Tehran’s Strategic Thinking?

“The Zionists have shredded all norms of accepted international behavior by assassinating an exiled head of state, Ismail Haniyeh, on a foreign visit to celebrate the inauguration of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was an incomparable act of state terrorism. As we have said before, we will respond. Nothing rash, but measured and at a time and in the form of our choosing.

Please be apprised of our thinking. The Zionists could have attempted their act of terrorism elsewhere, but they chose Tehran to provoke, knowing full well that if our response threatened the fabric of the Zionist state, their protector and benefactor in chief, the United States of America would jump in and attack Iran and its allies in the “Resistance.” This “cowboy” approach of the United States — giving the Zionists money and weapons to kill and wreak havoc and then bring in the cavalry to rescue their “fifty-first state” — would result in a wider war that would entangle not only Iran but Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and possibly a number of Muslim countries that have up to now kept quiet. Above all, it would provide the freedom and cover for the Zionists to continue their genocide by massacring more Palestinians, especially women and children. We in Iran, unlike the Zionists, want to do all we can to preempt such a nightmare.

So, we plan to work toward a total ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the establishment of a just Palestinian state, with full reparations for everything the Palestinian people have lost — the human suffering, land, homes, infrastructure — since 1948. If the United States could so “generously” pay more than $350 billion to Israel to kill and annex other peoples’ land and homes, it can surely pay multiples of this sum to clean up the suffering and destruction it has caused.

And yes, the “Resistance” will retaliate for this shameful act but not in August 2024.”