Iran At the Helm

At a time when the Palestinians are being killed, maimed, starved in violation of all that is legal and humane, it is difficult for political observers to write about the fall of the United States and Israel who have decided to flout all opinion, international law, in their endeavour to annihilate the Palestinians.

But some such articles have appeared by well known commentators, and now it is becoming increasingly clear the US order in the Middle East is being challenged by the Arab nations under pressure from their people, and of course Iran that has been taking a clear cut position over the decades of sanctions and specific targeting by Washington. To a point where American diplomacy has failed entirely in the region, and Israel has been brought directly into the field to begin a military war as Washington and the flailing US President Joe Biden will help it retain its regional domination.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who has been visiting what were seen as American allies in the Middle East has drawn a blank everywhere. Even though many of these Arab countries given their politics of the past have not been able to complete sever links with Tel Aviv, they have also rejected Blinken’s effort to help turn the tide and bring Israel back from the pariah status it has acquired over these months through its attack on the Palestinians. The legitimacy of the state of Israel’s declaration that it has the right to defend itself has itself come under question now, with its government under Benjamin Netanyahu coming under serious flak even within that country as the assault on babies and civilians in Gaza continues.

The efforts by Israel and its mentors in Washington to push the Palestinians out of Gaza into neighbouring countries has failed, as all have stood up against this effort towards Zionist expansion of territory and power. To the point where Netanyahu’s game plan to expand; to break the spirit of the Palestinians; to dominate world opinion with the help of the US corporate owned world media has failed, completely and utterly. It has been able to keep sections of its own population in ignorance, as perhaps have the Americans, but the flow of videos and news of the dastardly attack on the Palestinians has shaken the world. Large protests by the people have turned governments with UN resolutions against Israel now being supported even by countries it had taken for granted as its allies. At least publicly most of these governments cannot be seen to support the one sided war where all military might is used against a hapless population. As the South Africans said in their absolutely brilliant legal presentation before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, nothing, no action can justify genocide and what is happening to the Palestinians where children’s limbs are being amputated without anaesthesia, where entire families have been wiped out, where hospitals are bombed and journalists – almost a 100– targeted and killed.

Despite this devastation, Israel is losing ground steadily. Netanyahu will be removed from power the moment he stops bombing Gaza, that is a certainty. And while the Americans are expanding the war to hit Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Blinken is well aware even if his foggy President is not, that an attack on Iran will have dire repercussions for Israel and indeed the world.

Iran has steadily expanded its resistance footprint and does not bother to hide it. It has supported and promoted Hamas in Gaza — terrorist the West might say but for the Palestinians an elected entity —and although there is no proof Tehran is largely being credited with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The military operation as it were took place under the noses of the Israeli military, cocked a bloody snook at the Israeli’s much touted surveillance system, and exposed the government as never before. Even now, despite the nature of the Israeli assault, Hamas is fighting back with Tel Aviv reporting army casualties on a regular basis. In brief, Hamas rhetoric has been supplemented by military training and some equipment. Iran stands out here.

In Yemen, that Saudi Arabia inspired by the Americans attacked and wounded, the Houthis have moved into the seas to stop ships to Israel. These men in old boats (but again with sufficient training and determination of course) have made it clear they are doing this for the Palestinians and were able to draw blood to a point where the US had to form a coalition of mighty military powers to attack the Houthis and Yemen. Again bombs. Diplomacy that Blinken must have tried during his hurried visits to countries in the Middle East clearly did not work.

Iran and Hezbollah are extremely close, and the irony that should not be lost on nations like Saudi Arabia, is that the largely Sunni Palestinians (though they do not divide themselves as such) are being supported by the Shia’s, a minority in the region. Not just supported in rhetoric but direct action. Hezbollah who exercised their military power for the first time in 2006 had given a bloody nose to Israel then. This is the second time that the organisation has entered the fray, using rockets to strike at Israeli targets. Israel has of course, turned to its air power to bomb what it claims are Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon. Again war, no diplomacy.

Israel and the Americans are now engaged in war with what Washington terms as Iran’s proxies in the region. Even as it continues to bomb and attack the Palestinian civilians on a daily basis, it is now attacking Yemen, Lebanon in a more sustained manner. Iraq has now raised its voice, Syria continues to be in opposition despite having surrendered large tracts of land to the US, Egypt is paralysed because of the large peoples protests, Turkey’s Erdogan is spewing fire at least in words, Jordan has supported the Palestinians in strong words, Saudi and the Gulf while always spineless where the west is concerned are also shackled by the protests in their lands, and the outpouring of support for the Palestinians.

And while Russia and China have kept a distance, at least so far, it is clear that any action against Iran by Washington will bring these two countries into the turbulent Middle East. As one writes, news has come in of almost direct Iranian intervention with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian armed forces, launching ballistic missiles at what it described as the “headquarters of spies” in Erbil, northern Iraq on Monday night. According to media reports ten missiles fell near the U.S. Consulate.

Iran’s state news agency released a statement maintaining, ‘in response to the recent evil acts of the Zionist regime in martyring IRGC and resistance commanders, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, with its nobility and intelligence, targeted and destroyed one of the main headquarters of Israel’s spying agency Mossad in Iraq’s Kurdistan region by firing ballistic missiles.”

Often wars are fought by the weak and not the strong, and in the current scenario the US and Israel are leading the world to the precipice of a third global war in a desperate effort to avert or at least delay their drop into a self-created abyss.