Iran’s mixed signals leave some allies in the dark and set region on edge

The mood in Lebanon’s restive capital has darkened in the two weeks since Israel’s July 30 attack in southern Beirut that killed Iran-backed Hezbollah’s top commander Fu’ad Shukr and four civilians.

The mood in Lebanon’s restive capital has darkened in the two weeks since Israel’s July 30 attack in southern Beirut that killed Iran-backed Hezbollah’s top commander Fu’ad Shukr and four civilians. The city woke up the next morning to find that another Iran-supported official, Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh, had been killed in an assassination in the heart of the Iranian capital, Tehran. The chances of war, for months stowed away into the deeper crevices of this city’s psyche, had grown manifold. “Do you think I am sitting in Hezbollah’s war room?” said one exasperated political leader with ties to the powerful Beirut-based armed group. “I have no idea what’s going to happen next. You probably know more than I do.” Other officials in contact with Iran and Hezbollah said they were similarly in the dark as to how Tehran and its allied non-state fighting groups might deliver the “severe revenge” its top military officials, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have promised. Israel said the attack in Beirut served as a response to a rocket strike that killed 12 children in the town of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which it blamed on Hezbollah. Hezbollah has vehemently denied the charge.