Iran has tried to avoid conflict with Israel and failed – which deterrent will it reach for next? | Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

It would be a risky move, but some in Iran now see building a nuclear bomb as the only way to fend off Israeli attacks

Last week, Iran's leaders found themselves in a familiar position. The Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the latest in a series of assassinations of senior figures with ties to the regime.

In a short statement eulogising Nasrallah, Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, declared that Israel had not become victorious" by carrying out the strike on Nasrallah, which he described as an atrocity". Khamenei insisted that Israel would face more crushing" blows in retribution. But those blows are to come from the groups of the resistance front" and not from Iran itself.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj is the founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a thinktank focused on economic policymaking in the Middle East and Central Asia

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