The Taskmaster in Tehran

Happy Friday! A hearty congratulations to Grazer, a mama brown bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park who won the park’s ninth-annual Fat Bear Week, beating out Chunk in the finals by more than 80,000 votes. Happy hibernating! 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) late Thursday night issued an evacuation order for the some 1.1 million people living in the northern half of the Gaza Strip in apparent preparation for an operation against terrorist infrastructure in and around Gaza City. In an alert to Gaza residents, the IDF urged civilians to move south and distance themselves “from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields.” Hamas, meanwhile, has dismissed the order as part of a “psychological war” and told residents to stay put. Some Gazans have even reported being forced to remain in their homes by Hamas after trying to evacuate.
• Law enforcement officials in the United States and around the world are tightening security in areas with large Jewish populations—including New York City—in anticipation of potential antisemitic violence, and multiple Jewish schools are planning on closing for the day or keeping their students indoors. A former Hamas leader called for a global “Day of Rage” on Friday to demonstrate against Israel and in support of Hamas. An Israeli diplomat was stabbed in Beijing Friday morning in what authorities are investigating as a targeted terrorist attack.
• The Biden administration reportedly blocked the release of the $6 billion in Iranian oil funds that were unfrozen as part of a deal the White House brokered with Iran this summer to secure the release of five imprisoned Americans. The Treasury Department reached a “quiet understanding” with the Qatari government to halt Iran’s access to the money. The move came after Republicans—and several Democrats—criticized the administration for the transaction in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel. While these specific funds had yet to reach Iran when the attack occurred, the country had historically provided military training, funding, and weapons to the terror group.
• The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent month-over-month and 3.7 percent annually in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday, compared to 0.6 and 3.7 percent in August, higher than economists’ expectations. While the overall month-over-month number is down slightly, core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, remained the same at 0.3 percent and only edged down annually from 4.3 to 4.1 percent. The data—combined with a strong jobs report earlier this month—could complicate the Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to increase interest rates at its meeting in a few weeks.
• Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise withdrew his name from the speaker’s race on Thursday night, after winning a GOP conference vote but failing to whip enough support for a successful floor vote. “Nobody’s going to use me as an excuse to hold back our ability to get the House opened again,” Scalise said. Several supporters of Rep. Jim Jordan continued to push for the Ohioan who lost to Scalise in Wednesday’s conference vote, but Jordan also faces opposition from multiple Republican lawmakers—and can only afford to lose four as long as Democrats remain unified behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
• The Justice Department on Thursday issued a superseding indictment against Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey accusing him of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt—in addition to the previous charges filed last month alleging he accepted bribes from several New Jersey businessmen. The indictment accused Menendez and his wife, Nadine, of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires those acting as “an agent of a foreign principal” to declare themselves to the U.S. government. Federal prosecutors said Menendez “promised to take and took a series of acts on behalf of Egypt, including on behalf of Egyptian military and intelligence officials” between January 2018 and June 2022. A trial date is set for May. 
• The USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, arrived in South Korea on Thursday after participating in joint exercises with South Korean and Japanese forces. In a show of force aimed at North Korea, the ship will remain in Busan until Monday as part of an agreement to increase “regular visibility” of the U.S. military in the region.

Iran’s Long Shadow

Last month, the Biden administration announced the release of five American hostages from Iran’s captivity, agreeing to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for their freedom. While all were happy to see the hostages return home, a number of regional analysts were highly critical of the move, arguing the money would be used for nefarious purposes—chiefly the funding of terrorism. The Biden administration was adamant that their negotiations were sound and the funds would be used solely for humanitarian aid, despite Iran’s long history of abusing such carve-outs.

Weeks later, with more than 1,300 Israelis killed in an attack reportedly aided by funding and training from Iran, the Biden administration—in partnership with Qatar—refroze Iran’s access to the $6 billion after calls to do so had grown increasingly bipartisan. 

This reversal was the latest step taken by the Biden administration to punish Iran—a designated state sponsor of terrorism known for its financial support to proxies across the Middle East—for its role in the deadliest attack on Israel in decades. Israel is preparing a ground invasion to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas, but the move could provoke Hezbollah—a Lebanese terrorist organization also funded by Iran—to launch its own attack on Israel from the north. In another win for Iran, the war has also put normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel on hold. 

Despite this confluence of factors, U.S. officials have yet to confirm hard evidence of Iran’s direct role in greenlighting the attack—but that hasn’t stopped national security experts and officials from connecting the dots or holding Iran accountable for its longtime support for Hamas. 

“What I can say without a doubt is that Iran is broadly complicit in these attacks,” Jon Finer, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, told CBS News on Monday. “Iran has been Hamas’ primary backer for decades. They have provided them weapons. They have provided them training. They have provided them financial support. And so, in terms of broad complicity, we are very clear about a role for Iran.”

Early American intelligence reports provided to the New York Times indicated that senior leaders in Iran were surprised by Hamas’ devastating weekend assault, though officials noted that reconnaissance was still ongoing. Iran has a long history of financially and tactically supporting terror in the Middle East—and being careful to retain a claim of plausible deniability.

“The supreme leader is a dictator, but he’s a dictator by veto power, rather than by command,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on Iran. “He tells groups what they cannot do, and they are permitted to do anything which they are not expressly forbidden from doing.” This strategy, Rubin told TMD, will make it nearly impossible to specifically identify Iran’s involvement. “If the United States is looking for a smoking gun in the signals intelligence, they will never find it because that’s simply not how Iran works.”

Regardless of whether Iranian leadership had advance knowledge of Hamas’ plans, the attack was met with vociferous support from Tehran. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, in a now-flagged post on X, called for the “eradication” of Israel by “the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces throughout the region.” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also urged Islamic and Arab countries to rise up in opposition to Israel’s war against Hamas—though so far, at least, that call has gone mostly unheeded. 

“Iran is an ideological state. It’s ruled by a religious elite who are ideologically inclined towards various radical revolutionary beliefs. But it also pursues a foreign policy that attempts to draw strength to counterbalance weakness,” Gregory Brew, an analyst at Eurasia Group, told TMD. “And a key weakness that Iran has—which it has had ever since the Islamic Revolution—is a lack of strong allies. Iran really doesn’t have any friends in the region.”

Indeed, over the past several years Iran has watched many of its neighbors establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia, too, was on the precipice of a U.S.-negotiated normalization—until the negotiations were, at best, delayed by the war. In a call with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday, Raisi fumed against Israel’s newfound allies: “Today, all those who made public their relations with the Zionist regime under the pretext of defending the rights of the Palestinians were disgraced, and it has been proven to the whole world that the Zionist regime is in its weakest state.” Hurting Israel’s image in the region, it seemed, was a major goal.

Whether normalization can regain momentum now depends, in part, on “the success of Israel’s U.S.-backed war against Hamas,” sai John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. “If Israel succeeds in reasserting its image of overwhelming strength and deterrence, and Iran and its proxies are seen to be dealt a devastating blow in Gaza, Saudi Arabia and the entire pragmatic Arab camp will breathe a huge sigh of relief and regain confidence that betting on Israeli power and American backing is the best means for ensuring their security and stability, and ensuring their national interests. But if the dust settles in Gaza, and Hamas and Iran are able to claim any success at all, the Saudis and other U.S. friends will likely go into full hedging mode for the indefinite future as they seek cover from an ascending Iran.”

A weakened (or obliterated) Israel might not have been the only motivating factor behind Iran’s tacit support for Hamas’ attack, as there’s a key date coming up that adds extra context to Iran’s actions over the past week: October 18 of this year is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Transition Day, which could “trigger the lifting of the remaining nuclear-related sanctions, ballistic missile restrictions, and related designations.”

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal—was intended to keep Iran from developing any nuclear capabilities. Though the Trump administration left the agreement in 2018—citing the deal’s failure to rein in Iran’s weapons development—the Biden administration has long expressed an eagerness to secure a new nuclear deal with Iran, despite the potential costs. 

“The deal is not set to entirely expire until two years from now, but these important provisions which prohibited Iran from transferring missiles are going to lapse next week, enabling Iran to spread mayhem,” Elizabeth Samson, associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, told TMD. “What’s going to happen is either the provisions lapse with the remaining signatories incorporating sanctions into their domestic laws, preserving the deal, or they ‘snapback’—or reactivate—the punishing U.N. sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place, destroying the deal in the process.” 

This “snapback” mechanism would allow the heavy U.N. sanctions on Iran to be reimposed if any signatory of the JCPOA believes Iran breached the agreement. “The U.N. sanctions are the one thing Iran had been afraid of, and removing them is what motivated Iran to stem their nuclear program,” Samson said. “Iran only respects strength, and the ‘snapback’ is the strongest weapon the signatories have.”

As the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) fights Hamas in the Gaza strip, Hezbollah—the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist organization—is threatening from the north, and a dual-fronted war would stretch the IDF thin. U.S. intelligence reported by The Washington Post currently suggests a major conflict with Hezbollah would be “unlikely,” but there are more variables at play. “There’s been a fairly consistent but low-boil exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah, rockets going back and forth, occasional strikes, a few casualties. This kind of falls under the realm of accepted rules of engagement between the two sides,” said Brew. “They’re sort of constantly in conflict and they have been for decades. What it would suggest to me is that both the IDF and Hezbollah are taking very, very strong defensive stances against one another to warn against a possible incursion.”

Much of the western world has its eyes trained on Hezbollah, which has significantly more long-range weapons than Hamas and could in many ways pose a greater threat to Israel. “The offensive in Gaza would have to continue to the point where it looks like Hamas would be totally wiped out for Hezbollah to consider a major escalation,” Brew predicted. As for now, “they’re both positioning themselves to deter the other.”

Israel’s threat of a ground war and promise to continue its siege of Gaza until Hamas releases its hostages have not yet prompted more aggravation from its adversaries—including those in Tehran. But the Biden administration’s re-freezing of Iran’s assets could trigger an escalation.

“If the U.S. really is moving to refreeze those funds, and keep them from moving into Iran, it’s likely that the Iranians will respond,” Brew said. “It will probably be a measured response, because the Iranians aren’t interested in escalating either. But if they think the U.S. is really backing out of this deal, then they will prepare a commensurate response.”

For now, however, fighting remains focused in Gaza, and violence has not escalated on the northern border. This wait-and-see approach from Hezbollah might be more indicative of Iran’s larger involvement in the conflict. “I would say it’s more a sign of Iran’s involvement right now if Hezbollah doesn’t get involved,” warned Rubin. “If Israel were to strike at Iran, then the natural reaction from Iran would be to have Hezbollah launch tens of thousands of missiles at Israel.”

“If Hezbollah were to do it prematurely, and start launching at Israel in a serious way, the Israelis would figure: ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’” he continued. “‘As long as we’ve got to deal with the retaliatory capability of Iran via Hezbollah, we might as well go after the mothership as well.’”

Worth Your Time

• Like the U.S. and its allies during the fight against ISIS, Israel’s war on Hamas faces some major obstacles: an urban environment, a large civilian population, and a combatant that doesn’t respect the laws of war that Israel itself is bound to. “Put all this together, and you can immediately perceive Israel’s asymmetric challenge,” David French writes in the New York Times, drawing comparisons between Israel’s war in Gaza and the U.S. battle against ISIS in Mosul, Iraq. “Hamas scorns the law of war. The reports of its intentional mass killing, mutilation, rape and civilian hostage taking are evidence enough of that fact. Israel legally and morally obligates the Israel Defense Forces to comply with the law. As a result, civilians become one of Hamas’s principal military assets. The presence of civilians gives Hamas the ability to punch first in any given street fight. The presence of civilians raises the bar for approving airstrikes or any other use of long-range weapons. And when civilians die, Hamas uses their deaths to inflame the international community and to help run out the clock on international patience for Israeli military operations.” Given these realities, he continues, “you can see the dynamic that will unfold. Bound by the laws of war, Israel has every incentive to decrease civilian casualties. The Israel Defense Forces are already providing detailed evacuation instructions for civilians to remove them from the zones of expected conflict. Netanyahu has urged residents to leave Gaza. Disregarding the law of war, Hamas has concrete tactical and strategic reasons to keep civilians in harm’s way and capitalize on their deaths.”
• Right-wing media personalities have been harshly critical of the eight Republicans—particularly Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida—who ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week and left the House GOP in chaos, but Brian Rosenwald argues those same media figures are responsible for creating the ecosystem and incentives that reward politicians like Gaetz. “The truth is that angry conservative media hosts have only themselves to blame for McCarthy’s downfall and the disarray currently facing House Republicans,” Rosenwald argues in Politico Magazine. “The leaders of conservative talk radio and cable news have spent years assailing GOP congressional leaders—including McCarthy—and they are largely responsible for turning far-right rebels like Gaetz into stars. Going back to the 1990s, conservative media created the political ecosystem in which torching and targeting Republican leaders is good politics on the right. And they’ve ensured that the next speaker, whether it’s Steve Scalise or someone else, will face the same poisonous incentive structure that took down McCarthy.”

Presented Without Comment

Bloomberg: Top House Republican Wants Help From Democrats to Pick a Speaker

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Nick explored (🔒) the conservative populist fractures beginning to emerge over support for Israel, and Mike and Sarah previewed key dates for the GOP presidential primary and Trump’s trials. 
• On the podcasts: Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss the past six days of war following Hamas’ surprise terror attack on Israel. 
• On the site today: Jonathan Schanzer unpacks how both Hamas and Israeli intelligence failed in last week’s terrorist attack, Saeed Ghasseminejad and Behnam Ben Taleblu outline the Biden administration’s role in enabling Iranian oil profits, and Bryan McGrath explains the significance of the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group’s deployment in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Let Us Know

Do you think Hamas’ attack will succeed in derailing Israeli normalization efforts with other Arab countries in the near term? The long term?