According to experts, this is how Iran could respond to the assassination of Soleimani

After General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in a US raid on Baghdad airport and Tehran vowed to respond, the question that analysts and followers of Iranian affairs today have become is how will such a possible response be? What are the possible Iranian-American confrontation arenas?

It is noticeable that, by talking about the points of American-Iranian engagement on the level of geographical area and the possible targets to attack it, it can be said that it is a very vast region extending from the Persian Gulf to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and even the Indian subcontinent.

This region includes the waters of the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Sea of ​​Oman, where important forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are stationed, the backbone of the Iranian forces that General Soleimani was heading the Quds Force operating under its banner.

Al-Jazeera correspondent in Tehran, Noureddine Al-Dagheer said that there is a map of targets that Iranian officials talked about regarding the American military bases in the Gulf waters, which Tehran estimates are about thirty military targets. As for the land areas in the vicinity of Iran, about 200 American military bases are being talked about.

Extended area
Lebanese writer and political analyst Faisal Abdel Sater believes that Iran will benefit from the vast geographical area it controls in the region, as it has a presence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, whether through its forces or through allies and loyalists, which makes it easier for it to respond in coordination with "Boom it" in these areas.

Abdul Sater adds that Iran's allies and loyalists have many and are spread everywhere, so the response can be in any of these vast areas, and the map of possible places for the Iranian response may extend to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is difficult to answer the question, where will the response be?

And he points out that the response could be through Iranian hands through operations of a security nature against American interests in the region without adopting these operations, or it could be through loyalists and allies against other American interests away from the Gulf region.

strategy
As for Richard Gowitz, an American security and military strategist, he excludes the direct military confrontation between the two sides, because the Iranians imitated their strategy to confront America with China, Russia and North Korea.

He added that the Iranian confrontation strategy depends on avoiding direct military confrontation and taking separate and far-reaching military and security steps to try to embarrass the United States and show it as weak, but it does not amount to giving America a justification for launching a broad military operation against it.

Gwites noted in an interview with Al-Jazeera that the Iranians may shoot down a US military plane, but they do not kill anyone, or they plant sea mines in the Gulf region, but no one takes responsibility for them, or they attack the oil installations of America's allies in the region and no one adopts the operation.

The security expert concluded his speech by saying that Tehran's response may extend beyond the Middle East, but the Iranians will be keen to avoid any direct military clash with the United States, because any damage that the Iranians may cause to the United States will make them lose the confrontation with them as a whole, and they know this very well.

Opportunities for confrontation have increased
For his part, Hamid Mousavi, a professor of political science at Tehran University, said it is still too early to talk about the nature of the response, given that the relevant Iranian institutions are still meeting and studying the background of the assassination process and the possible possibilities to respond to it.

He added that the assassination of a figure in the weight and importance of General Qassem Soleimani is a dangerous escalation, which makes Iran in front of a single option, which is the military response, given the importance of the assassinated character and its symbolism for the Iranians.

Mousavi indicated that the US military bases deployed in the region, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and the UAE, may be potential targets for the Iranian forces in the event of a decision to respond, stressing in return that Iran does not want a direct military clash with America, but the opportunities for direct confrontation have increased dramatically After the assassination of Soleimani.

This is something that Aziz Jabr Shiyal, a professor of political science at Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, went to, as he saw that the response might affect the American bases deployed in the region, indicating that the Iranians announced earlier that they had set 35 potential targets to attack them in the event of launching an American war against them, and pointed out Iranian retaliation could also affect American warships and naval vessels in the Gulf waters.

It is noteworthy that Iran pledged revenge for the killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a US air raid near Baghdad International Airport, while an emergency meeting of the Iranian National Security Council was decided to discuss the appropriate response, as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Al-Haddad announced three days, threatening the United States that Iran’s revenge would be "Overwhelming," while Ali Al-Shirazi, representative of the Supreme Leader in the Quds Force, declared that revenge for the assassination of Soleimani was a legal duty.