Iran Is Not a ‘Normal’ Country
Hours after Hamas’s horrific attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, all of Iran’s parliamentarians rose from their seats to chant “Death to Israel!” and “Palestine is victorious; Israel will be destroyed!” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and other top Iranian officials, including the former head of the country’s military forces, expressed their support for Hamas, declaring that Iran “will stay with the Palestinian freedom fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem.”
These statements were not symbolic. Despite cleverly choreographed denials designed to avert direct military retaliation, Iran’s fingerprints were all over the October 7 operation. Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are only the biggest in a network of 19 armed groups that Iran has established along Israel’s borders. The groups get financial support, training, and weapons from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Hamas receives an estimated $100 million annually, Hezbollah $700 million, and Islamic Jihad tens of millions.
Even if Iran did not direct Hamas’s attack on that day, senior Iranian leadership was almost certainly aware of the group’s operational plans and ambitions. Indeed, on January 16, amid escalating attacks by the Iranian-supported Houthi militia on vessels in the Red Sea, Iran’s foreign minister a defiant threat to the West that left no doubt as to Iran’s central role in the current turmoil: “The security of the Red Sea is tied to the developments in Gaza, and everyone will suffer if Israel’s crimes in Gaza do not stop,” he said, adding, “Iran has always defended its interests, including commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, with the blood of martyrs and soldiers.”
