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(April 13, 2023 / JNS) Tehran took advantage of the earthquake that devastated parts of Syria and Turkey in early February, killing tens of thousands, to smuggle weapons and military equipment, according to Reuters.

The news agency cited Western, Israeli, Iranian and Syrian sources who said that Iran used the humanitarian relief that poured into Syria after the Feb. 6 quake, the worst natural disaster in the region in a century according to the World Health Organization, as cover.

Under the guise of shipments of earthquake aid to Syria, Israel has seen significant movements of military equipment from Iran, mainly transported in parts, an Israeli defense official told Reuters.

The aim of the shipments was to strengthen Irans defenses against Israel in Syria and bolster the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the sources said.

According to the sources, for seven weeks after the quake, Iran sent hundreds of supply flights to Aleppo, Damascus and Latakia airports under the guise of humanitarian aid. The supplies included advanced communications equipment, radar batteries and spare parts for a planned upgrade of Syrias air defense systems.

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Israel has been targeting Iranian assets in Syria for years, although rarely publicly. The regional sources said that upon learning of Iranian shipments to Syria, Israel quickly began targeted strikes.

These strikes have increased in recent weeks; on April 9 the Israel Defense Forces responded to six rockets fired towards the Golan Heights by hitting Syrian military sites as well as the launchers used in the attack.

The IDF sees the State of Syria responsible for all activities occurring within its territory and will not allow any attempts to violate Israeli sovereignty, the army said.

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Iran trades gas for food and medicine

President Ebrahim Raisi's administration is facing mounting local criticism over accepting Iraq's offer of what the opposition has dubbed the "gas-for-food"programme, in reference to a UN programme established for Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

On 7 April, local mediaquotedIran's petroleum minister Jawad Owji as saying that in return for exporting gas to Iraq, Tehran wouldreceive only food, medicines and humanitarian goods.

Following the news, critics of Raisi's economic plans reminded him that one of his presidential campaign slogans was to improve bilateral economic relations withneighbouring countries and to unlock Iran'sassets in Iraq that have been frozen due to US sanctions.

Iran officials hold secret talks with West without Raisis knowledge

"The reality of trading under sanctions shows that we exchange gas with essential goods and medicines. This happens even in a country like Iraq, which is under Iran's influence and very close to us," theMardom Salaridaily wrote on Saturday.

An Iranian economist, Mehdi Pazouki, under the headline "An achievement called oil-for-food",ridiculedRaisi's administration and his strategies for freeing Iran's frozen money in other countries.

"After about two years, Raisi's administration finally had an achievement; an achievement that is not good at all. Oil-for-food is the only accomplishment this government can announce," he wrote.

Despite the US sanctions on Iran's oil, gas and petrochemical export, Iraq is Iran's primary client for gas. However, due to sanctions on Iran's banking system, Baghdad cannot pay Iran for the gas it imports.

Iranian officials have announced conflicting numbers about Iraq's debt to Iran. On 10 March, the Shargh daily reported that the debt was over $18bn.

A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in the city of Izehhassentencedan Iranian protester to deathon charges related to the killing of Kian Pirfalak,a nine-year-old boy whodied during last year's protests.

The court ruling was announced despite thePirfalak family'sinsistence thatMojahed Koorkoor was not their son's killer.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested Koorkoor in Parsourakh village, near Izeh, in the country's southwest, in the aftermath of the protests that engulfed the country following the deathof Mahsa Amini while inthecustody of the morality police on 16 September.

Koorkoor was detained during a 20 December raid, during which the IRGC killed two men and two other people were arrested. Iran's judiciary has not revealed the identities of the other detaineesand those killed in the raid.

On 19 March, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported that, during a four-hour court hearing, Koorkoor had pleaded guilty and accepted the charges. However, rights groups have warned that he was severely tortured to pressure him into givingfalse confessions.

Last week, avideoof Koorkoor's mother circulated on Farsi social media in which she urged Iranians to help her save the life of her only son.

The Pirfalak family and their lawyer have rejected the judiciary's accusations against Koorkoor, saying their son was killed when the security forces opened fire on their caron 16 November during anti-government protests in Izeh.

In anothervideopublished on 11 April, Pirfalak'sfather said that his family had not filed any complaints against Koorkoor and the other two individuals arrested along with him.

"My wife and I, with our own eyes, saw that the security forces under the command of the [second] brigadier general Eidi Abdi open fire at our car with a barrage of bullets," he said.

Since last September, authorities have executed four men accused of participating in the 2022 anti-establishment demonstrations.

Ali Mojtahedzadeh, a lawyer whodefended political and student activists as well as protesters arrested last year, said many activists face new trials despite being pardoned by a general amnesty ordered by Iran's supreme leader.

On 5 February, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an amnesty or reduction in prison sentences for tens of thousands of people, includingpeople arrested during the 2022 anti-establishment protests. The judiciary officials later announced that more than 22,000 protesters were freed based on the decree.

However, on Saturday, Mojtahedzadeh warned in an article published in theEtemaddaily that the prosecution of the pardoned activists had resumed in various cases.

Iran finds new ways to crack down on women not wearing hijab

"Not only are the lawsuits against several pardoned individualsnot closed, but we see that the judicial proceedings related to their cases have continued, and they might face convictions," he wrote.

The lawyer said that a group of officials in the country's judicial system and intelligence services were the main forces against the release of the dissidents pardoned in February.

"It seems that some middle-ranking judicial officials and prosecutors have turned a blind eye to the general amnesty, insisting on the trial of those the supreme leader had pardoned," he said.

Mojtahedzadeh also warned that ignoring the general amnesty would lead to a more profound social distrust and weaken the status of Iran's judicial system.

"The destructive and dangerous impact of resuming the trial of these pardoned convicts is so enormous that we can wish the general amnesty was not ordered in the first place," he concluded.

*Iranian press review is a digest of news reports not independently verified as accurate by Middle East Eye.

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Raisi's 'gas-for-food' programme with Iraq criticised: Iranian press ... - Middle East Eye

Figures from the recent Nowruz holidays reflect a widening class gap between Irans rich and poor.

Travelling to other cities, historic sites and seaside resorts has been very popular Nowruz activity for Iranians since the advent of modern transportation in mid-20th century.

While four- and five-star hotels remained busy during the holiday season, two- and three-star properties were vastly under their usual seasonal average.

The chairman of the Iranian Air Travel and Tourism Offices, Hormatollah Rafiei, admitted the trend reflects the economic woes of the country as it battles through some of its worst financial crises of recent history with rising costs of living and declining incomes.

"A large part of four and five-star hotels, which are more expensive, were fully booked, while two and three-star hotels, which are cheaper, remained empty, he said this week, suggesting little impact of the crisis on the top echelons of the country's rich.

It suggests a trend of those in the middle-income brackets either not traveling or opting for more affordable options such as schools, pilgrimage centers, and municipal camps, he added.

Echoing the trend, Iran's hoteliers association announced a 70% drop in occupancy levels during the holidays.

While annual inflation hovers around 50 percent, prices for necessities such as food have risen much faster. Official figures published by Statistical Center of Iran show food prices rising by 70-100 percent in the past year.

As the national currency has halved in value since mid-2022, monthly salaries for ordinary people have dropped to less than $150.

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Louis Ren Beres, Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University, discusses the possibility of an Iran-Israel nuclear conflict.

For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.

Proverbs, 24,6

As a matter of logic, an Israel-Iran nuclear exchange is presently out of the question. Though energetically pursuing a military nuclear capability, the Shiite Republic still has a formidable way to go before it can claim any credible status as an operational nuclear power. From Israels standpoint, prudent survival preparations should now take variously multiple and overlapping forms. In this connection, Israel likely understands that nothing short of a massive non-nuclear preemption could summarily stop Tehrans nuclearization (a nuclear preemption is essentially inconceivable), but that even if such a defensive first-strike were to meet the authoritative tests of anticipatory self-defense under international law, its overall results would be catastrophic.

What next for Jerusalem? Always, Israeli strategists should examine the countrys available security options as an intellectual rather than political task. This is an overriding and invariant imperative.

There is more. This cautionary conclusion about planning is compelling, inter alia, because any tactically successful conventional preemption against Iranian weapons and infrastructures would come at more-or-less unacceptable costs. Already, in 2003, when this writers Project Daniel Group presented an early report on Iranian nuclearization to then-Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, prospective Iranian targets were more directly threatening to Israel than was Iraqs nuclear Osiraq reactor on June 7, 1981.

To the limited extent that they could be estimated, the plausible risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war would ultimately depend upon whether such a conflict was intentional, unintentional, or accidental. Apart from applying this critical three-part distinction to their analysis, there could be no good reason to expect any usefully systematic strategic assessments emerging from Tel Aviv (MOD/IDF). Once applied, however, Israeli planners should understand that their complex subject is entirely without useful precedent.

This uniqueness represents a quality of critical predictive importance. The peremptory rules of logic and mathematics preclude any meaningful assignments of probability in matters that are unprecedented or sui generis. To come up with meaningful estimations of probability, these predictions would first have to be based upon the determinable frequency of relevant past events. Prima facie, there have been no such events; unassailably, there have been no nuclear wars.

Still, it is essential that competent Israeli strategic analysts do their best to examine all current and future nuclear risks from Iran. To some ascertainable extent, it may be sensible for them to study what is currently happening between Washington and Pyongyang as a model for calculating Israels long-term nuclear perils. Looking back, in examining the more-or-less overheated rhetoric that had emerged from US President Donald J. Trump and North Korean President Kim Jung-Un, neither leader was paying sufficiently close attention to the grave risks of an unintentional or accidental nuclear war.

This means, among other things, that both Trump and Kim seemed to assume the other leaders decisional rationality and the primacy of decisional intention. If no such mutual assumption had existed, it would have made no sense for either president to deliberately strike existential retaliatory fear in the heart of the other. What are the lessons here for Israel vis--vis Iran? Should Israel similarly assume a fully rational adversary in Iran? To be sure, any such assumption would be more or less reassuring in Jerusalem, but would it also be correct?

During his dissembling tenure, Donald J. Trump, then US president, openly praised feigned irrationality as a tangible US security strategy. But such a preference could never be actionable without incurring assorted dangers, for America or for Israel. Although neither Israel nor Iran might actually want a war, either or both players could still commit catastrophic errors during competitive searches for escalation dominance. The only predictable element here would be the scenarios inherent unpredictability.

There is more. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war between Israel and Iran could take place not only as the result of misunderstandings or miscalculations between fully rational leaders, but also as the unintended consequence of mechanical, electrical, or computer malfunctions. This includes hacking interference, and should bring to mind a corollary distinction between unintentional/inadvertent nuclear war and an accidental nuclear war. Though all accidental nuclear war must be unintentional, not every unintentional nuclear war would be generated by accident. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war could sometime be the result of misjudgments (both fundamental and seemingly trivial) about enemy intentions.

In war, says Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously in his classic On War, everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. In fashioning a successful endgame to any future nuclear confrontation with Iran, it would be vital for Israels leaders to understand that this sort of crisis is about much more than maximizing any correlation of forces or missile-interception capabilities. It will be about imaginative intuition and variously antecedent notions of dialectical thinking.

There are many complex details. As a nuclear war has never been fought, what will be needed in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv is more broadly intellectual guidance than Israel could ever reasonably expect from even its most senior military officers. In essence, ipso facto, there are no recognizable experts on fighting a nuclear war, not in Jerusalem, not in Tehran, not anywhere. It was not by accident that the first capable theoreticians of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence in the 1950s were academic mathematicians, physicists and political scientists.

There remains one last point about any still-estimable risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war. From the standpoint of Jerusalem, the only truly successful outcome could be a crisis or confrontation that ends with a reduction of Iranian nuclear war fighting capabilities and intentions. It would represent a serious mistake for Israel to settle for bloated boasts of victory that are based only upon a one-time avoidance of nuclear war. Israel ought never to be taking existential risks with Tehran if the best anticipated outcome could only be status quo ante bellum.

Providing for Israeli national security vis--vis a still-nuclearizing Iran ought never to become a seat-of-the-pants game that is, the sort of visceral stance taken earlier by US President Donald J. Trump opposite North Korea. Without any suitably long-term, systematic and deeply-thoughtful plan in place for avoiding atomic war with this determined adversary, a nuclear conflict that is deliberate, unintentional or accidental could ensue. At every stage of its continuously corrosive competition with Tehran, Israel should avoid losing sight of the only rational use for its presumptive nuclear weapons and doctrine. That residual use, a product of abundantly wise counsel, concerns stable nuclear deterrence.

LOUIS REN BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue. His twelfth and most recent book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israels Nuclear Strategy (2016). In 2003, Professor Beres was Chair of Project Daniel in Israel (regarding Irans nuclear weapons, prepared especially for PM Ariel Sharon). He has published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; The Jerusalem Post; Israel Defense (Tel Aviv); BESA (Israel); INSS (Israel); JURIST; Air-Space Operations Review (USAF); The Atlantic; Yale Global; Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Security (Harvard); Oxford University Press Yearbook on International Law & Jurisprudence; World Politics (Princeton); Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College (Pentagon); The Strategy Bridge; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; The War Room (Pentagon); Modern War Institute (West Point); Horasis (Zrich) and The New York Times.

Suggested citation: Louis Rene Beres, Figuring the Odds of an Israel-Iran Nuclear War: A Complex Task for Logic, Mathematics and Law, JURIST -Academic Commentary, April 13, 2023 https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2023/04/Louis-Beres-Israel-Iran-nuclear-war/.

This article was prepared for publication by Rebekah Malkin, Co-Managing Commentary Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to she/they/them at commentary@jurist.org

Opinions expressed in JURIST Commentary are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, donors or the University of Pittsburgh.

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A California woman was sentenced on April 7 to four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by providing services, including financial services, to Iran and the Government of Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, and for structuring.

According to court documents, Niloufar Bahadorifar, aka Nellie Bahadorifar, 48, of Irvine, pleaded guilty on Dec. 15, 2022, before U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who imposed the sentence.

The Government of Iran has shown that it will take extreme measures to silence dissidents and critics around the world exercising their lawful rights, including through the use of violence on U.S. soil, said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Departments National Security Division. We hold accountable an individual who violated U.S. sanctions by providing financial assistance that ultimately supported a failed kidnapping plot directed by the Iranian government, underscoring the Departments commitment to bringing to justice those who criminally aid the Iranian regime.

Niloufar Bahadorifar provided financial support to a brazen plot intended to kidnap an Iranian human rights activist living in the United States whom the Iranian Government has sought to silence for years, said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. Efforts by malign foreign governments to stifle free speech and peaceful protest by means of intimidation or repression cannot be tolerated. The right to free speech is a core fundamental principle of American ideals, and this office is proud to protect that right with every means at our disposal.

Simply put, the defendant provided assistance to individuals who tried to help kidnap a journalist living in New York, who has criticized the regime in Teheran, said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr.of the FBIs Counterintelligence Division. This case demonstrates that the government of Iran will continue to target dissidents and reach beyond their borders, violating U.S sanctions and national security, but more importantly threaten the personal safety of individuals living in our country.The FBI will continue to shield those who are targeted and aggressively pursue anyone who attempts to circumvent our laws and will leverage all our authorities to protect the right to free speech.

According to the indictment and other documents in the public record, as well as statements made in public court proceedings:

For years, the Government of Iran has targeted a prominent Iranian dissident living in New York City (the Victim). The Victim is a journalist, author and human rights activist who has publicized the Government of Irans human rights abuses and suppression of political expression. Beginning in at least 2020, Iranian intelligence officials and assets, including co-defendant Mahmoud Khazein, plotted to kidnap the Victim from within the United States for rendition to Iran in an effort to silence the Victims criticism of the regime. As part of that plot, on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021, agents of the Government of Iran procured the services of private investigators to surveil, photograph, and video record the Victim and the Victims household members. These agents of the Government of Iran, including Khazein, procured the surveillance by misrepresenting their identities and the purpose of the surveillance to the investigators and laundered money into the United States from Iran in order to pay for the surveillance, photos and video recordings of the Victim.

Beginning in approximately 2015, Bahadorifar, a U.S. citizen residing in California and originally from Iran, provided financial and other services, including access to the U.S. financial system and U.S. financial institutions, to Iranian residents and entities, including to Khazein. Bahadorifar, who is not charged with participating in the kidnapping conspiracy, provided financial services that ultimately supported the plot. Among other things, Bahadorifar caused a payment to be made to a private investigator for surveillance of the Victim on behalf of Khazein. Bahadorifars payment obscured the origin of those who had hired the private investigator, who surveilled the Victim without knowing it was on behalf of Iranian intelligence services. At no time did Bahadorifar obtain permission from OFAC to provide services to Iran.

Beginning in approximately 2019, Bahadorifar also structured cash deposits totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. In total, Bahadorifar structured at least approximately $476,100 in more than 120 individual deposits. All but two of the deposits were less than $10,000.

The FBI New York Field Office Counterintelligence-Cyber Division and the New York FBI Iran Threat Task Force investigated the case, with valuable assistance provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, the FBI Los Angeles Field Office and the Justice Departments National Security Division.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael D. Lockard, Jacob H. Gutwillig and Matthew J.C. Hellman for the Southern District of New York and Trial Attorney Christopher M. Rigali of the National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

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