Israel Killed a Top Iranian Commander in Syria—Now What?

Iranian leaders are currently crafting their response to Israel killing their top commander overseeing military operations in the Levant. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his senior deputies, on April 1. The loss of these officers constitutes a severe blow to Iran—almost on the same level as the United States killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020—which is driving regime officials to discuss a wide range of response options. The New York Times reported that the regime is debating whether to retaliate dramatically, such as by launching missiles from Iran into Israel, or to adopt a more restrained approach. The following discussion examines some of the factors that will inform how Iran ultimately responds and possible trajectories ahead.

Factor One: Zahedi’s Significance in the Iranian Regime. Zahedi was an extraordinarily influential and well-connected figure in the Iranian security establishment. His death has created a unique hole in the regime that Iranian leaders cannot easily fill, especially since the Israeli airstrike also killed his senior deputies.

Zahedi was special partly due to the critical position he had in Iranian extraterritorial operations in the Levant over several decades. Zahedi oversaw the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force activities there and thus spearheaded Iranian engagement with and support to some of Iran’s most important allies: Lebanese Hezbollah and the Syrian Bashar al Assad regime. Iranian leaders have long assigned high priority to expanding their influence in Lebanon and Syria. Zahedi’s position leading those efforts shows the immense trust that they placed in him. His role probably became only more important to Tehran after the Israel-Hamas war erupted. Zahedi oversaw, for instance, the transfer of Iranian-sourced weaponry and other kinds of materiel to Hezbollah to prepare for further escalation with Israel.

Zahedi was also special due to his deep interpersonal relationships in Iran. Zahedi had become a well-established force in the Iranian regime over his decades of service with access to the highest echelons of Iranian political and security leadership. He was part of a small but prestigious cohort of senior IRGC officers who have for decades controlled key institutions in the Iranian armed forces and have repeatedly interfered in domestic Iranian political affairs. Other members of this circle included Qassem Soleimani as well as his successor and current IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani. Zahedi’s death thus inflicts a serious personal loss on many influential Iranian military officers who had known him since they were young and fighting together in the trenches against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s. Indeed, the New York Times reported that some Iranian leaders feel a moral duty to avenge him.

Factor Two: Multiple Objectives. The Iranian regime seeks to achieve several objectives in scoping its retaliation against Israel.

• Iranian leaders firstly seek to deter Israel from targeting officers as senior as Zahedi. The IDF has killed IRGC members in Syria for many years but never before at this level. Iranian leaders want to avoid normalizing the targeting of such senior personnel.
• Iranian leaders secondly seek to avoid sparking an overt war with Israel. They instead prefer to use their Arab proxies and partners to attack Israel on their behalf, so that no Iranians need do the fighting and dying. They also seek to avoid drawing US attacks on Iranian soil.
• Iranian leaders lastly seek to demonstrate strength domestically and internationally. They otherwise risk frustrating their domestic supporters while appearing weak before their allies and adversaries.

Factor Three: Multiple Response Options. The Iranian regime must make three key decisions in formulating its retaliation against Israel.

• Iranian leaders must decide who will take lead on the response. They could retaliate directly or delegate to their proxy and partner militias across the Middle East. They could alternatively use some combination of Iranian and Iranian-backed strikes.
• Iranian leaders must decide the manner and scope of their retaliation. They could organize low-level cyber and kinetic attacks like what they have done previously over the years. Or they could opt for a dramatic response that threatens something valuable to Israel.
• Iranian leaders must decide whom they will hold accountable for Zahedi’s death. Israel is the obvious candidate. Tehran has, however, attacked US forces in retaliation for Israeli activities previously and has begun accusing the United States of being complicit in the killing of Zahedi.

Each decision bears its own risks that Tehran will need to balance and prioritize in crafting its revenge for Zahedi. Retaliating directly from Iranian territory or using a disproportionate level of force risks throwing Iran into a conventional fight with the IDF and/or the US military. Choosing to instead conduct low-level attacks conversely risks failing to achieve deterrence and underwhelming the Iranian regime’s domestic supporters who are calling for a harsh retaliation. Iranian leaders will try to calibrate their attack carefully with these risks in mind. But finding the appropriate balance will be difficult, making the chances of a miscalculation that worsens the current crises very high.

The most likely course of action is that Iran directly conducts a calibrated strike against Israeli targets in the coming days. US, Israeli, and unspecified Western officials have voiced concerns about Iranian drone and missile attacks in particular. This trajectory presents a serious risk of expanding fighting throughout the Middle East, especially if Iran miscalculates and uses higher levels of force or causes more damage than Israel can accept. The United States could very well find itself involved in that expanding fighting if the Iran-Israel escalation cycle spirals further.

The most dangerous course of action for the United States is that Iran and Iranian-backed militias conduct dramatic attacks against US targets in the Middle East. Such attacks would endanger American personnel and risk igniting a direct confrontation between Washington and Tehran. Iranian officials appear to be trying to avoid this outcome given that Tehran told the United States not to get involved.

But the United States is already involved. Zahedi and his lieutenants were part of the organization that has been attacking and killing Americans in Iraq and Syria for decades. He and his comrades in the IRGC and its Quds Force have been escalating the military capabilities and attacks of their Arab proxies dramatically in recent years, moreover. Their aim is not just to destroy Israel—it is also to expel the United States from the Middle East and establish Iranian hegemony in the region. The United States has important interests in preventing them from doing so—not least because the recent Islamic State attack in Moscow demonstrated the importance of keeping pressure on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Washington should not seek conflict with Iran but must make clear that it will not shrink from Iranian threats or meekly tolerate Iranian escalation. Above all, the United States must internalize the reality that its forces and interests in the Middle East are at risk and that US decision makers must be prepared to defend both.