Former defense secretary predicts Iran will strike at Israel

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday said Iran is likely to retaliate against Israel for a recent missile strike that hit Tehran's consulate in Damascus, Syria.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, which killed senior Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi. Reuters cited a Lebanese security source as the first to identify Israel as the responsible party, to which an Israeli military spokesperson responded, "We do not comment on reports in the foreign media."

In an interview on CNN, Esper predicted Iran will take action against Israel, but on a limited scale to avoid wide-scale war in the Middle East.

"They are going to act," Esper said Friday. "They're going to feel the need, to uphold their dignity, to maintain credibility with their proxies, throughout the region, and to really meet the demands of hardliners, within the theocracy that wants to see something done."

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"But on the other hand, they're not going to want to make this a wider war," he continued. "They don't want to escalate. They know that a major conflict with Israel, let alone Israel and the United States would be disastrous for Iran. So, I suspect that they will limit the attack to Israel, Israeli targets."3

Iran has said it reserves the right "to take a decisive response" after the purported Israeli strike, which killed six other Iranian military advisers in addition to Zahedi.

A senior Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that President Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the threat from Iran on Thursday.

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