"Today he is the bravest, the wisest and the most popular leader of the Resistance Front." This is how the Iranian daily Kayhan spoke of guess who.
Wrong guess.
The daily's editorialists are notorious for their exaggerated praise of the "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But this time it was not Khamenei they had in mind. Believe it or not, it was Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, who was thus being accoladed beyond his wildest dreams. You may wonder why.... Until recently, the Tehran media treated Nasrallah as something of an Iranian satrap in Beirut. Each time he came to Tehran, he was reported to have asked for an audience with the Great Leader to offer a report on his satrapy.
So, what's happening?
The short answer is that the ayatollah is in a conundrum. The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran has been a great humiliation for a regime that claims to be the new superpower that is making America "tremble like an autumn leaf". But what to do?
A repeat of the recent comedy of launching 400 flying objects against Israel while making sure none reaches a target would be one hoax too many, even from a master of all hoaxes. Doing nothing is also an option for a regime inebriated with fake activism. It wasn't such a long time ago that the ayatollah claimed that his message was conquering the whole world, including Belgium where its "young people" sent him a love letter to announce readiness for martyrdom.
Actually, launching a real attack may offer initial satisfaction. But the question: "then what?" cannot be dismissed
The ayatollah knows better than anyone else that his Islamic Republic isn't in any shape for a serious classical war.
To start with, there is zero popular support for dragging Iran into a war which former Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, now brought in from the cold, says "has nothing to do with us."
Next, any war with Israel would come in the shape of air attacks by warplanes, drones and missiles. As Iran has no an air force worth speaking of, Israel would have the advantage of pick-and-hit targets. Iran is 88 times the size of Israel, and being unable to protect its skies would be a sitting duck.
Israel, by contrast, has a small airspace to secure, which it does with its multi-layered air- and missile-defense system, and support from 12 allies in the region and beyond.
Even if the ayatollah manages to kill many Israelis and Palestinians in an initial raid, he may be putting his whole regime at risk.
Exposed as a big talker and small achiever, he could face an internal popular uprising that might wish to seek a different way of life.
Khamenei knows that, and yellow being his favorite color, he is trying to step back from the brink with a minimum loss of face.
This is how he is trying to do it. First, he lowers his profile. Unlike the usual routine in which he gives a running commentary on every event under the sun, he has left the talking to two dozen clerical, military and political cherubins making blood-curdling threats.
Next, he has changed the mise en scène of his public appearances. Until now, he would always appear alone entering a mosque or a lecture hall, sometimes followed by scores of hangers-on from a distance. Recently, however, he is shown walking alongside other officials as a group, including the new President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was also allowed to stand next to him in the mourning prayers for Haniyeh.
The message is: we are moving towards collective leadership and, if there is a humble pie to eat, everyone at the banquet shall get a portion.
Next, his propaganda machine started talking of something called "The High Council of Islamic Resistance," the first-ever session of which was attended by leaders and representatives of most of the militias funded by Tehran including Hezbollah, Hamas, Hashd al-Shaabi, the Houthis and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had come to Tehran to attend Pezeshkian's inauguration.
According to Tehran sources, Khameeni has asked his special adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, to develop the gathering into a periodical one charged with "coordinating resistance operations" against the "Zionist enemy".
In other words, the big boss is recruiting accomplices who may get a share of the credit if things go well but would receive a portion of the blame if they do not.
Khamenei is also seeking accomplices abroad. Tehran has just hosted General Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, who delivered a request for restraint from President Vladimir Putin.
Tehran media also claim that China and half a dozen Muslim nations have begged the "Supreme Guide" to play any scherzo moderato.
According to reports, Tehran has also sent a message to US President Joe Biden assuring him that any Iranian attack on Israel would be designed to do minimum damage. In exchange, Tehran wants a US guarantee that Israel will not retaliate. The text of the Iranian letter first appeared on the website of the Iranian Embassy in Bern. Switzerland is the contact country between Tehran and Washington and was supposed to pass on the letter.
All that is bad news for the various "resistance" outfits that are invited to take their own decisions individually or collectively and no longer counting on automatic intervention by Tehran in case they are attacked.
Being elevated as the bravest leader of "resistance," Nasrallah may find himself in deep water without the ayatollah throwing a buoy.
Pretending that other "resistance" groups have a mind of their own could encourage Israel to go for a Tennessee bird-shoot strategy by taking out the laggard in a flight of birds and then proceeding to take out those ahead one after another until the leader is reached.
Khamenei's new shying-off tactic could give Israel the chance to follow the destruction of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza with the crippling of the Houthis, the next laggard. That could be followed by "downgrading" the laggards in Iraq, with tacit support from the Iraqi regular army and Israel's allies inside Iraq. That would put Hezbollah next in line for downgrading.
All that, of course, is speculation. But the fact is that anyone who thinks Khamenei would risk his own skin for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, Hashd al-Shaabi and Hezbollah needs to have his head examined.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.
Brian Ernest James Bridgman