With war between Israel and Iran looming, for Iran to make a declaration of war will be its most difficult decision since the Iranian Revolution. This was the observation made by Saudi journalist Tariq Al-Homayed, as we read in Haaretz:

From Tehran’s perspective, Israel attacked it in a manner that violated the balance of terror between the sides (the more so because the Iranians are describing the building that was bombed as their consulate in Damascus, meaning their sovereign territory). Khamenei’s declarations are also locking them into a response.

On the contrary, the Sunni Arab states are fearful of a confrontation that will spark a conflagration in the Middle East and jeopardize their petroleum exports and the world energy market. The Saudi journalist Tariq Al-Homayed, the former editor of the Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, is considered close to the Riyad authorities. In an article he published this week, he compared the decision that Khamenei is wrestling with to the famous remark by his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, over the 1988 cease-fire agreement that ended the Iran-Iraq War.

Khomeini described the decision to end the war as “drinking from the poisoned chalice,” but termed it unavoidable considering the circumstances. Homayed wrote that Iran has maneuvered itself into a position from which it must respond, but that this could be the most difficult decision the regime has made since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The result, he warned, could be a direct confrontation with Israel and the danger of a regional war. For some reason, he doesn’t mention another possibility: that the war will also involve an Israeli or even American move against Iran’s nuclear project.