Iran faces internal pressure as Israel targets nuclear sites

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei comes under pressure to improve relations with the West after Israel attack and economic collapse.

Iran’s supreme leader is facing growing anger from within the regime’s ruling inner circle following Israel’s attacks on the country’s nuclear infrastructure.

Israel launched a wave of airstrikes on Friday, killing top commanders and nuclear scientists, and bombing sites in an effort to stop Tehran building an atomic weapon.

In response, Tehran fired a salvo of missiles at Israel, which were largely intercepted.

As hardliners continue to threaten vengeance against Israel and its allies after the strikes, there are signs of a deepening rift between Iran’s extreme and moderate voices.

It has mainly been left to the hardliners to articulate Iran’s official response.

The country’s state-owned Fars News Agency, closely affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, quoted a senior military official warning that, apart from attacking Israel, “the war will spread to all parts of Israel and American bases in the region in the coming days, and the aggressors will be targeted with a decisive and widespread response”.

In an attempt to silence criticism of the regime’s handling of the crisis, Mohseni Ejeie, Iran’s chief judge cleric, issued a warning on Saturday that any Iranian citizen who posted comments on social media supporting Israel’s attack would face sentences of up to six years in jail.

Even so, as criticism of the regime’s handling of the crisis begins to surface, it is likely to find itself under pressure to explain its inability to defend the nation from Israel’s assault, despite the vast sums it claims to have spent upgrading the Iranian military.

Private text messages shared with the New York Times reveal that some Iranian officials are questioning why Iran’s air defences have not been more effective in repelling Israel’s attacks, which hit its arsenal of ballistic missiles and assassinated senior figures in Tehran’s military chain of command.

“Where is our air defence?” texted one official, while another asked: “How can Israel come and attack anything it wants, kill our top commanders, and we are incapable of stopping it?”

Hamid Hosseini, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee, said: “Israel’s attack completely caught the leadership by surprise, especially the killing of the top military figures and nuclear scientists. It also exposed our lack of proper air defence and their ability to bombard our critical sites and military bases with no resistance.”

Hosseini also raised concerns about Israel’s apparent infiltration of Iran’s military and security forces, enabling it to conduct covert operations in Iran’s armed forces and nuclear targets.

In its response to Israel’s attack, Iran was also only able to muster 200 missiles, despite an order from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, to launch a barrage of 1000 and reports that Iran was planning a response in the event of an Israeli attack for over a week.

From the start of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the battle between the regime’s moderate faction, which seeks to adopt a less confrontational stance towards the West, and the ideological hardliners has been one of the regime’s defining characteristics.

While Khamenei remains the hardliners’ undisputed head, Masoud Pezeshkian, the country’s recently elected President, is viewed as representing the regime’s more moderate wing.

To date, Pezeshkian has kept a relatively low profile, condemning the Israeli attacks and calling for unity among the Iranian people, stating: “Today, more than ever, the Iranian nation needs togetherness, trust, empathy, unity and consensus.”

Pezeshkian’s electoral victory over conservative hardliner Saeed Jalil was seen as indicative of Tehran’s desire to adopt a more constructive approach with the West, especially in terms of alleviating the sanctions that have hit the Iranian economy hard.

The regime’s handling of the economy – where funds have been diverted to support military and terrorist operations instead of concentrating on domestic issues – has provoked mounting dissent throughout the country and seen Khamenei under pressure to adopt a more conciliatory tone.

Masoud Pezeshkian has challenged Iran’s hardlines by calling for ‘unity and cohesion. Photo / Getty Images

During the election campaign, Pezeshkian, a 71-year-old heart surgeon and member of the Iranian parliament, was highly critical of Iran’s repressive morality police.

He directly challenged the hardliners’ approach by calling for “unity and cohesion” in Iran, as well as calling for an end to Iran’s “isolation” from the outside world.

Pezeshkian also campaigned in favour of engaging in “constructive negotiations” with Western powers to agree a new deal over the country’s nuclear programme, which Iran agreed to curb in return for an easing of Western sanctions.

But while Pezeshkian has tried hard to pursue a more moderate social and foreign policy since taking office, he has had to contend with the institutional resistance of the hardline faction, which regard any deal with the West concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions as tantamount to a sell-out.

One indication of the ideological struggle at the heart of the Iranian regime came in March when Mohammad Javad Zarif, the country’s moderate former foreign minister, was forced to resign from his position as vice-president.

A close ally of Pezeshkian, Zarif’s dismissal was said to be related to his opposition to Tehran’s deepening alliance with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, which he regarded as being counterproductive to Iran’s diplomatic efforts to improve relations with the West.

While Israel’s military assault against Iran means there is little prospect of Tehran improving relations with the West in the near future, the eruption of hostilities will nevertheless focus attention on the regime’s internal wrangling, which could ultimately result in the regime’s collapse.

For the moment, Iran’s hardliners have taken charge of the country’s military response to Israel’s continuing offensive. But the longer Israel continues to attack key Iranian targets with impunity, the more pressure the hardliners will come under to explain their abject failure to defend the country, a failing that ultimately could lead to their demise.