Lebanon<\/a> and Yemen would join the war.<\/p>\n\u201cIran is doing what it can to encourage them to,\u201d he shared. \u201cWe, of course, hope that\u2019s not the case and are doing whatever we can to ensure this doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hezbollah announced on Wednesday night that the terror organization would refrain from joining a war or attack on Former Israeli deputy national security adviser Prof. Chuck Freilich, now an adjunct professor at Tel Aviv University and Columbia University, told the Post last week that the Lebanese terror group \u2013 founded on the ideology of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) \u2013 is loyal to Khamenei, binding his position as the authority on the group\u2019s future role.<\/p>\n
While Iran may have pressed to see Hezbollah join the conflict, two years of war, a Lebanese disarmament campaign, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria have left the terror group significantly weakened and thus somewhat reluctant to rush into another battle against the Jewish state unless absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n
While Bahraini analyst Dr. Ahmed Alkhuzaie earlier told the Post that he suspected the Islamic regime would only give a proportional response to the Saturday morning American and Israeli strikes, when reapproached by the paper, he confirmed his assessment had changed significantly over the past few hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be a hell of a fight that [will] affect everyone in this part of the world,\u201d he warned, in a noticeably different tone than earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran will utilize its proxies in the region, that is for sure. The impact will vary since, to the Islamic Republic, this war is existential. That\u2019s why we see Hezbollah, Islamic militias in Iraq and Yemen are on full alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran – must not be equated with Syria or Lebanon<\/p>\n
Alkhuzaie warned that Iran \u201cmust not be simplistically equated with Syria or Lebanon, because its infrastructure and state apparatus are far more developed and resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Assad regime fell quickly, he explained that this was the result of years of civil war that fractured its institutions, whereas the Islamic Republic has maintained a \u201crelatively intact and functioning system of governance, with nationwide networks of transportation, energy, and industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regime is \u201cless vulnerable to collapse under external pressure,\u201d as its financial systems are more robust than Syria\u2019s, even with Western sanctions.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the Iranian political landscape is not politically fragmented like Lebanon\u2019s, which has meant that it is not \u201cparalyzed by [the same] sectarian divisions and weak state institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIran operates through a centralized, hierarchical bureaucracy that enforces policy across its territory. Ministries, agencies, and provincial administrations in Iran are tightly integrated into the state structure, ensuring continuity even during crises,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bureaucratic depth gives Iran the ability to mobilize resources, coordinate responses, and sustain long-term strategies in ways Lebanon cannot. Misreading this capacity could lead to catstrophic miscalculations in policy or intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
The blend of ideological authority with institutional control in Iran\u2019s political hierarchy will also help the regime maintain \u201ccohesion and discipline across the state,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is fundamentally different from the fragmented militias and external dependencies that characterize Syria and Lebanon. Iran\u2019s system allows it to project power regionally while maintaining internal stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny attempt to treat Iran as if it were a weak or fractured state risks provoking escalations that could destabilize the wider region, because Iran has both the institutional resilience and strategic depth to respond forcefully.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former IDF intelligence official Yossi Kuperwasser said Iran now views the conflict as an existential war, warning the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,801,209820,31737,3,21,19,22,20,25,24,227004],"class_list":{"0":"post-496519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-islamic-regime","11":"tag-lebanon","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-yossi-kuperwasser"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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