Iran’s Warning to Washington and Israel: You May Start the War, but You Will Not Decide Where or When It Ends

Posted on by Elijah J Magnier
Banner reading “WARNING TO WASHINGTON AND ISRAEL: You may start the war, but you will not decide where or when it ends. Regardless of diplomatic negotiations, retaliation will not be geographically restricted. Article by Elijah J. Magnier (Source: Reporting, 2024)” outside an Iranian building.
A large banner outside an Iranian government building warns Washington and Israel about the consequences of war.

By Elijah J. Magnier

Regardless of the ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the two countries and the shuttle of envoys between Tehran and Doha, Iran has delivered a warning to the United States and Israel that challenges their ability to control another military confrontation. Tehran has declared that retaliation will not be geographically restricted and that those initiating hostilities cannot dictate their conclusion.

During a meeting with senior military commanders, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei instructed the armed forces to prepare for immediate retaliation against renewed aggression, while strengthening military intelligence, expanding weapons production and increasing operational readiness.

His most consequential declaration concerned the duration of any future confrontation. If Iran were attacked again, he stated, its armed forces and population would determine when hostilities ended and under what conditions, regardless of Washington’s or Israel’s intentions.

These instructions reflect Tehran’s attempt to establish a deterrence strategy that challenges American and Israeli assumptions about escalation. Iran wants its adversaries to calculate the wider military, economic and political consequences before considering another attack.

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Published by Elijah J Magnier

Elijah J. Magnier is a veteran war correspondent and analyst specialising in military affairs, intelligence, strategic affairs and political risk. He has spent nearly four decades living and reporting inside countries at war, often from the front lines, while developing long-standing access to political leaders, military and intelligence officials, diplomats, armed non-state actors and communities directly affected by conflict. His field experience includes the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Iran–Iraq War, the Lebanese Civil War, the 1991 Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, conflict in Sudan, the war in Afghanistan and Yemen, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the wars in Libya and Syria. He has lived for extended periods in Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, allowing him to follow conflicts, political transformations and regional networks beyond the limitations of short-term war reporting. His work focuses on warfare and deterrence, terrorism and counterterrorism, intelligence, political violence, armed non-state actors, regional security and the relationship between military power and political outcomes. He has also served as an adviser to the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on Iraq and Lebanon. Magnier holds a PhD in Policing and Criminal Justice from Liverpool John Moores University and an MSc in Counterterrorism Studies from the University of London. He has undertaken advanced studies in terrorism—including terrorist ideologies, financing and counterterrorism—at the University of St Andrews; terrorism and counterterrorism at Leiden University; and negotiation, including international and cross-cultural negotiation, at ESSEC Business School in Paris. His work combines sustained field access with academic analysis of war, sovereignty, deterrence and political violence.