by Oleg Burunov
On Sunday, President Donald Trump cautioned that if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets in retaliation for the killing of the high-ranking Iranian general, Washington will strike 52 sites in the Islamic Republic "very fast and very hard".
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council and former chief of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has warned of far-reaching repercussions from a possible US strike on the Islamic Republic.
“In response to Trump, who had said that Washington will attack Iran if it takes revenge, Rezaei said "be sure that in such a case we will completely level [Israel's port city of] Haifa and key Israeli targets”, on Sunday.
He made his remarks during a ceremony in Tehran on Sunday which saw mourners commemorate the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force, who died in a US airstrike in Baghdad on 3 January.
Rezaei touted a “massive movement” that had taken shape in Iran in response to Soleimani’s murder, pledging that Iran will be “firmly fighting the Americans” until it achieves “complete US withdrawal from the region”.
The US killing of the Quds Force commander prompted the Iranian president to warn that Tehran will take revenge for what it views to be a heinous crime. Baghdad has condemned the strike as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, protesting the use of its territory by the US for attacks on other countries.
On Saturday, Trump said that the United States had identified 52 targets that would be hit "very fast & very hard" if Iran attacks US individuals or assets.
On Sunday the body of Qasem Soleimani was transferred to Iran for a farewell ceremony and burial, media reported on Sunday.
The international community has called on the US and Iran to calm down.
As tensions heat up between Iran, the US and Israel following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani last week, the absence of a stable government will harm Jerusalem’s ability to achieve its broader national security and foreign affairs goals, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said in its annual report on Monday.
This lack of stability could be highly problematic, according to the report, if Iran and the US slip into a broader war that could engulf the region.
The report was delivered by INSS executive director Amos Yadlin to President Reuven Rivlin on Monday. Researchers worked to add an additional, special section ahead of the presentation that covers the implications of the assassination of Soleimani, Iran’s IRGC Quds Force leader.
According to the report, a vast array of challenges, leading with Iran, are confronting the country “against the backdrop of a continuing political crisis in Israel that will make it difficult to developed updated strategies.
The report explained some of what the institute believes will be Israel's major challenges in the near future, including that "Iran’s increased daring and determination in the nuclear arena," as well as its attempts to establish a presence in Syria and other areas, could provide it with "new abilities to act against Israel."
The report also noted that “Hezbollah’s attempts to obtain a large number of precision weapons and the efforts of Hamas to reduce the pressure on Gaza and to impact the terms of an understanding with Israel,” are major challenges.
Regarding Iran, the report said that it is too early to know the full repercussions of the US strike on Soleimani and on Iranian-affiliated militias last week.
INSS warns that if Israel fails to reach even a medium-term extended ceasefire with Hamas, that the chances of a re-run of the intense 2014 Gaza War are very high, and could happen as soon as this year.
While advocating reaching a ceasefire with Hamas, the report said that if there was a new war with Gaza, then Israel must act more assertively and with greater surprise against Hamas’s military assets than in the past. It said that, in the event of war, the IDF should not reconquer Gaza, but should also look to reach a result in which Hamas no longer is the sole ruler of coastal enclave.
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