Iran’s terror-enabling supreme leader only opens the door for Israel to hit back hard

After years of using its terrorist proxies to strike Israelis, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei launched a direct attack Saturday against the Jewish state. More than 200 kamikaze drones, weaponized drones and ballistic and cruise missiles were fired from Iranian soil as well as from proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as Israel and the United States mobilized military assets to intercept them before they struck their targets.

For Iran’s normally cautious supreme leader, this was a risky step. By crossing a red line of a direct attack against Israel from Iranian soil, he opened the door for Jerusalem to hit back hard.

Potential targets include leadership and military assets inside Iran, oil refineries, which are the lifeblood of his regime, and his rapidly expanding nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei may have thought he had little choice. In a daring April 1 operation, the Israeli Air Force killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who played a central role in the planning and execution of Iran’s proxy Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. That savage strike killed 1,200 Israelis and foreigners, including more than 30 Americans, and led to the kidnapping of more than 240 hostages. The IAF killed Zahedi, another top IRGC general and five other IRGC commanders who were planning operations in an IRGC-Quds Force building adjacent to Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Zahedi was a big fish. He led the IRGC’s operations out of Syria and, as the main Iranian contact with Lebanese Hezbollah, had helped arm and train Iran’s most dangerous terrorist army.

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with the Israel Defense Forces for the past six months and possesses more than 175,000 missiles, rockets and mortars including deadly precision-guided munitions that could do devastating damage to Israeli civilian infrastructure.