major escalation, the Iranian foreign minister Amir Abdollahian said that Tehran had informed the US of the planned attack 72 hours in advance, and said that the strikes would be “limited” and for self-defence.
That did not stop more aggressive language from other officials, with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, warning that Tehran would retaliate against any Israeli attacks on its interests, officials or citizens.
“From now on, whenever Israel attacks Iranian interests… we will attack from Iran.” ⠀
“The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” said a statement.
It added that the US should “stay away” from the conflict, as it is an issue between Iran and Israel.
This is a mischaracterization of how force works. Guerilla war is far superior to “<country> doing the dirty work themselves”. You can train a guerilla force as part of your main military, but by its very nature it needs to be decentralized or it’s not effective, it needs to be distributed or it’s easy to decapitate, and it needs to be constantly shifting in response to conditions. In essence, using guerilla forces IS doing the dirty work yourself, it’s not delegating it to another group so you don’t have to get your hands dirty.
The terrorist label is a useless term anyway. Terrorism is strategy for using civilian terror to effect change. The USA military uses the strategy of terrorism, they call it “shock and awe doctrine”. But calling rank and file soldiers “terrorists” doesn’t make any sense. Similarly, guerilla fighters don’t actually use terrorism, IEDs target military caravans. Shooting rockets at air defense systems to understand their limits is a military intelligence campaign. Enforcing a blockade/embargo is a core military function. Hit and run tactics works. Urban warfare is as necessary as mountain warfare and jungle warfare. In essence, the USA invented the label of terrorist to vilify people instead of tactics, and then drifted its usage away from “using civilian terror” towards “guerilla tactics”. This became enshrined in law in the USA as “enemy combatant”, a third label never before seen in law. Previously there was civilian and military. There’s a thousand years of law and jurisprudence using those two categories, from international treaties to domestic military courts to penal codes. This new third status, invented by the USA, discards all of that and allows the USA to do anything they want to anyone they deem fits this new legal category, which maps directly to whoever they call a “terrorist” which, as I think I’ve established, is far more about fighting guerillas than it is about fighting terrorism.