The New York Times reported that leaders in Tehran indicated that the Lebanese resistance movement (Hezbollah) is the one that will respond to Israel after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and the bombings in Beirut, in a hint that Iran is distancing itself from a possible confrontation with Israel and the West.

In the turbulent landscape of the Middle East, Iran’s aging supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could always count on the close alliance, unwavering loyalty and deep friendship of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. So when Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah in a massive airstrike on Friday, it suddenly eliminated a single force in Khamenei’s hierarchy of close associates.

For 40 years, Iran has nurtured Hezbollah as the main arm of its affiliated forces and militias as a forward defense against Israel. But in the past two weeks, Hezbollah’s capabilities have begun to crumble under wave after wave of Israeli attacks on its leadership, arsenal and communications.

The newspaper claims that “now, differences have opened up within the Iranian government over how to respond to the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, with conservatives arguing for a strong response, while moderates, led by the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, are calling for restraint,” and that this has left Iran, and its supreme leader, in a weak position.

The newspaper quotes four Iranian officials who knew Mr. Nasrallah personally and were briefed on the events, including two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, (who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly) as saying that Khamenei was deeply affected by his friend’s death and was in mourning, but he took a calm and practical stance.

Khamenei has taken the same tone in public. Instead of attacking Israel, he issued two restrained statements, praising Mr. Nasrallah as a leading figure in the Islamic world and the axis of resistance, and saying that Iran would stand by Hezbollah.

It is worth noting that Khamenei indicated that Hezbollah, not Iran, would lead any response to Israel, and that Iran would play a supporting role. Khamenei said: “All resistance forces stand with Hezbollah. Hezbollah, at the head of the resistance forces, will be the one that determines the fate of the region.”

Some analysts said it was a telling sign that Khamenei may have no way to respond effectively at the moment to an Israeli attack on his number one ally in the region. “Faced with a choice between all-out war with Israel or hiding for self-preservation, he appears to have chosen the latter,” the paper said.

“They have been completely reined in by Israel at the moment,” Sanam Vakil, Middle East director at Chatham House in London, was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “Khamenei’s statement signals the gravity of the moment and caution, but he is not publicly committing to anything he cannot implement.”

Khamenei’s remarks were followed by a wave of reactions from senior Iranian officials and military leaders in the same cautious tone, calling on other militia groups in the region to retaliate. Brigadier General Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, said that “Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian militants” would be the ones to strike Israel.

In Tehran, the news of Mr. Nasrallah’s death cast a shadow of shock and anxiety over senior officials, who wondered in private phone calls and during emergency meetings whether Israel would strike Iran next, and whether Khamenei would be its next target, the four Iranian officials said in telephone interviews.

“This was an incredibly hard blow, and realistically, we have no clear path to recovery from this loss,” Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former Iranian vice president, said in an interview from Tehran on Saturday with The New York Times. “We are not going to war, that is out of the question. But Iran will not back down from its support for militant groups in the region, nor from de-escalating tensions with the West. All of these things can be pursued at the same time.” The collective sentiment among Iranian officials, Abtahi said, was “shock, anger, sadness and a lot of anxiety.”

But this was not entirely different from the sentiment that prevailed after Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, when Iran and its other allies celebrated the surprise incursion. Hezbollah then almost immediately attacked northern Israel with rockets and continues to exchange fire. Iran has gradually activated its network of “resistance axis” to open fronts against Israel and create chaos in the region in order to pressure the United States and Israel to cease fire with Hamas.

For Iran, experts say, the bet was to keep the pressure on without igniting a full-scale regional war.

“In many ways, the year-long confrontation between Iran, its proxies, and Israel reached its violent climax when Mr. Nasrallah was killed. Iran’s efforts to weaken Israel through its proxies appear to have backfired, delivering a disastrous blow against its most strategic ally.”

When news broke that Israel might have killed Mr. Nasrallah, Khamenei called an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council at his home, Iranian officials said. During the meeting, people were divided over how to respond. Conservative members, including Saeed Jalili, an influential former presidential candidate, argued that Iran needed to quickly establish deterrence by striking Israel before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought war to Tehran, according to officials familiar with the meeting.

Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who spent the past week telling world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly that his government wanted to defuse tensions and align with the West, argued against such a response, saying Iran should not fall into a trap set by Mr. Netanyahu for a wider war, Iranian officials said.

Other moderate voices in the council claimed that Netanyahu had crossed all red lines, and that if it launched attacks on Israel, Iran could face horrific attacks on its vital infrastructure, something the country could not afford, these officials said, especially given the dire state of the economy.

According to experts, Iran has faced a series of challenges domestically, from public discontent with government corruption, economic mismanagement and widespread hardship to Israeli infiltration into the ranks of the Iranian military and politics.

It is noteworthy that in New York, during the 79th session (which was covered by Al-Quds newspaper), Pezeshkian told reporters that Iran was ready to "lay down its weapons if Israel lays down its weapons," and called for the intervention of an international force to bring peace to the Middle East.

Pezeshkian has had to deal with two major crises during his two months in office: Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on the night of his inauguration, and the killing of Sayyed Nasrallah on Friday, September 27, 2024.

According to experts, the twin crises have made him an easy target for conservatives in Iran, who have criticized his conciliatory message in New York, saying it showed weakness and encouraged Israel to kill Mr. Nasrallah. The conservatives have argued that Iran should deploy fighters to Lebanon, as it did to the Syrian government in its civil war, to help Hezbollah in the event of a full-scale war with Israel.

“Israel has attacked the core cell of the resistance, so we cannot remain indifferent,” said conservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Hassan Akhtari, head of the Iranian Committee for Supporting Palestinians and former head of international relations in Khamenei’s office.

Two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — including a strategist who has been in planning meetings over the past two days about how Iran might respond — said in interviews with The New York Times that Iran’s immediate priority is to help Hezbollah get back on its feet, name a successor to Mr. Nasrallah, form a new command structure and rebuild a secure communications network. After that, Hezbollah can plan its response to Israel, they said.

Two members of the Revolutionary Guard said Iran was planning to send a senior Quds Force commander to Beirut via Syria to help guide Hezbollah's recovery.