Russia reportedly supplying Iran with weapons to retaliate against Israel

How does the US respond if Russia arms Iran to attack Israel? I've worried that it might come to this, given Russia's much improved relations with Iran which has supplied them with drones for their fight against Ukraine/NATO in that proxy war. I hope the 2 conflicts (Ukraine and Israel-Palestine) are not becoming interrelated in some unpredictable way by virtue of the  Iran factor. I don't know where this is going, but it's bad news. Here's the latest.

Times of Israel today writes:

Iranian officials say Russia has begun delivering advanced air defense and radar equipment to Iran after Tehran asked the Kremlin for the arms, the New York Times reported Monday.

While local Iranian media reported that Tehran had requested the equipment, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and another official confirmed to the Times that not only had the request been made, but that deliveries had started.

The development came with the Middle East on edge at the expectation of a direct Iranian attack on Israel as revenge for Israel’s alleged assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country must be ready to quickly go on the offensive in the event of an Iranian assault. The Times report did not say what equipment Iran had requested from Russia or what had been delivered. Iran already has some Russian-made S-300 air defense systems, though Moscow now has the more advanced S-400 system.

In April, Iran carried out an unprecedented direct attack on Israel it said was revenge for the killing of a senior army commander in a Syria strike it blamed on Israel. The wave of some 300 missiles and drones was almost entirely intercepted by Israeli air defense systems in cooperation with the US [In fact, without the US successfully intercepting more than half of the incoming drones and missiles, the Israelis would surely have suffered a devastating blow--ed.] and a roster of allies and Arab countries in the region. It caused only minor damage, though a young Bedouin girl was seriously hurt by falling shrapnel.

At the time, Israel apparently responded by striking an S-300 system near a nuclear site in Iran, though it did not confirm the matter.

 

The Times report came as Iranian state media said the country’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian told a visiting senior ally of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin that Tehran is determined to expand relations with its “strategic partner Russia.”

“Russia is among the countries that have stood by the Iranian nation during difficult times,” Pezeshkian told Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s security council, Iranian state media report.

In further comments reported during the meeting with Shoigu, Pezeshkian said Israel’s “criminal actions” in Gaza and the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran last week “are clear examples of the violation of all international laws and regulations.”

Tehran has for years been arming and training proxy groups around the Middle East including Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis to attack Israel and others.

War erupted on October 7 when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, during which terrorists abducted 251 people to the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas in Gaza and free the hostages.

Russia, which has largely backed Hamas and allied terror groups since the October 7 massacres [Note: there is no record of Russian military support of Hamas, so this is probably a reference to Russian state media coverage which is, according to NYT, supportive of Hamas as described in this article-ed.] , has condemned the killing of Haniyeh and called on all parties to refrain from steps that could tip the Middle East into a wider regional war.

 See also NYT article here.