Recently it seems that we are witnessing increasingly more omens that foreshadow an imminent full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah, such as the proximity of the Eisenhauer carrier to the Israel’s shores, and proclamations by Amos Hochstein, US special envoy, on the failure to secure a viable arrangement on the Israel-Lebanon border.
The more these signs appeared, the more signals Iran has been sending out, warning that if Israel dares to initiate military action against Hezbollah – Iran would retaliate with an attack against Israel.
Iran’s agenda is clear – it is interested in ending the war, and if indeed this happens in the current state of affairs, Iran will be able to pitch this as a colossal success. This will crown the Republic as the dominant power in the Middle East, on a very imminent threshold of nuclear capabilities, and with numerous global and regional tentacles of terror at its disposal. Of these proxies, two are grasping at Israel – Hamas, which Iran will rehabilitate, and Hezbollah, which with the exception of a few mere scratches, would emerge mostly unscathed from the current conflict.
Not dragged into conflict but initiate it
At the same time, the intentions of the US are vague. Last week’s statement by Chief of Joint staff, General Charles Brown, that the US would find it challenging to protect Israel in the event of a war on Israel’s northern border, is not only tantamount to the abandonment of Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah, but also in its defense against the threat from Iran, as, according to Brown, a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah might drag Iran into war with Israel.
Does relating to Iran as one that could be “dragged into” a conflict indicate a lack of understanding on part of the General of the fact that Iran is not one to be “dragged” into war but rather initiate it?
Iran, which states on every opportunity it gets, that its goal is the annihilation of the State of Israel, is in fact the root cause of destabilization – and not only across the Middle East. Iran is an active member of the axis of evil, alongside China and Russia. If the Americans have any designs of getting Iran to cross the line by sacrificing Israel, then it is clear that never have Americans negotiated with an Iranian merchant; Iran will rake in anything that the United States could give it, and then turn around and use those same assets to attack the West, in the exact same manner that the Palestinians did with every asset they received from Israel.
There is no diplomatic arrangement or agreement that can survive Iran’s deadly intentions. Attempts to reach an arrangement in Gaza, with the help of the Saudis, preempting a campaign in Lebanon, might have been a noble cause if it wouldn’t have entailed a significant setback in dealing with Iran. Therefore, when the West finally finds itself in a conflict with the Republic, it will have come to find that it is on the battlefield facing a nuclear power, which is now significantly stronger economically and bolstered by many more Middle Eastern allies than before, and with a much stronger and steadier government.
And Iran’s growing stability and power is not a matter limited to Iran or even to the Middle East alone – it spells a tectonic change in the global geopolitical map. If Iran gets the upper hand in the current conflict, the Middle East will become Europe’s “Soviet Union”, with Iran and its allies jostling to become the most extreme anti-Western regime that inflicts the most harm on Western states.
The Obligation of the free world
In this matter it is important to precisely understand the concept of “victory”. On part of the Iranians, victory in the current round means in fact the failure to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah, its eschewing any accountability for its part in the war, and the continuation of the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, undefeated means victory, for Iran and its proxies.
It therefore behooves the forcers at play in the free world to recalculate the Middle Eastern challenge, firstly understanding that the future of the West will be written in Gaza and Lebanon. Although the war in the Middle East seems far removed from the citizens of Berlin and Paris, they might find that their destinies were determined by a victory of the Iranian bloc in the current conflict.
The free world must acknowledge this and take a decisive and active stand to thwart this existential threat against it, and ensure the defeat of Iran.
At present, there is a window of opportunity to launch an attack on Iran, but it is rapidly closing. Iran had skillfully built a nuclear program that is hard to hit. However, even if this program cannot be completely shot down, it can be compromised and brought to a significant slowdown. And right now, the West needs all the time it can buy in order to eliminate the looming threat.
In order for any attack to obtain more than just a slowdown of Iran’s nuclear program, the West must be quick to leverage the disquiet that is sure to arise in the country following such an attack, and make two complementary steps: firstly, assist in fomenting any internal civic uprising, to undermine one of the cruelest regimes the world has known. Secondly, at the same time launch a decisive strike against Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah.
If the West skillfully takes decisive measures against the Iranian legacy of terror – it will have saved not only the Middle East, but itself as well.
The article was originally published on Makor Rishon
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement
