Last year I wrote a post on the Israel-Iran Cold War and the possibilities of it going hot. I focused mainly on the nuclear aspects and Israel’s clandestine efforts to cripple the Iranian nuclear weapon program. I didn’t look in much detail at the various proxy armies that Iran has built up and trained, primarily Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon:
It’s important to understand the nature of the alliance in question. It is the fruit of the methodology and the investments of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps during the past four decades in the Middle East. In that time, patiently, and with tactics adjusted to fit local conditions, Tehran has built an army of a type never before seen in the Middle East and that is now preparing for action.
This army consists of a host of nominally independent militias, that in reality are controlled by a central guiding hand. It is a unique melding of regular and irregular capacities, and of the political with the military. Most crucially, the IRGC method weds the Islamist fervour from below that remains the dominant force across the Arab world at street level, with the capacities, armaments and organisation that can be supplied only by a powerful state.
And after October 7 it’s clear that those things are as important as an Iranian nuclear weapon. Given the connections, funding, training and weapon supplies from Iran to these groups the WSJ report of October 8 was not a surprise:
Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.
Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.
The WSJ had other sources but those ones were the kicker; that all three players would be so open about it. The Ayatollah himself put up a post on X gleefully celebrating the attacks with video of all the young people running for their lives from the music festival. The detail that Hamas trained in Iran is a little surprising, because that’s blatant, but nothing else about Iran’s connections is:
After all, Iran has been funding Hamas and Hezbollah with $100 Million and $700 Million, respectively, on an annual basis for years. And they had just received a vocal promise of $6 billion for further operations. And these are not the only terrorist organizations Iran funds for military operations: there are 19 terrorist organizations operating as Iranian proxies on every border of U.S. ally Israel at this moment.
Which is why I was always staggered by Obama’s First Year Varsity thinking in snuggling up to Iran – effectively striking the deal with the regime hardmen like IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, the murderous asshole whom Trump would vapourise several years later (you can click the original post from the old NM site, complete with comments) – with this strange idea that Iran could form a stabilising counter-balance to Israel in the Middle East; two nuclear powers (JCPOA was never designed to stop an Iranian atomic bomb, just delay it) that would eyeball each other as the USA and USSR had for forty years.
In reality the billions of dollars of Iranian monies “unfrozen” and sent to the country, including even pallets of cash, simply allowed Iran to be even more of an asshole and send more money to its proxy armies around the Middle East to threaten Arab nations and hopefully destroy The Little Satan over time.
For all of the usual criticism (from both Democrat and GOP) of Trump’s “crude”, “simple-minded” approach to foreign affairs he actually understood the gut realities here and slowly strangled Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest by denying them money and outright killing them when needed. Plus the Abraham Accords, which pushed forward relations between Israel and Arab nations more than had been done in decades, all due to Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who ignored the State Department experts who insisted that the Palestine-Israel problem had to be fixed first (see Amateurs vs. Experts).
But with the ascension to the Presidency of Obama’s meat puppet, Biden, the gushers of money were released once more to Iran.
And here we are, with more Middle Eastern war not less, and more of what was described in this post rather than what Israel has done for the past fifteen years:
But Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu later chose an approach Israelis came to call “mowing the lawn.” Instead of fiercely responding to terror by land, Israel would aerially bomb strategic Hamas targets in Gaza to set them back by approximately three years. Every triennial or so, the cycle would repeat: Hamas would launch a war, and Israel would “mow the lawn.”
Clearly that’s failed and the incredible irony is that Netanyahu accepted this strategy despite resigning from Ariel Sharon’s cabinet in 2005 because he objected to withdrawing from the Gaza strip:
“I don’t know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages. [Don’t] give [the Palestinians] guns, don’t give them rockets, don’t give them a sea port, and don’t give them a huge base for terror.”
Which it has, and paradoxically that’s because Israel – very much including Netanyahu – propped up Hamas for years as an alternative to the Fatah:
The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
Plus negotiations with them about permits for Gazans and the tit-for-tat understanding about Hamas rocket bombardments, the infamous “mowing the lawn” approach that would keep things, if not calm, then at least not lethal on a large scale. It doesn’t take hindsight to see that it would fail – and that’s the responsibility of every Israeli government of the last twenty years. Why Netanyahu also did this will be for historians to determine, but it’s as least as stupid as the Obama-Biden appeasement of Iran.
These mistakes have produced a catastrophe that will now require not just the physical elimination of Hamas but the idea of them – which is also about the new geo-politics of the situation:
In preparation for the Gaza incursion, Israel must do its preliminary best to eliminate as many snipers’ nests and attack tunnels as it can. Weapons depots must be destroyed from the air. Rockets, grenades, anti-tank missiles must be spotted as best as Israel’s intelligence can and obliterated before her boys march in. Those tunnels must be closed off on both ends, whether by bombing all ingresses and egresses or by flooding or smoking them.
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Israel now must begin conducting public Nuremberg/Eichmann war crimes trials. Every Arab in Israeli prisons with a murder conviction needs to be tried publicly, the same as Eichmann was and as the West tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany and six German organizations. These war crime trials will educate.
I see a lot of commentary about how this invasion of Gaza will create more terrorists and “harden hearts”. It’s hard to see how they could be any more hardened, and it should be noted that nobody has tried forming or joining any SS groups since 1945. As the saying goes, justice must be seen to be done, especially in a situation that did not exist in 1945, where there are large parts of the West that have sided with today’s SS and are pulling the propaganda trick of “both sides are guilty” or “colonisers justice”. Fine, then let Hamas or the PLO conduct similar war crimes trials of captured Israeli soldiers and we’ll see if their standards of justice and evidence actually matches that of the West. My bet is that it won’t in any form.
The new geo-politics also now means that the Two State Solution is dead:
No Arab leader or negotiator will agree to allow the 850,000 Jews of the eastern communities of Jerusalem and the rest of Judea and Samaria to remain permanently in “Palestine.” Yet, no Israeli government can logistically remove them. They barely could uproot and relocate 8,500 from Gush Katif in 1985.
Yet old ways of thinking have persisted; as the days and then weeks drifted by there were reports of US and European pressure being applied to Israel for a delay to try and get hostages back from Hamas – a sad sign of naivety. Reportedly Qatar, very chummy with Hamas, was involved. The Israelis at least were not fooled by these tactics, which Hamas has used for years to protect itself, using the time to prepare for combat.
The real worry the US has is that this war could spread, and that’s certainly the intention of Hamas and Iran. In the days before the Israeli ground attack began there were already reports that the US had requested a delay so that they could get air-defense systems into the region to shield U.S. troops from attack in Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The source of these attacks would be any, and perhaps all, of those Iranian-backed groups noted above, itching to take on The Great Satan and thereby weaken The Little Satan. One of them may have come as a surprise, the Houthis in Yemen, far to the south of Israel.
Rota, Spain based USS Carney (DDG 64) spent the better part of two watches taking down what seems to be four land attack cruise missiles and 15 drones that were taking the long trip from Houthi controlled Yemen – directed by Iran – to Israel. The ship was not defending itself; it was stopping Houthi weapons from opening up another front against Israel.
That writer, with considerable military intelligence experience, thinks that there is a dangerous dance going on here. One “partner”, Iran, clearly wants to pull the US into this conflict, but only in such a way as to be able to humiliate them, without being exposed to the full force of American firepower. The other “partner”, the USA, wants to contain the conflict and prevent Iran’s proxies from unloading on Israel, while at the same time not getting directly involved. Hence the deployment of the USS Eisenhower and USS Ford Carrier Strike Groups in the Eastern Mediterranean; a clear warning to Iran not to unleash Hizbollah on Northern Israel, plus this stuff against the Houthis.
Which of course, like many un-choreographed dances, might end up in big fight anyway – but read the whole thing.
An example of this slow expansion came just a few days later, when the undeterred Houthis launched an actual ballistic missile, which the Israelis then intercepted and destroyed in space:
Israel’s Arrow air defense system for the first time intercepted a ballistic missile today, in an attempted strike believed to have been launched from Yemen. The Israeli Defense Forces said the interception was the first operational use of the [hypersonic] Arrow system since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, and that it “thwarted an aerial threat in the area of the Red Sea.” The IDF later said the missile was fired toward Israel but was intercepted before it could reach its target.
Great! So now the Israeli-Islamic war really has entered the cosmic realm. The Houthi’s wasted no time in retaliating, and in a fairly impressive fashion:
Iran’s Houthi proxy army in Yemen shot down a USAF MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance drone while it was flying over international waters on Wednesday.
The Reaper is a not a small, insignificant drone. It’s a serious piece of war machinery and it was over International waters. To date there has been no serious response from the USA, like massive air and missile strikes targeting every known Houthi anti-aircraft and radar installation, likely because Biden’s team is still ever-hopeful of re-starting those precious nuclear negotiations with Iran. And if you wondered how a poverty-stricken, war-torn, agriarian desert country like Yemen could get hold of ballistic missiles, as well as the Houthi’s “decision” to get involved in this stoush, well, read the history and detail:
… in all three of these areas, the Iranian proxy must take into account complex local political realities and the interests of other players – the Russians and the Assad regime in Syria, the non-Iran aligned Shi’ites, and non-Shi’ite populations with their own political connections and interests in both Lebanon and Iraq.
In Yemen, this is not the case. There, the country is divided, and in the Houthi-controlled areas, the movement maintains a monopoly of power by openly coercive means, with only the most flimsy pretense of a formal political process. And while a 2014 UN embargo against weapons transfers to the Houthis has been in place since 2014, it remains poorly enforced.
For these reasons, the Houthis have become Tehran’s preferred tool for the carrying out of strategic attacks by proxy. The use by the Houthis/Ansar Allah of ballistic missiles against Israel brings this process to its highest point yet.
Strategic! But when it’s tactical stuff on the ground the Iranians will reach for a different weapon, Signs That Iran Will Open A Front Against Israel From The Syrian Golan Heights (link for the detail):
These indications include reports of the reinforcement of forces in areas bordering Israel, with an emphasis on Quneitra and the Daraa region; the Syrian army’s heightened alert level; threats by the Shi’ite militias to open a Golan front; reports of frequent and secret visits to Syria by IRGC Qods Force commander Esmail Qa’ani; and also visits by senior leaders of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq to areas bordering Israel and the establishment of a joint operations room comprising Iran, Hizbullah, Iran-backed militias, and the Palestinian factions.
Israel is well aware of this, has not forgotten the success of The Six Day War, and so…. Israel Facing Pressure to Launch Major Strike Against Hezbollah:
The Israeli government is coming under growing pressure from security establishment hawks to launch a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah in Lebanon – but is facing strong opposition from the US, which fears a two-front war would risk igniting a major regional conflict…. British prime minister Rishi Sunak has also been touring the region, seeking to prevent the conflict spreading.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ultimately cooled on the idea.
That was on October 22, but the pressure in those Northern areas has only increased the closer Israel comes to destroying Hamas in Gaza, with Hezbollah increasing the tempo of attacks. Hamas is well aware of this too, as they said the other day in a typically sympathetic NYT article that, We ‘Hope That the State of War With Israel Will Become Permanent on All the Borders’.
The exact opposite of the goals of Israel and the USA, hence the latter’s actions to date, all intended to try and keep Iran out of this fight – depending:
Top U.S. Senators said over the weekend that they are introducing a bipartisan resolution calling for military strikes against Iran if its terror proxies in the Middle East kill any U.S. soldiers or if Hezbollah opens up a second front against Israel.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) made the remarks during a CNN interview Sunday morning with Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
I can’t say I’m surprised or impressed by Graham’s involvement since it seems there’s never been a foreign war he didn’t want the US to be involved in, and Blumenthal is famous for his fake Vietnam service claims. What a pair to have on this issue.
By contrast both America and Iran continue their dance:
Iranian Defense Minister Mohammed-Reza Ashtiani was bluntly direct with his message. Over the weekend he declared that Iran will take action if a cease-fire is not implemented by Israel in Gaza. “Our advice to the Americans is to immediately stop the war in Gaza and implement a ceasefire, otherwise they will be hit hard.”
Yeah, yeah. Frankly I think they’re happy to play the long game, right up to the point where they can shelter their proxies under a nuclear umbrella and attrit Israel into destruction slowly. Meantime the US plays footsie, courtesy of one Vedant Patel who serves as the Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State and has been a comms lackey for Biden forever:
First, I would say any notion that a message has been sent is categorically false. That is not true. But, from day one of this administration, we have been clear-eyed about the many threats that are posed by Iran, and since these October 7th attacks and even prior to that, we have used a combination of deterrence, pressure, and diplomacy to continue to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities.
Right, so talk about “deterrence, pressure, and diplomacy” followed by a “categorical” denial that a message has been sent. Good old diplomatic double-speak. Still, as Churchill once said, “Better jaw, jaw than war, war”. But even Churchill knew when war was inevitable and between the USA and Iran it is.
Meantime there are those who think that the geo-political implications of all this extend far beyond the Middle East, such as former CIA analyst and now NZ resident, Dr Paul Buchanan, who opines that the Israel-Gazan war portends a North-South face-off, as former Western colonial states in the South, egged on by two Northern Hemisphere powers in China and Russia, slowly side against a declining America and West, together with their “Rules Based World Order”. Long version(podcast of 1h 11m) here:
[T]he Hamas-Israel war is a precipitant for the consolidation of this new type of bipolarism–two multipolar constellations competing with each other on numerous geopolitical fronts.
I have been writing about the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity in international affairs since the inception of this blog. Although still in progress, that realignment has pretty much proven true but not in the way I and others assumed that it would. Rather than a move to a system dominated by several Great Powers balancing each other on specific policy issues within a common institutional framework, what is emerging is two competing constellations of States joined by non-State actors such as high technology firms and various ideological proxies and surrogates. These blocs are not formal alliances but instead are loose networks of actors that share perspectives and values on the world order. One defends the current status quo, the other does not.
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The one that does not represents the post-colonial Global “South.” The one that does represents the liberal internationalist order created by and for imperialist/colonial and neo-imperialist/post-colonial Northern powers beginning in the 17th and continuing well into the late 20th century.
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The intention of this emerging constellation…. is not so much to push a Southern Hemisphere outlook on world affairs but to create a parallel institutional edifice that will eventually replace liberal internationalist institutions as the main conduits of international exchange.
Well that’s PhD’s in geo-politics for you: a lot of moving cogs and when I listened to the podcast I couldn’t help hearing a lot of old-time commie wish-casting for the fall of America, plus more modern theories around de-colonialisation that would cause the likes of Brazil, India and others to side against the “colonial settlers” of Israel.
I’m not so sure about that, given that many of those nations have moved far beyond their colonial roots and don’t feel oppressed in the way that indigenous groups might in Australia, American and NZ. It may well be that the likes of India regard post-colonial theory as just another patronising Western wank in which they have no interest and will not use to guide their relationship with Israel for example.
I’ll stick with merely thinking about the more localised shit-storm in the Middle East, the shorter-term view of Israel destroying Hamas and then facing the godawful task of trying to occupy and mold a Gaza that is not lethal to Israel, and the fate of Iran, which will surely exhaust US coddling when Biden departs.
No Minister 