How Likely is it that Israel's Next Targets Will Be Officials of the Islamic Republic?

The killing of the Hamas leader in Gaza, following the deaths of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, has raised the question of how likely it is that what has happened to Hezbollah and Hamas in recent weeks could be repeated in Iran in a different form. To analyze the current situation of Israel and its enemies in this context, we must first delve into the past. On September 5, 1972, at 8 a.m., eight armed individuals entered the Munich Olympic Village and went directly to the residence of Israeli athletes with the intention of taking them hostage in exchange for the release of over two hundred Palestinian prisoners. This operation, later known as the Munich operation, was planned months earlier by three Palestinian guerrillas in Sofia, Bulgaria, with Abu Iyad, the mastermind of the operation, stating that his main goal was to draw global attention to the Palestinian cause. During the West German police's attempt to free the hostages, all 11 Israeli hostages along with five of the kidnappers were killed. Shocked by this operation, the Israelis waited to see the reaction of the then West German government. A month later, the Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa plane traveling from Lebanon to Germany, forcing the West German government to release three Palestinian kidnappers who had survived the Munich operation. This was when Israel decided to independently carry out operations to pursue and kill all those involved in the Munich operation. Operation "Wrath of God" was one of the most complex espionage operations in history, ultimately leading to the elimination of all those involved in the Munich hostage-taking. Israel had previously had similar experiences in executing such complex and layered operations; when the leaders of the newly established state of Israel decided after World War II to identify and punish the surviving perpetrators and instigators of the Holocaust. Before the operation known as Damocles was formulated and executed, the biggest catch in this regard was Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking SS officer responsible for Jewish affairs in Hitler's government. Eichmann lived secretly in Argentina for several years under a false identity, but ultimately, the Mossad succeeded in identifying and secretly transferring him to Israel in the summer of 1960; a process that eventually led to Eichmann's trial and execution. On October 7, 2023, the world witnessed an unprecedented operation by Hamas; an extremist group that the U.S. and the European Union consider terrorist, whose attack on Israel resulted in the brutal murder of over 1,200 people and the hostage-taking of over 200 others. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, described this operation as a "second Holocaust" in terms of the impact it had on Israeli public opinion and promised that his country would find and punish all those involved in this operation wherever they may be. A brief look at what Israel has done in the past year shows that the Israelis are determined to achieve their goals just as they were in the years 1960 and 1972, relying on Golda Meir's doctrine of deterrence, which held that Israel's main deterrent should be to show its enemies that if they harm Israel and the Jews, they will receive such a painful response that no one will even think about such attacks again. So far, Israel has shown that even the pressures from the United States, its biggest ally and supporter, do not affect its decision. For example, the U.S. government strongly opposed the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, which is why Netanyahu informed Biden about this operation when it was already too late for any reconsideration. Hezbollah is a militia group and also a political party in Lebanon that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, and the European Union has listed its military wing among terrorist organizations. Iran has attacked Israel with missiles twice in the past year. If in the first attack in April, Israel was convinced not to respond to Iran and both countries moved past the issue, the second attack in September this year is fundamentally different. After the second attack, mediators, led by the U.S., no longer encourage Israel to remain silent but focus on what targets Israel's response should not include. For instance, the United States announced from the first day that it opposes an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and will not support it. In contrast, the statements from Israeli officials contain interesting points. Benjamin Netanyahu immediately after Iran's missile attack stated that Tehran made a big mistake and would certainly pay for it. Gallant, Israel's Defense Minister, also said that his country would choose when and how to respond to Iran, and this response would be complex, calculated, and meticulously planned. Finally, Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson for the Israeli army, emphasized that the unprecedented number of missiles fired at Israel would lead to a definitive response that the officials of the Islamic Republic would not understand where the blow came from. The common point in all these remarks is the magnitude of the blow that the Israelis feel has been inflicted on them and the need to return to Golda Meir's deterrence doctrine to enhance their deterrent capacity and prevent the recurrence of such attacks. Historically, it seems that conditions have emerged for Israel where both the doctrines of "deterrence" and "the head of the octopus" can be operational at the same time; a doctrine that states that to prevent the recurrence of events like the October 7 attack, the head of the octopus, meaning the Iranian government, should be targeted, not just its arms. In recent years, Israel has planned and executed at least two very complex operations in Iran; one was the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which later became clear that the Israelis had quietly and meticulously brought in the weapon parts used to assassinate Fakhrizadeh over months and assembled it, ultimately executing the assassination with precision. Although Israel did not officially take responsibility for this assassination. The second operation was the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in a safe house of the IRGC in Tehran, which again the Israeli government did not take responsibility for, but one very common hypothesis regarding it is a New York Times report stating that the Israelis had brought in and stationed the necessary materials for the operation at least two months before the assassination. Striking Iran's infrastructure, which has been frequently discussed in the media lately, is an option for Israel, but how painful could such an option be for the Iranian government? Especially for a government that has shown over four decades of rule that it does not care about infrastructure and runs a country with such powerful and unique natural resources mostly in a mafia-like manner. On the other hand, one can also consider what consequences striking or potentially assassinating high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic, even the Supreme Leader, could have for Israel? Particularly if we consider that Israel is already engaged in a war on seven fronts, which, according to many, has the upper hand a year after its onset, having succeeded in eliminating key and even charismatic figures of the so-called resistance axis, from Ismail Haniyeh to Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar, and has dealt painful and irreparable blows to Iran's relatively powerful arms in the region. In this path, Netanyahu, at least apparently, has another historical trump card in his pocket, which is the deep divide and polarization among the Iranian people, with a group of them supporting potential Israeli strikes against the officials of the Islamic Republic. Netanyahu's video message to the Iranian people is evidence of this claim when he said there is no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach and emphasized that the day Iran is, in his words, freed will come sooner than the people think.