Iran Ignores Calls for Restraint, Vowing ‘Painful’ Attacks on Israel

Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi looks on during a campaign rally in the capit
ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images
Frances Martel

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi threatened a “fierce, widespread, and painful” attack on Israel or any other perceived enemy of Iran’s in remarks on Monday, disregarding widespread international calls for “restraint” in the Middle East.

Top Iranian officials echoed Raisi’s belligerence. A top Foreign Ministry official bellowed on Tuesday that Iran would respond “in seconds” to any attack by Israel, while a top Iranian Army general warned of a “stormy and unified” attack on Iran’s neighbor.

The threats are part of an extended victory lap the Iranian terrorist regime has been taking since Saturday, when Tehran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel featuring over 300 missiles and drones. The attack was a spectacular failure. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the country intercepted “99 percent” of the strikes, stopping all of the drones and cruise missiles. Only a small number of ballistic missiles crossed into Israel, the IDF said, causing minimal damage. Israel documented one casualty: an Arab Bedouin girl injured by shrapnel.

Iranian leaders nonetheless called the attack a “success” and made the dubious claim that Tehran had launched “hypersonic missiles” at Israel, hitting “a large intelligence base.” Iran has not provided evidence that its missiles hit any intelligence base or other target and Israel has denied the claim.

Iran struck Israel directly, rather than using its stable of international proxy terrorist organizations, in response to an airstrike against an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1 that eliminated seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and official wing of the Iranian military. The most prominent target of the airstrike was IRGC Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who a regime-affiliated organization claimed this week was involved in the “planning and execution” of the October 7 Hamas siege of Israel. Israel has not formally claimed the Damascus strike at press time.

The United Nations and much of the world has weighed in on the exchanges between Iran and Israel, demanding “restraint” and urging deescalation. Iranian allies such as communist China have called for “calm and restraint” alongside free states.

Iranian leaders appeared to entirely disregard those calls in comments on Monday and Tuesday. Raisi, speaking to Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in a telephone call on Tuesday, urged the Muslim world to unite against Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas, an Iranian proxy, following the massacre on October 7. He also warned that Iran would not hesitate to attack Israel again.

“The smallest action against Iran’s interests will definitely be met with a fierce, widespread and painful response against all its perpetrators,” Raisi said, according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.

Men are waving Iranian flags and flags of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while a model of Iran’s first-ever hypersonic missile, Fattah, is being displayed at a gathering to celebrate the IRGC UAV and missile attack against Israel, in Palestine Square, downtown Tehran, Iran, on April 15, 2024. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Raisi reportedly claimed that the missile assault on Israel was necessary as a form of “legitimate defense” against “evil acts” by Israel, and complained that the United Nations and its Security Council “did not fulfil[l] their minimum legal duties in condemning the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.”

He went on to claim that Israel is engaging in “child slaughter, genocide, and horrific crimes,” disregarding the documented cases of Hamas killing children as young as infants on October 7 and calling for genocide against Israelis and Jews generally for decades.

“The Iranian chief executive further underlined the need for taking acts of deterrence, especially by Muslim countries, against Israel as it keeps committing crimes in Gaza,” Iran’s state-run PressTV reported.

Both outlets described Raisi as receiving a sympathetic ear from the Qatari emir, who has hosted Hamas and other terrorist organizations, such as the Afghan Taliban, in Doha for years.

“Today we are witnessing the highest level of global and popular convergence in support of the Palestinian cause, and the Zionist regime is trying to turn the world public opinion away from its crimes in Gaza by making the situation tense,” Tasnim quoted al-Thani as saying.

“Iran and Qatar have supported each other in all situations and conditions, and will continue to do so,” the emir reportedly assured.

Qatar has attempted to balance its support for the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism and its proxies with a friendly disposition towards the West, cementing a position as mediator between criminal terrorists and the free world. That position has faced significant challenges following the October 7 Hamas attack, most recently an attempt by Republican senators to revoke Qatar’s status as a “major non-NATO ally” to America in light of its relationship with Hamas and Iran.

Iranian military leaders have similarly used belligerent rhetoric following global calls for calm. Iranian Army Chief Commander Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi vowed a “stormy and unified” response to any Israeli attempt to defend itself from Iranian attack in remarks on Monday, reportedly made in anticipation of Iran’s National Army Day. Mousavi also claimed the failed attack on Israel on Saturday as a victory once again, warning it displayed “only a part of the capacity and strong will of the Iranian Armed Forces.”

On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani issued a new series of threats against Israel, warning the country not to attempt to neutralize Iran’s ability to attack it. Calling the April 1 airstrike in Damascus a “strategic mistake,” Kani claimed that if Israel attacks Iran, it “the answer they receive will not be measured in days and hours, but in seconds.”

Israeli officials have indicated that they will take action in response to the Iranian strike, but have not offered any detail on what courses of action they are considering. In Lebanon, Breitbart News confirmed on Monday that the IDF is operating to combat the threat of Iranian proxy terrorist organization Hezbollah, which has attempted attacks on Israeli territory regularly for years.

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