AFTER years of high-level US pressure on its allies for restraint, Israel’s attack on Iran takes the region and Western-led diplomacy into uncharted territory.
Iran and Israel have long waged a shadow war, highlighted by the killing of a Tehran nuclear scientist and attacks on Israel by the clerical state’s allies in the Arab world such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but the United States has placed top priority on preventing a full-blown war. war.
The deadliest attack ever once morest Israel, carried out on October 7 by the Iran-backed Palestinian militant Hamas, rocked Israel and stiffened its resolve, with President Joe Biden’s administration succumbing to restrictions rather than preventing regional turmoil.
“A direct strike by Iran and Israel is a milestone, because it completely changes the rules of interaction between the two adversaries,” said Merissa Khurma, director of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center.
“This also increases tensions in the region. “This makes the specter of all-out war very real for many countries in the region,” he said.
Israel on Friday morning appeared to launch an attack near the Iranian city of Isfahan, following Iran last weekend launched its first direct attack on Israel with a barrage of 300 missiles, drones and rockets.
Also read: US Defense Secretary Warns Israel of Increasing Middle East Tensions Threat
Neither direct Iranian nor Israeli attacks are known to have caused major casualties or damage and neither country has publicly confirmed Friday’s attacks, leading US officials to privately voice hope that Iran will not retaliate and that the cycle will end.
Forcing Iran to change its calculus
The Iranian drone attack was in turn revenge for Israel’s destruction of the Iranian consulate building in Syria on April 1 which killed seven members of the Iranian consulate. The elite Revolutionary Guards included two generals.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, said Israel was clearly calculating the consequences of an attack on Damascus – and he pointed to speculation that Israel may be hoping to draw in the United States, which has been increasingly critical. Israel’s relentless attacks on Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Also read: Explosion in Iran, US Media Reports Israeli Attack
Vatanka said Israel was trying to force Iran – an enemy since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western shah – to rethink the impact versus benefits of its “Axis of Resistance”, fighters across the region including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria. and Yemen, which was fostered by Tehran for two decades.
“This is a very simple model in the sense that Iran fights its enemies in the region so that it doesn’t have to fight them inside Iranian territory,” Vatanka said.
“That basic calculus is being tested because of what Israel has done, I believe it was intentional,” he said.
Also read: Oil prices fall thanks to hopes of reduced escalation following the Iran attack
Both Biden and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, have advised on diplomacy regarding military action with Iran, and Obama was negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal hated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden’s Republican challenger in November, Donald Trump, as president scrapped the nuclear deal and imposed sweeping sanctions, which have hurt Iran’s economy but have not halted Tehran’s regional strategy.
Diplomatic success following failure?
Israel does not appear to be targeting Iran’s nuclear sites — although the message is clear as Isfahan is the province home to Iran’s main nuclear facility, Natanz.
“Israel wants to show Iran what it can do without actually doing it,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group.
US officials worry that a direct Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would cause the ruling clerics to rush to build a bomb, quickly launch a war and encourage Arab states that compete with Iran such as Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons.
The Iranian and Israeli attacks prompted criticism from both the left and the right that the Biden administration had failed to achieve its main post-October 7 goal of preventing regional war.
But the United States has also quietly pressured Israel and Iran to limit their attacks, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sought to send a message to Tehran through his Chinese, Turkish, German and other counterparts.
“Diplomatic efforts over the past week have focused heavily on de-escalation and – for now – appear to have been successful,” Khurma said. (AFP/Z-3)
#Middle #East #Enters #Era #Israels #Attack #Iran
