Abbas Araghchi: Iran's Response to Israel's Attack is Certain

The Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic, in line with several other political and military officials, announced the 'certainty' of Iran's response to Israel's recent attack on several military centers in Iran. Abbas Araghchi, speaking at a nationwide conference of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, emphasized the 'defensive nature' of Iran's previous missile and drone attacks on Israel, known as 'Promise of Truth 1 and 2', and stated that Iran's reaction to the Israeli attack on November 5 is also 'Iran's right', asserting that Tehran will respond 'at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner'. The Iranian Foreign Minister indicated that the timing of the response to the Israeli attack is 'up to the military commanders' and stressed the focus of his institution on diplomacy. Araghchi defended the performance of the Islamic Republic's foreign policy apparatus, particularly over the 'past twelve months', claiming that while clarifying the Islamic Republic's position on the 'defensive nature' of Iran's actions against Israel, 'we provided a smart and managed response and also prevented the escalation of war'. He reiterated that Israel, according to him, 'wants to escalate the war and draw the U.S. into it'. In justifying the 'certainty of Iran's response', Araghchi considered the failure to respond to military attacks as an invitation for 'more attacks'. According to the Iranian Foreign Minister, his main duty and responsibility, along with his colleagues in the diplomatic apparatus after Iran's second missile attack on Israel, has been to 'create a political deterrence'. He emphasized the 'unity and coordination of diplomacy and the field', stating that 'diplomacy moves based on power, and at the same time, power does not know where to go without the facilitation of diplomacy'. The relationship between 'diplomacy and the field' became prominent after the release of an audio file of an interview with Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former Foreign Minister of Hassan Rouhani's government, on May 25, 2021. In that conversation, which took place in March 2021 and was apparently 'not meant to be published', Zarif implicitly complained about Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, discussing the military's dominance over diplomats in the Islamic Republic. The former Iranian Foreign Minister stated: 'I can confidently say that I spent more on diplomacy for the field [of war] than the field spent on diplomacy' and added that 'almost throughout my work, I could never - not that I didn't want to - tell the field commander to do this because I needed it in diplomacy'. The release of this audio file prompted widespread reactions, including a clear opposition from the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and the summoning of Zarif to the parliament; to the extent that he emphasized that 'he considers diplomacy and the field to be complementary to each other', similar to what Abbas Araghchi expressed at the IRGC commanders' conference in November 2023.