Israeli security establishment has been monitoring Iran, as Israeli intelligence officials are trying to establish whether the Iranians intend to follow through on their threat to retaliate for the attack on the T-4 airbase that was ascribed to Israel. The current Israeli assessment is that the Iranians will retaliate, but they haven’t yet decided when, or how. The Iranians suffered a significant blow, which damaged their efforts to establish an air force on Syrian soil, prompting threats by Iran and its allies, Syria and Hezbollah, of a powerful response that will exert a heavy price from the Jewish state. “I want to tell the Israelis they have to know, I wrote and picked up my words carefully, they have committed a great folly and have put themselves into a direct fight with Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said.
In response to the threats directed at Israel, a senior security official told TV7 that Israeli deterrence against the Islamic Republic and its allies was far more powerful than the general public was aware of. He noted that the statements made by senior Israeli officials that a major act of Iranian retaliation would result in the ousting President Bashar Assad from power was keenly received in Tehran, given the fact that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman have backed up their warnings that Israel would prevent Iranian military entrenchment in Syria with action. As a result, the Iranians are contemplating the nature of their retaliation, to avoid Israel following through on its threat.