Pahlavi’s economic vision for a future Iran needs refinement

The assassination comes from a change of approach from Israeli intelligence which has now transformed the face of the decades-long conflict with Iran’s most powerful proxy after its top ranks have been shattered by two weeks of targeted attacks across Lebanon.

The Financial Times reported that Israel has relied on exceptional intelligence in recent months, beginning with the July 30 assassination of Fuad Shukr, a key aide to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Officials told the newspaper that there had been a large-scale reorientation of Israel’s intelligence-gathering efforts on Hezbollah after the surprising failure of its far more powerful military to deliver a knockout blow against the militant group in 2006, or even to eliminate its senior leadership, including Nasrallah.

“For the next two decades, Israel’s sophisticated signals intelligence Unit 8200, and its military intelligence directorate, called Aman, mined vast amounts of data to map out the fast-growing militia in Israel’s 'northern arena,'” the paper wrote.

Speaking to Iran International, an Israeli official said that Israel is now working fast before the intervention of the US can stand in the way of its blitzing the group.

“There has to be a major amount of damage done, and quickly, before the US starts to step up pressure for a truce,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We don’t want a repeat of Gaza where our hands are tied, limiting the success of our operations and in the end, lengthening the war.”

He said the killing of Nasrallah also marked a political change for Israel, which had in recent years acted more cautiously on the killing of the group's leader, treating him as "more like a head of state". But now, the gloves are off.

Since October 8, Hezbollah has launched over 8,000 projectiles towards Israel in allegiance with Hamas in Gaza’s atrocities of October 7. The invasion saw thousands of Iran-backed Hamas militia invade Israel killing at least 1,100 and taking over 250 hostages to Gaza, 101 of whom remain there. In Israel, 63,000 civilians have since been displaced.

Since the pager explosions which saw around 1,500 Hezbollah operatives taken out of action in Beirut, Israel has gone full force, with troops now on the ground as the country vows to create safety on its northern border in a bid to return home the residents now spread around the country.

Another Israeli official told Iran International that there is a “limited incursion” underway but did not give details beyond the fact special forces are there to dismantle key military targets in the area meant to have been demilitarized under 2006's UN Resolution 1701, a resolution Hezbollah has since continued to breach.

Speaking to the FT, Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer, said Israeli intelligence had “widened its aperture to view the entirety of Hezbollah, looking beyond just its military wing to its political ambitions and growing connections with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Nasrallah’s relationship with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad”.

It has taken 40 years for Israel to get such an upper hand, having seen the group through this time as a “terror army”. Changing this approach, Eisin told the FT that Israel was forced to study the Iran-backed militia with the same eyes as it had the likes of the Syrian army. The Syrian war for which Hezbollah lent its troops, offered the chance to see the group in a more revealing light.

The FT said that “while Hezbollah’s fighters were battle hardened in Syria’s bloody war, the militant group’s forces had grown to keep pace with the drawn-out conflict. That recruitment also left them more vulnerable to Israeli spies placing agents or looking for would-be defectors.”

According to Randa Slim, a program director at the Middle East Institute in Washington, “Syria was the beginning of the expansion of Hezbollah …. That [war] weakened their internal control mechanisms and opened the door for infiltration on a big level.”

The war in Syria also “created a fountain of data, much of it publicly available for Israel’s spies — and their algorithms — to digest”, the report noted.

Obituaries, regularly used by Hezbollah for its martyrs, were one of those vitally revealing tools, offering insights such as where the fighter was from, where he was killed, and his circle of friends posting the news on social media. Funerals also offered the chance to draw senior leaders out of the shadows, even if briefly.

Quoting a former high-ranking Lebanese politician in Beirut, the FT said the penetration of Hezbollah by Israeli or US intelligence was “the price of their support for Assad”.

“They had to reveal themselves in Syria,” he said, where the secretive group suddenly had to stay in touch and share information with the notoriously corrupt Syrian intelligence service, or with Russian intelligence services, who were regularly monitored by the Americans.

Hezbollah blew up Shin Bet’s headquarters in Tyre not once but twice in the early years of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. At one point in the late 1990s, Israel realized that Hezbollah was hijacking its then-unencrypted drone broadcasts, learning about the Israel Defense Forces’ own targets and methods, according to two people familiar with the issue.

Israel’s technical expertise also saw it take advantage of the likes of spy satellites, sophisticated drones and cyber-hacking capabilities that turn mobile phones into listening devices.

Israeli news outlet Ynet said that as Israel began to close in on Hezbollah, the first military intelligence used cyber technology and electronic intelligence gathering, mostly by the IDF's 8200 unit. Then the military gathered visual intelligence that could identify precise coordinates and locations and, finally, the military's 504 unit gathered information from human sources.

Intelligence agency Mossad likely laid the foundations for the entire effort in operations, Ynet said, and the details of which will likely never be revealed as Israel has a tight 50-year non disclosure rule on security information, much of which, even is locked beyond that.

Mossad has a long history of agents on the ground in Lebanon such as the high-profile case of Erika Chambers, a Mossad operative who was one of the people behind the 1979 assassination of Ali Hassan Salameh, a high-ranking official in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Salameh was a founding member of Black September, the militant group responsible for orchestrating the attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Chambers had entered Lebanon posing as a British charity worker and lived in an apartment overlooking a car park used by Salameh. Eventually, that lookout post would see her detonate the bomb that killed him in 1979, planted on his car by another operative, before she left the country soon after.

Today, Unit 9900, which writes algorithms that sift through terabytes of visual images to find the slightest changes, has also been key, wrote the FT, its work to identify an improvised explosive device by a roadside, a vent over a tunnel or the sudden addition of a concrete reinforcement, hinting at a bunker.

The unit identifies an operative, feeding daily patterns of movements into a vast database of information, siphoned off from devices that could include family phones, or his smart car’s odometer. These can be identified from sources as disparate as a drone flying overhead, from a hacked CCTV camera feed that he happens to pass by and even from his voice captured on the microphone of a modern TV’s remote control, according to several Israeli officials speaking to the FT.

The huge bank of information has allowed Israel to take out of action the top echelons of the group and shock the world in the wake of the pager and walkie-talkie operation in which explosives were planted in the group's communications devices just 10 days before the leader of the group was killed. In between, nearly all the group’s top commanders had been hit, along with a wealth of military infrastructure.

Now, as the Lebanese militia stands in disarray and Israel continues to pound it hard so there is no room to regroup, the Jewish state is simultaneously going hard on Iran’s Yemeni proxy, the Houthis, to make sure they are clear of the consequences of trying to step into the breach.

The shipment of 1,100 ancient Achaemenid-era clay tablets The tablets have now been transferred to the National Museum of Iran and will be publicly displayed in two weeks, according to the Ministry of Cultural Heritage.

While the repatriation has been dubbed by domestic Iranian media as Pezeshkian's "souvenir", it holds deep significance for Iranians, reconnecting the country with its ancient pre-Islamic heritage, nearly 1,000 years before Islam, and offering invaluable insights into the Persian Empire’s administration and daily life.

The Elamite cuneiform inscriptions were discovered by an archaeological team from the University of Chicago, led by renowned archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld, during the excavation of Persepolis (Takht-e Jamshid), the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, in the 1930s.

These clay tablets, written in cuneiform script, belonged to the Persepolis Fortification Archive, which held records from a single administrative organization around 500 BC and consisted of tens of thousands of fragile clay fragments.

The records provide a wealth of information about the lives of royals and ordinary working people, including women who served the royal household or worked as artisans, detailing their wages and rations, which were paid in silver or commodities such as wine, beer, and grains.

They also reveal the use of a highly effective accounting system. Many of the clay tablets were sent to the Persepolis archive from other regions of the Persian Empire for safekeeping, offering great insight into the empire’s vast history and transportation networks.

In 1935, the Iranian government loaned 30,000 pieces of the tablets to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute for three years to be reconstructed and deciphered. However, due to the complexity of the work and the fragile nature of the tablets, they remained at the institute until 1948, when the first batch, including 150 pieces, was returned to Iran.

The course of Iranian governance took a dramatic turn approximately 31 years later with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which resulted in the establishment of a theocratic Islamic state, replacing the monarchy of the Shah.

In 2001, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami–who is labeled by some as a reformist– another 300 inscribed tablets were repatriated after being fully pieced together, translated, and digitally cataloged. Another 300 tablets followed in 2004.

After this shipment, a legal dispute emerged from a group of Americans, seeking to collect on a $423.5 million judgment awarded to them as damages. They had sued the Iranian state, demanding the seizure and auction of the tablet collection as compensation.

The plaintiffs, victims of a 1997 Hamas bombing in Jerusalem, claimed Iran was responsible for the attack due to its ties with Hamas and argued that the tablets were commercial property of the Iranian government that could be sold as antiques. In 2006, a US federal court ruled in their favor.

After years of legal battle, a US court of appeals in Chicago rejected the request for the tablets' seizure in 2011. The plaintiffs continued to challenge the ruling until 2018, when the US Supreme Court upheld the appeals court decision.

As a result, the University of Chicago repatriated two more collections, including over 5,000 tablets, in 2019 and 2023. Some of these tablets are now on display at the Persepolis Museum.

The tablets are inscribed in Elamite, a language spoken in the ancient kingdom of Elam in southwestern Iran and during the Achaemenid period (559 BC to 331 BC). Elamite, unrelated to any other ancient or modern language, became extinct around 400 BC.

The language was recorded in pictographic, figurative, and later cuneiform characters from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Elamite served as one of the official languages of the Persian Empire, alongside Old Persian and Akkadian.

Iranian Elamitologist Abdul-Majid Arfaee (born 1939) has translated over 2,500 of these documents. Arfaee, who studied under American Elamologist and Assyriologist Richard Hallock at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, founded the Inscriptions Hall at the National Museum of Iran to house part of the collection returned to Iran in the 1980s.

The ultra-hardline Farhikhtegan newspaper wrote on Monday: "The Biden administration has played a central role in both the security planning of resistance leaders' assassinations and in arming the Zionists." It then posed the question: "Will he, too, become a legitimate target for the resistance after his term ends?"

The newspaper also depicted Biden in a caricature wearing diapers, either mocking him for his age or suggesting fear.

On Sunday, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi also condemned the US. "The United States is a partner in this crime and can in no way distance itself from this reality. The blood of the martyrs in this incident will not go unanswered, and we will certainly stand by Lebanon."

Farhikhtegan, representing the views of the Paydari party, which opposes any nuclear agreement and normalization with the West, argued that Americans typically pay their bills throughout their lives, but in the Middle East, they are escaping the cost of their pro-Israel policies. It claimed that since January, when large-scale attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria ceased, Washington has avoided consequences for its actions.

"If Washington is truly concerned about unintended harm to its military personnel in the region due to Tel Aviv's rogue actions, greater control over the Zionists' misuse of American weapons would effectively rein in the regime. However, US officials have not only failed to act but have also supported the assassination of Hezbollah's Secretary-General in Lebanon," Farhikhtegan wrote.

Also on Monday, the hardline Kayhan newspaper, backed by the Supreme Leader’s office, called for using “surprise weapons” against Israel. Kayhan wrote: "The brutal attack by the Zionist regime on the Hezbollah leadership meeting, and the audacity of this regime in martyring Nasrallah, have doubled the necessity for a firm, heavy, and strong response to its madness and aggression."

The newspaper suggested targeting military supplies headed to Israel on the high seas or launching stronger attacks against Israeli air bases to cripple its primary weapon, the air force. In conclusion, Kayhan emphasized that "Netanyahu must know that Iran and the Axis of Resistance are prepared for any scenario," adding: "In this game of courage, we will not step aside. Perhaps it is time to use weapons that will certainly surprise Israel."

Nasrallah was killed in his highly secure underground headquarters, built under a complex of six buildings in the heart of Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, in a massive Israeli airstrike on Friday. He reportedly died of suffocation in an unventilated bunker, which is why his body was recovered intact from the rubble.

Safieddine (Safi Al-Din), a cousin of Nasrallah, was notably one of the senior leaders who were not present at the site of the strike that killed several top Hezbollah commanders.

Hashem Safieddine, born in 1964 in Deir Qanoun en-Nahr, a village near Tyre in southern Lebanon, studied theology alongside Hassan Nasrallah in Najaf, Iraq, and Qom, Iran—both major centers of Shia religious education. They became members of Hezbollah in its formative years.

A senior figure within Hezbollah, Safieddine heads the group’s executive council. His family is well-regarded in Shia circles and includes several religious scholars and politicians. His brother, Abdullah, represents Hezbollah in Iran, and his son Redha is married to the daughter of the late Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

Apart from his relation to Soleimani, Safieddine is known to have strong relations with the Islamic Republic, where he received his religious training. He was indeed "chosen" by Hezbollah's Iranian sponsors as Nasrallah's successor a long time ago, a 2008 report by London-based newspaper Shargh al-Awsat said, citing a former senior Hezbollah commander.

Safieddine holds significant influence within Hezbollah, serving on both the Shura Council and as the head of the Jihad Council. The US and Saudi Arabia have designated him as a terrorist and imposed sanctions, including asset freezes, against him.

Hanin Ghaddar, a Friedmann Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute, said Israel’s assassination of long-time leader “constitutes a shattering moment for the group that could alter the Lebanese political landscape as well as dynamics across the region”.

His death was the culmination of a 10-day campaign by Israel which had assassinated the group’s top leadership and infiltrated its communications systems while dismantling masses of its military infrastructure.

“On paper at least, replacing Nasrallah will not be difficult, and Hezbollah will take up the task alongside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” said Ghaddar, with likely successors including deputy leader Naim Qassem and executive council head Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s nephew.

But she says that on a deeper level, "replacing the charismatic longtime leader will be very difficult”.

“He has become inseparable from the group’s brand, and is identified with successes such as Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the perceived summer 2006 “divine victory” against Israel,” she added.

Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran, now has two options, to escalate the situation or to back down, containing its biggest proxy’s losses. That may involve taking a US-France led truce but after the failings of the UN Resolution 1701 in 2006, what Israel will be willing to accept remains in question.

She says it is the chance for the Lebanese Armed Forces to pull back control now that Hezbollah has been seriously curtailed. “But the LAF itself must answer to an independent Lebanese government, not one in thrall to Hezbollah,” she added. “A post-ceasefire Lebanon must above all be anchored in state sovereignty and independence.”

Iranian-born Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and adjunct professor at Georgetown, agreed that the assassination “is hugely consequential for the Middle East”.

Writing on X, he said: “Hezbollah is the crown jewel of the Islamic Republic of Iran-the one effective enterprise Iran’s revolutionaries have built since 1979-and Nasrallah has been crucial to Iran’s power expansion.

“Arab Hezbollah has been Persian Iran’s bridge to the five failing Arab states-Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Gaza-that Tehran has been dominating. Iran provides the resources, but it was often Hezbollah, under Nasrallah’s leadership, that set up and trained these proxies.”

While his death will not change the course of Iran’s mission to annihilate the Jewish state, It has thrown Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei into “a dilemma of his own making”, he says.

“By not responding strongly, he keeps losing face. By responding too strongly, he could lose his head. Like all dictators, Khamenei wants to be feared by his people. These humiliations will fuel talk about succession in Tehran.”

While Nasrallah’s death is huge, he says the true impact will take years to assess. “The key to change in the Middle East remains a government in Iran whose organizing principle is not revolutionary ideology (‘Death to America, Death to Israel’), but Iran’s national and economic interests.”

Gabriel Noronha, a former official in the Trump administration, emphasized the importance of Israel continuing its efforts to dismantle Hezbollah. He noted that alongside the war objectives of returning the 101 hostages held in Gaza and destroying Iran-backed Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has also prioritized the return of the 63,000 Israelis displaced from the north to their homes.

“Israel should ignore calls for urgent de-escalation from weak-kneed Western leaders who know nothing of victory and are stewards of decline,” he wrote on X.

“Israel should instead press their clear advantage to decimate as much of Hezbollah as they desire - and stop when they wish. And if Iran is foolish enough to strike Israel from its territory, appropriate response targets should include the IRGC headquarters, MOIS headquarters, and nuclear sites - particularly clandestine sites and those associated with weaponization activity.”

After nearly one year of Hezbollah’s bombardment of northern Israel in the wake of the Hamas invasion on October 7, Israel is finally pushing back on the US’s diplomatic approach. On Sunday, there was confirmation from Israeli officials of the military having begun limited incursions into southern Lebanon.

“The Islamic Republic’s shield of Hezbollah has been torn through like rice paper. The Axis of Resistance is reeling and off-balance,” Noronha said, while calling for more sanctions on Iran along with tougher military pressure on Hezbollah.

Michael Singh, head of the Washington Institute, warned that Iran’s policy of illegally flooding Lebanon with arms, undermining its sovereignty and using it as a shield against retaliation with no regard for the lives or interests of the Lebanese people, “may have finally run its course”, offering a brighter future for the country whose capital was once known as the Paris of the Middle East.

But while Hezbollah may have been markedly weakened, offering the chance to Lebanon for a future beyond the grips of Tehran, Yemen expert Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa and former department of defense analyst, warned that this may merely see a passing of the baton to Iran’s Yemeni proxy. The Houthis have become ever more powerful in the last year amid the blockade of the Red Sea region.

Since November, the Houthis have targeted commercial shipping in a bid to force a ceasefire in Gaza, initiated by Iran’s Khamenei. While it aimed to target Israeli-linked vessels, it has however, seen dozens of international seamen taken hostage and international vessels targeted in drone and missile attacks.

“With Nasrallah confirmed dead and Hezbollah suffering so many losses (and Hamas even more), expect the Houthis to become even more prominent as a key Iranian partner. This matters, especially as Houthis are possibly the least risk averse member of the 'Axis of resistance',” Juneau warned on X.