Calm In Iraq And Syria May Be Nearing Its End

According to reports from Iran's state-run Khorasan newspaper, the cost of essential food items has skyrocketed since the beginning of the Iranian New Year in March 2024, coinciding with the month of Ramadan. Beans have seen a staggering 30% increase in price, while red meat prices have surged by 25%. Additionally, summer foods have seen a remarkable 50% hike, with rice and several other items following suit with increases ranging from 10% to 15%.

Earlier in April, in an interview with so-called reformist news site Entekhab, Reza Kangari, the head of the Tehran Provincial Union of Food Banks, also highlighted the recent significant rise in food prices. Kangari stated that “some food items have seen a 30% rise" and attributed the rise to the depreciation of the rial, supply shortages, and subsequent price gouging.

The root cause of this alarming price surge lies in Iran's faltering economy, exacerbated by the continuous devaluation of the Iranian rial. The rial has continuously fallen since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but it turned into a steep fall in 2018 when the United States withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal, demanding its revision. Oil export sanctions and international banking restrictions imposed by the Trump administration badly hurt Iran’s oil-dependent economy.

The Iranian rial has witnessed a sharp decline, losing over 30% of its value against major currencies since the onset of January this year. Additionally, following Iran's military and drone attack on Israel on April 13, the rial experienced an unprecedented downfall, with the dollar surpassing the 700,000-rial threshold.

Furthermore, Iran's economy has been besieged by a prolonged period of high inflation, with rates surpassing 40% for the past five years. Additionally, Iran's substantial state debt and liquidity challenges contributed to the devaluation of the rial. This devaluation has had a cascading effect on the prices of essential food items. Since President Ebrahim Raisi assumed office in August 2021, Iran's liquidity has almost doubled, fueling rampant inflation that surged to 47% in the last fiscal year.

Despite the government's recent announcement of being committed to addressing the issue of food security, the relentless upward trajectory of food prices has only served to compound the economic woes faced by ordinary Iranians, pushing many further into financial precarity.

In the lead-up to Norouz, Iranian New Year on 20 March, according to messages received by Iran International Iranians lamented a sharp decline in their purchasing power, with essentials like rice, red meat, and dairy vanishing from household budgets.

While external factors such as US sanctions undoubtedly play a significant role in Iran's economic challenges, domestic policies and priorities also come under scrutiny.

For instance, sanctions resulted in a significant decrease in Iran-India trade, plummeting by as much as a third. Rice, which constitutes the primary export from India to Iran, saw a sharp decline of 34%, falling from $2 billion in 2022 to $723 million in 2023.

The consistent reluctance of Iran's leadership, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to address fundamental problems such as the nuclear issue has exacerbated the country's economic isolation and hindered efforts to alleviate the plight of its citizens.

As economic woes deepen with soaring food prices, Iranian citizens face dwindling options and rising prices, painting a bleak picture ahead.

The attack against US forces is the first since early February when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.

The attack comes one day after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani returned from a visit to the United States and met with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Two security sources and a senior army officer said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small truck had been parked in Zummar border town with Syria.

The military official said the truck caught fire with an explosion from unfired rockets at the same time as warplanes were in the sky.

"We can't confirm that the truck was bombed by US warplanes unless we investigate it," said a military official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the incident.

Iraqi security forces were deployed in the area and launched a hunt for the perpetrators who fled the area using another vehicle, said a security official who is based in the town of Zummar.

The Iraqi Security Medica Cell, an official body responsible for disseminating security information, said in a statement that Iraqi forces had launched "a wide-ranging search and inspection operation" targeting the perpetrators near the Syrian border, pledging to bring them to justice.

An army officer said the truck was seized for further investigation and initial investigation shows that it was destroyed by an air strike.

"We are communicating with the coalition forces in Iraq to share information on this attack," the officer added.

A day earlier an apparent air strike hit a base of the pro-Iran Hashd al-Shaabi armed militia group causing major explosion.

In a meeting with high-ranking military commanders on Sunday, he discussed the recent military clashes between Iran and Israel, making his first public remarks since the escalation of hostilities.

During his speech, Khamenei referred to the large-scale attack by the Revolutionary Guards, in which the Guards fired 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 ground-to-ground basilic missiles at a military base in southern Israel. Despite the extensive assault, Israeli officials have reported only limited damage, claiming that 99 percent of the projectiles were intercepted.

"The issue of the number of missiles fired or that hit the target, which the other side is focused on, is a secondary matter. The main issue is the demonstration of the will of the Iranian nation and the armed forces on the international stage," Khamenei stated. His remarks can be seen as an implicit admission of the limited effectiveness of the strikes.

According to the Iranian regime, the April 13 assault was in retaliation for an attack on Iran's consulate in Damascus, an act for which Israel has not claimed responsibility. After Iran’s attack, Israel targeted the radar system and the S-300 air defense system at the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Isfahan on Friday, as confirmed by satellite images.

In his address, Khamenei also highlighted the need for innovation in military tactics and weaponry, urging the generals to understand enemy strategies. His comments come as the US and the UK have imposed new sanctions against Iran's drone program and military figures, reflecting ongoing international concerns.

Moreover, during a recent summit in Capri, Italy, the G7 foreign ministers expressed their readiness to further sanction Tehran to mitigate its destabilizing activities in the region.

In an editorial for Setareh-e Sobh newspaper on Saturday, Ali Saleh Abadi criticized the regime for the “incorrect assessment of the consequences of their actions for the economy and people’s daily lives.”

He wrote, “Any form of conflict, including verbal threats, has a detrimental effect on the economy,” he continued. “We need to ask why Arab countries that went to war with Israel before are now defending it against Iran’s attack.”

The Iranian attack on Israel last weekend involved over 350 missiles and drones, almost all of which were intercepted by Israel and a US-led coalition of allies. In contrast, the operation on Friday involved three missiles fired by fighter aircraft outside of Iran, according to a senior US official speaking with ABC News.

Although Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, ABC News and CNN, citing US officials, have attributed it to Israel. According to the former, the air defense radar site in Isfahan was the target of the attacks.

Isfahan is a critical province due to its military bases, and the underground Natanz enrichment facility, which suspected Israeli sabotage attacks have repeatedly targeted.

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In Tehran's leading reformist daily Etemad, former minister and long-time intelligence official Ali Rabiei wrote that Israel has not responded proportionally to Iran's barrage of missiles and drones while they seek an international coalition against Tehran with potentially harsh consequences.

Iran claims the bombardment was an act of self-defense after Israel allegedly conducted an air strike on the Iranian consulate compound in Damascus, killing one of the most senior Quds Force commanders and multiple IRGC personnel earlier this month.

In the same paper, Mostafa Zahrani, a former director general of strategic affairs in the foreign ministry, said the new strategy of IRGC’s direct conflict with Israel would "escalate war rather than [act as] deterrence."

In his view, the use of Iran's proxies across the region offers a more effective deterrent than direct conflict against Israel, Zahrani adding that while things are at present relatively calm, “there is a possibility that miscalculations by both sides could result in war.”

In Saturday's Jahan Sanat, Nader Karimi challenged the Iranian authorities' claim of robust defense systems by asking, “Why are these anti-aircraft systems waiting until the micro-birds are flying inside the country and over the nuclear facilities to strike them? They should have been spotted long before by radars. This is not in accordance with the stated security and deterrence strategies." He warned the conflict "will not end soon".

Last week, legal proceedings were brought against Jahan Sanat newspaper, accusing it of "compromising national security" for its coverage of Saturday's operation against Israel. It is the latest legal action to be taken against publications and journalists amidst ongoing crackdowns.

Shargh Daily, a reformist and relatively independent newspaper, speculated if news of the EU and US “yielding to Israeli demands” for tougher sanctions and the Friday attack on Iranian soil signals and ending of the current crisis between the two archenemies.

An ex-parliament member claimed that if Israel was behind the latest attack, “it was a controlled operation that was not intended to provoke international reactions” as powers such as the US call for calm following last weekend's aerial bombardment.

“Sanctions alone are not enough, and Israel had to attack because of balancing geopolitical equations,” Mohammad Javad Jamali Nobandegani said, adding that further Israeli attacks cannot be ruled out.

The overnight attack has been a subject of intense speculation and debate, fueled partly at least by Israel’s customary silence in such instances. Confirmation has come from unnamed US officials who say missiles were fired from Israeli fighter jets over Iraqi airspace and “hit” their intended target. This has been disputed by Iranian officials who say the explosions heard in Isfahan early Friday local time were caused by Iran’s defense systems hitting three “quadcopters”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told NBC News the drones took off from inside Iran and flew for a few hundred meters before being downed. "They're ... more like toys that our children play with, not drones," Amir-Abdollahian said.

The image –taken by SkyWatch on 20 April 2024– shows an air defense system in Eighth Shekari Air Base, about 20 km northeast of Isfahan and 150 km south of the nuclear facility at Natanz, the central part of which seems to have been hit.

Satellite images before and after the strike

“The image shows clearly that the system’s engagement radar, which guides the surface-to-air missiles, has been destroyed,” Farzin Nadimi, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute, told Iran International after analyzing the image. “Destruction on this scale can’t be caused by “toy quadcopters”, as Iranian officials suggest.”

The imagery of the Iranian S-300 air defense system shows some significant damage to its fire control radar, while the missile launchers were apparently left intact.

The damage could have been caused by the impact of a precision-guided projectile similar to the Sparrow/Rocks family of standoff air-to-ground missiles believed to have been used by Israel in its latest strike, Nadimi said.

A similar assessment was offered by New York Times earlier. Analyzing satellite imagery, the paper concluded that “the precision attack at the Eighth Shekari Air Base damaged or destroyed the “flap-lid” radar, which is used in S-300 air defense systems to track incoming targets.”

This was also suggested by Chris Biggers, a former U.S. government imagery analyst, who published on X an image taken within a few hours after explosions were heard in Isfahan.

“Imagery acquired 0648Z 19APR2024 showed evidence of damage to the Iranian S-300PMU2 strategic surface-to-air missile battery in Isfahan,” Biggers wrote. “Other battery system components however have been withdrawn from the site. Their status and location is currently unclear.”

It may be impossible to say what exactly happened in Isfahan early Friday local time without detailed disclosures from Iran and Israel. But there’s growing evidence –and growing consensus among experts– that the target of the attack was Iran’s S-300 air defense system, and it was hit.

The S-300 is a Russian long-range surface-to-air missile defense system that can track objects 300 km afar, including ballistic missiles. It has four components: surveillance radar (tracks), command vehicle (identifies target and orders launch), engagement radar (guides missiles), and six launch vehicles that surround the engagement radar, and each fires two missiles. The system can therefore target up to 6 targets with 12 missiles at once.

Russia completed the delivery of S-300 to Iran in October 2016, after years of negotiation and several postponements, mainly due to pressure from western countries and Israel –which has long claimed Islamic Republic of Iran to be an “existential threat” for Israel.

Tension has increased between Iran and Israel in recent weeks following a presumed Israeli airstrike on April 1, which destroyed a building in Iran's embassy compound in Damascus and killed several Iranian officers.

Tehran retaliated by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel on April 13, marking the first-ever direct attack on Israel by the Islamic Republic, although no casualties were reported.