Are US threats making Iran rethink retaliation against Israel?

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Palestinian group Hamas' top leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran July 30, 2024.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Palestinian group Hamas' top leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran July 30, 2024.
Reuters

The US has been scrambling to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East in the wake of attacks that killed top figures in Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah have both vowed to retaliate against Israel over the assassinations, though it remains unclear when or how they’ll strike back.

New reporting suggests Tehran, which wants to avoid a wider war, may not pursue a large-scale response and could take a more limited approach — such as targeting Mossad. And the US has reportedly warned Iran that its new government and economy would be at “serious risk” if it moves forward with a significant attack against the Jewish state.

But Gregory Brew, an Iran expert at Eurasia Group, says he hasn’t seen anything from the Iranian side to back up the notion Tehran is planning to “scale back its response.”

“It’s not at all unusual that Iran is taking its time before responding, as it did in April when it waited two full weeks,” says Brew, referencing the massive barrage of missiles and drones Iran fired at Israel in retaliation for a deadly strike on its Damascus consulate.

The April attack was overwhelmingly intercepted by Israel and its allies. Had there been heavy civilian casualties, it’s possible an all-out war could’ve broken out in the region.

However they move forward in the days ahead, both Iran and Hezbollah are “likely to avoid causing significant civilian casualties, which Israel has indicated as a red line,” says Brew, because neither wants to end up in a wider war. But it’s a “tough line for Iran and Hezbollah to walk, and if the attacks do cause more damage than anticipated, there will be pressure within Israel to respond in kind, raising the risks of a broader regional escalation that could potentially pull in the US,” adds Brew.

Hezbollah has pledged to retaliate with or without allies. But the response is still likely to be “unmistakably launched in a coordinated fashion,” says Brew, even if Hezbollah and Iran attack different targets at separate times.

More from GZERO Media

German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments.

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin redefined the agency’s mission, stating that its focus is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”

Paige Fusco

Canada has begun thinking the unthinkable: how to defend against a US attack. It suddenly realizes — far too late – that the 2% GDP goal on defense spending is no longer aspirational but urgent. But what kind of military does it need? To find out, GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon spoke with retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman, the former vice chief of defense staff in Canada and currently a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.