Iran will suffer “severe consequences” if the Islamic Republic continues to attack Israel or U.S. troops across the Middle East, Washington said during a contentious U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday afternoon.
The emergency session—which Algeria, China and Russia called—addressed the impact of Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Iranian military targets over the weekend, in response to Tehran’s barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles on Israel earlier in the month.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the global body, told the Security Council that Washington, which doesn’t want to see further escalation, believes “this should be the end of the direct exchange of fire between Israel and Iran.” But the United States “will not hesitate to act in self-defense,” she said.
Iran accused the Biden administration of complicity in Israel’s weekend assault, which reportedly degraded Tehran’s missile production capabilities significantly. Washington has said many times that it played no role in the Israeli operation.
Iran “seeks to gaslight and deflect, to claim the role of victim, while continuing to sow chaos across the region,” Thomas-Greenfield said. She demanded that Tehran “stop pouring gasoline on the fire of regional conflict.”
Danny Danon, the Israeli U.N. ambassador, reminded the council that Jerusalem “promised” that Iran’s direct attack on Israel—its second in five months—“would not go unanswered.”
“We assured them that we would choose the time and manner of our response, and that it would be painful,” Danon said. “Those promises are being kept.”
Danon stressed that the precise military targeting of the attack on Iran was meant to inflict minimal civilian damage. The Security Council’s “usual chorus of ‘de-escalation’ is not only weak, but profoundly misguided,” he said and results in “failure to impose real cost” on the Iranian regime.
The Israeli envoy told the Security Council to impose “crippling sanctions” on Iran’s military and economic infrastructure and issued a “warning” to Iranian leadership that “any further aggression will be met with consequences that are swift and decisive.”
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s U.N. ambassador, said that the Islamic Republic has the “inherent right to respond at a time of its choosing to this act of aggression.”
‘More fuel on the flames’
Iravani stated that the Oct. 1 attack on Israel was retaliation for the assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Abbas Nilforoushan in Beirut, as well as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Hezbollah and Hamas are among Iran’s terrorist proxies, receiving training and funding from Tehran.
Iravani called Israel’s assassinations of terror leaders “part of a broader, sustained pattern of aggression and unchecked impunity with which Israel continues to destabilize the entire region.”
Much of the rest of the Security Council was split along traditional fault lines. Barbara Woodward, the United Kingdom’s U.N. envoy, called for Iran to stand down, saying “all sides must exercise restraint. No good can come of pouring more fuel on the flames of this escalating cycle of violence.”
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian U.N. ambassador, took shots at both Israel and the United States.
“Jerusalem is not ready to give up on its choice to resolve all of its conflict situations with neighbors exclusively by force,” Nebenzia said, claiming that Israel’s “determination to act that way” is due to “the support and cover from American allies.”
Fu Cong, China’s U.N. ambassador, told the United States “to put saving lives and preventing war” first, by backing the calls of other Security Council members for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and ramping down fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border.
Abbas Kadhim Obaid, the Iraqi envoy to the United Nations, condemned Israel’s unauthorized use of Iraqi airspace to strike Iran. Baghdad sent a missive earlier in the day to the Security Council complaining about what it said was a violation of its sovereignty.
The Security Council will meet again on Tuesday for its quarterly open debate on the Israeli-Palestinian file.
