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    Russia Stands Aside as Israel Attacks Iran

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    Analysts say the Kremlin is prioritizing its own war against Ukraine, as well as its relations with Gulf nations that don’t want to see a stronger Iran.Iran aided the Kremlin with badly needed drones in the first year of its Ukraine invasion, helped Moscow build out a critical factory to make drones at home and inked a new strategic partnership treaty this year with President Vladimir V. Putin, heralding closer ties, including in defense.But five months after that treaty was signed, the government in Iran is facing a grave threat to its rule from attacks by Israel. And Russia, beyond phone calls and condemnatory statements, is nowhere to be found.Iranian nuclear facilities and energy installations have been damaged, and many of the country’s top military leaders killed, in a broad Israeli onslaught that began Friday and has since expanded, with no sign that Moscow will come to Tehran’s aid.“Russia, when it comes to Iran, must weigh the possibility of a clash with Israel and the United States, so saving Iran is obviously not worth it,” said Nikita Smagin, an expert on Russia-Iran relations. “For Russia, this is just a fact.”The situation reflects a dispassionate political calculus by Moscow, which is prioritizing its own war against Ukraine, as well as its need to maintain warm relations with other partners in the Middle East, which have helped Moscow survive Western economic sanctions, analysts say.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      What to Know About the New Head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps

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      Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi was appointed to lead the group after his predecessor, Gen. Hossein Salami, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.Iran named Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as the new head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after his predecessor, Gen. Hossein Salami, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.Here’s what to know about the new leader of a group created to defend Iran’s Islamic system.Brig. Gen. Vahidi is best known outside Iran as a suspect in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more.Prosecutors in Argentina have issued arrest warrants for five Iranian officials, including General Vahidi, for “conceiving, planning, financing and executing” the attack. Interpol issued an alert, known as a Red Notice, in 2007 to inform the international law enforcement community that a national arrest warrant was outstanding.General Vahidi was born in 1958 in the central Iranian city of Shiraz. During the Iranian revolution in 1979, he had been studying electronic engineering at Shiraz University and around that time he joined the I.R.G.C., as well as revolutionary committees, according to Iranian media. He later received a Ph.D. in strategic studies.During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which began in 1980, he held a number of senior security roles. He went on to lead the I.R.G.C.’s Quds Force, which specializes in intelligence and directs operations outside Iran, from 1988 until 1998.From 2005, General Vahidi served as deputy defense minister and he was made defense minister in 2009, holding the post until 2013. He was also Iran’s interior minister for three years until last August.The United States, the European Union, Canada and Britain have imposed sanctions on General Vahidi for human rights violations. More

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      in Elections

      As Hezbollah Threat Loomed, Israel Built Up Its Spy Agencies

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      In the immediate days after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, Israeli intelligence officials feared a pre-emptive strike was imminent from another longtime enemy, Hezbollah. They frantically prepared to stop it with plans to strike and kill Hassan Nasrallah, the powerful Hezbollah leader who the Israelis knew would be in a bunker in Beirut.But when Israel informed the White House of its plans, alarmed administration officials discounted the imminent Hezbollah strike. President Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told him that killing Mr. Nasrallah would set off a regional war and asked him to hold his fire, current and former senior American and Israeli officials said.On Saturday, Israel announced that it had killed Mr. Nasrallah after warplanes dropped more than 80 bombs on four apartment buildings in Lebanon, where the Hezbollah leader of more than three decades had gone to meet his top lieutenants. Mr. Biden was not informed ahead of time, aggravating the White House.Smoke rose over buildings in Beirut after Israeli airstrikes on Saturday.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesBut the more salient outcome for both Israel and the United States was how successfully Israeli intelligence had pinpointed Mr. Nasrallah’s location and penetrated Hezbollah’s inner circle. In a matter of weeks, Israel has decimated the senior and midlevel ranks of Hezbollah and left the group reeling.That success is a direct result of the country’s decision to devote far more intelligence resources in targeting Hezbollah after its 2006 war with the Iran-backed terrorist group. It was a defining moment for Israeli intelligence. The Israeli army and the intelligence agencies failed to score a decisive victory in that 34-day conflict, which ended with a U.N.-brokered cease-fire and allowed Hezbollah, despite heavy losses, to regroup and prepare for the next war with Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran’s Strikes on Israel Open a Dangerous New Chapter for Old Rivals

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      Iran has retaliated directly against Israel for the killings of its senior generals in Damascus, Syria, with an onslaught of more than 300 drones and missiles aimed at restoring its credibility and deterrence, officials and analysts say.That represents a moment of great risk, with key questions still to answer, they say. Has Iran’s attack been enough to satisfy its calls for revenge? Or given the relatively paltry results — almost all of the drones and missiles were intercepted by Israel and the United States — will it feel obligated to strike again? And will Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, see the strong performance by his country’s air defenses as a sufficient response? Or will he choose to escalate further with an attack on Iran itself?Now that Iran has attacked Israel as it promised to do, it will want to avoid a broader war, the officials and analysts say, noting that the Iranians targeted only military sites in an apparent effort to avoid civilian casualties and advertised their attack well in advance.“Iran’s government appears to have concluded that the Damascus strike was a strategic inflection point, where failure to retaliate would carry more downsides than benefits,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the International Crisis Group. “But in doing so, the shadow war it has been waging with Israel for years now threatens to turn into a very real and very damaging conflict,” one that could drag in the United States, he said.“The Iranians have for now played their card,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House. “They made a choice to call Israel’s bluff, and they felt they needed to do so, because they see the last six months as a persistent effort to set them back across the region.”On Sunday, Iranian leaders said the military operation against Israel was over, but warned that they could launch a bigger one depending on Israel’s response.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Hits Back at Iran With Sanctions, Criminal Charges and Airstrikes

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      In the hours before the United States carried out strikes against Iran-backed militants on Friday, Washington hit Tehran with more familiar weapons: sanctions and criminal charges.The Biden administration imposed sanctions on officers and officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s premier military force, for threatening the integrity of water utilities and for helping manufacture Iranian drones. And it unsealed charges against nine people for selling oil to finance the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.The timing seemed designed to pressure the Revolutionary Guards and its most elite unit, the Quds Force, at a moment of extraordinary tension in the Middle East. Although the sanctions have been brewing for some time and the charges were filed earlier under seal, the region has been in turmoil for months.The actions are part of a coordinated governmentwide effort to disrupt Iran’s efforts to use illicit oil sales to fund terrorism, and to push back on the country’s increasingly capable offensive cyberoperations. In the 15 years since the United States mounted a major cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the country has trained a generation of hackers and struck back at Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, among others. Two American officials said the United States conducted cyberoperations against Iranian targets on Friday but declined to provide details.The effects of sanctions and indictments are hard to measure. Few Iranian officers or officials keep assets in Western banks or travel to the United States, meaning the sanctions may have little practical effect. While the indictments and sanctions have a psychological element, demonstrating to Iranians and their business associates around the world that Western intelligence agencies are often tracking their movements and their transactions, actual arrests and trials are infrequent.“The reason that we bring these cases is, we know that the money Iran obtains from the illicit sale of oil is used to fund its malign activities around the world,” Matthew G. Olsen, who heads the national security division of the Justice Department, said on Friday. “The threats posed by Iran and the destabilizing effects of its actions have only come into sharper relief since the attacks of Oct. 7,” the day of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in World Politics

      When Presence Becomes Absence in the Middle East

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      History is constructed out of symbolic moments. As the year 2020 and a new decade begin, US President Donald Trump has provided the iconic gesture destined to ensure that future memories of both the year and the decade will be focused on his towering personality. How Will Iran Respond to the Assassination of Qassem Soleimani? […] More