Israel-Iran: Hell on earth

Iran's retaliatory attacks in the weekend on Israeli soil, had brought the world to a standstill, as Israel's allies rushed to take down hundreds of drones and missiles. It was the US, not Israel, that shot down most of Iran's drones; the Pentagon coordinated a multinational region-wide defense from northern Iraq to the southern Persian gulf. Had merely one missile gotten through to kill Israelis, the war clouds darkening the skies over the Middle East would've caused a black-out in the region. While parallels with World War I may seem contrived, Iran's attacks on Israel have shifted the strategic reality in the region. 

The media is filled with debates about whether the attack was a success or a failure, and who won and who lost. Iran managed to hit two military targets on the ground in Israel, including Nevatim Air Base. Scott Ritter, a former United Nations Special Commission (UNSC) inspector analysing the attack, has said, "There is no other place on the planet, not the White House, not the Kremlin, that has the level and density of sophisticated anti-ballistic missiles than Nevatim Air Field. My understanding is that Iran launched 7 missiles, 2 of them were probably shot down but 5 hit despite all of this." He further added, "This should prove to everybody, Israeli and American alike, that there is no defense against Iranian missiles." 

While assessing the historic attack, Iran's domestic political factors must also be factored into the geopolitical equation. Recently, there has been a resurgence of Shia supremacists in Iran such as the Paydari Front, similar to the Zionists sitting in the Israeli cabinet. The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami, has also said the regime is now moving away from "strategic patience," and working with "a new equation." It is unclear whether Iran would risk a full-blown costly war, and whether their bellicose rhetoric will be another warning, steering clear of casualties, like their salvo of hundreds of drones was. But an emotional Israel that crosses the line has the potential to unleash catastrophe. 

On one end, Netanyahu may be tempted to bargain with Biden, and hold off on Iran, provided that Washington supports its planned offensive against Rafah. The other option is pretty straightforward: a direct airstrike on Iran, which would inevitably drag the US into it. The Israeli government, in their own words, has claimed they are a "nation of lions," and vowed to "exact a price." That price comes either at the cost of the Biden administration or the US security itself or both. 

— Ramisa Rob

Israel's allies are now scrambling, working around the clock, to convince Israel to restrain after cleaning up its mess all weekend. The road ahead, that we are looking at, could potentially lead to a war that every world power is looking to avoid, but one that could be inevitable if there is any miscalculation on either side testing the tolerance of the other. To note: when we speak about Israel's response, we must also factor in the US fully, and the rest of the West to an extent. And when we speak about Iran, we are also talking about Russia—which exports Iran's Shahed drones and has used it to great effect in Ukraine—and consider China, as demonstrated by Iran's BRICS membership last year. 

Iran's retaliation to Israel's deadly attack on its Consulate shares an eerie similarity to its response to the assassination of its top general, Qassim Soleimani, in 2020, by the US. Iran attacked two US air bases in Iraq, avoiding casualties, and received no further retaliation from the US. While the optics of Iran's attacks on Israel seem disproportionate, its actual toll with one serious injury, compared to 110 injured troops in 2020 is far less. The Western media at the time, took to rebuking Trump for escalating tensions with Iran; New York Times published reports that loudly declared, "Seven days in January: How Trump Pushed US and Iran to the Brink of War." By contrast, on Tuesday, April 17, a leaked memo from the NYT, obtained by The Intercept, shows that the paper's editors and deputies handed out directives to their journalists, restricting them to use words like "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing," and avoid using the phrase "occupied land" when describing Palestinian land. 

Other previously credible, liberal outlets—or perhaps it's more accurate to describe them now as pro-Biden or pro-Dem—such as Vox, ran analyses in 2020, interviewed defence experts, to establish that a war between the US and Iran would look like "hell on earth." Where are those punchy articles now though? Where's the rebuke for Netanyahu that they had so emphatically extended to Trump? The same Vox, at the aftermath of an-edge-of-the-cliff-situation provoked by Netanyahu's government, has concluded, "Israel beat Iran—for now."  

If Donald Trump is a threat to US national security—which he surely is—why isn't Netanyahu and Israel not being called as one, especially by the New York Times? It's important to learn from the history of the Trump-Iran face-off in January 2020, and understand that the restraint from the US to not further retaliate avoided what could've been "hell on earth." Netanyahu and the Israeli government which provoked this paradigm shift from a shadow war to a direct conflict, for the worse, is a grave threat to US national security. Iran sent a message in their attacks on Israel: "Control." The message was clearly intended to the US too, because Tehran's long-held strategic aim has been to end the US presence in a region it seeks to dominate. The US' backing of Israel in its genocide in Gaza has created the perfect excuse for Iran to advance that strategy, and it shows. 

According to analysts, Netanyahu has two options that serve his political interest, that of perpetual war as the minute the war ends in Gaza, so does his political career. On one end, Netanyahu may be tempted to bargain with Biden, and hold off on Iran, provided that Washington supports its planned offensive against Rafah. The other option is pretty straightforward: a direct airstrike on Iran, which would inevitably drag the US into it.

The Israeli government, in their own words, has claimed they are a "nation of lions," and vowed to "exact a price." That price comes either at the cost of the Biden administration or the US security itself or both. Joe Biden's choices are either to back Israel's advance on Rafah and ruin his 50-years of a career to Trump, or risk his nation being dragged into a war with Iran. Whether he realises it—or is willing to admit it—or not, Netanyahu played Biden like a fiddle. 

Biden's confusing actions in the aftermath of the Iran attacks reflect the tremendous pressure he is under. After announcing that the US would not participate in any counteroffensive against Iran, later on Sunday, Biden pushed the House of Representatives and Senators to pass additional wartime funding and military aid to Israel. The Biden administration is in a geopolitical mess created by Israel, as well as its own deplorable sponsorship of Israel's genocide on Gaza—the root of this mess. 

Let's elaborate further on the dilemmas hovering over Biden's head. On one hand, he has an election to win soon, and further backing Israel's genocide in Gaza would highly increase the chances of his lengthy political tenure ending with the label "Genocide Joe." On the other hand, the US directly engaging in Israel's war with Iran would be disastrous, both geopolitically and strategically. Economically, it would cause a hike in oil prices and lead to a further global economic downturn. If the US chooses to isolate Israel, it would risk a divorce with its biggest ally. And if the US chooses to back Israel's conflagration with Iran, it runs the risk of isolating itself with Western democracies who might pursue sensible diplomatic outreach to Iran to not entangle themselves in a costly and deadly war, with the exception of the UK, of course. 

Biden's best option is to engage in dialogue with Tehran. And that includes a compromise with Israel, or bending down to Israel. Either way, Biden loses. 

Iran will not capitulate from retaliation; it will only accelerate the current spiral. This is all leaving morality aside. The best course of action is what Biden should've done a long time ago: demanded a halt in Israel's bombardment in Gaza, and forced Israel to normalise with Arab nations with whom it shares animosity against Iran, and recognise Palestinian statehood. But that ship has sailed far out of reach. 

In a way, Israel's selfish Netanyahu has been a gift for Iran, and Biden's first mistake was handing out a carte blanche to Netanyahu's Israel—which simply, and immensely, does not care about the US. Further US military aid to Israel now, will undoubtedly aggravate the genocide in Gaza and even give ammunition to Israel to poke Iran more and find an excuse to divert the war to a wider conflict. Giving Israel weapons right now will be another big mistake by Biden. Does one give guns to serial killers and expect them to be peaceful with them?  

Aside from Israel's response to Iran directly, the tensions brewing between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon—which is also the most strongly armed non-state actor, with 150,000 missiles and rockets—is another front that has the potential to erupt into a wider war between Iran and Israel. After more than six months of near-daily attacks between the armed group and Israel, on Monday, April 15, Hezbollah for the first time, claimed responsibility for detonating planted explosives when a group of Israeli soldiers crossed into Lebanon. Four Israeli soldiers have reportedly been injured. 

Militarily, Israel can severely injure Iran, particularly with its world's most potent Air Force, but it cannot necessarily "beat" Iran in war. Aside from Iran's vast network of proxies, it also has the numbers: more than half a million active-duty military personnel. Iran has built a long-range air defense system, Bavar-373. Its claimed capabilities are reportedly on par or better than those of the Russian S-300 or the US Patriot. 

In the naval front, Iran has armed its recent Revolutionary Guards' navy with drones and its 600 mile range missiles. Russia, which possessed few drones at the start of its invasion of Ukraine, began using two types of Iran-made Shahed drones: the long-ranging Shahed-131 and Shahed-136. Furthermore, Iran's strengthening ties with Russia give the secretive nation a significant military edge and render it a more formidable enemy to defeat as Israeli leaders debate military retaliation, experts say. According to a recent report by the Washington Post, a delegation of Iranian officials visited a Russian factory last March, which has "anti-aircraft batteries—including Russia's S-400, which analysts assess to be capable of detecting and destroying stealth fighter jets flown by Israel and the United States." 

Though Israel has significant missile stockpiles, Iran possesses the "largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East," according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project. The nation's longest-range platforms are ballistic missiles—Sejjil, Ghadr and Khorramshahr—which can reach targets to around 1,240 miles, including all of Israel. 

And then there's the question of Iran's nuclear programme, which Iran denies while also arguing that it has the right to access "civil" nuclear energy. According to a report on US foreign policy on Iran, published this January by Congressional Report Service, Iran "reportedly increased its nuclear activities in the context of heightened regional tensions in late 2023." Regardless of whether the nation has a covert fortress of a nuclear programme, Iran's close ties with Russia, and China—with whom the US is entangled in a Cold War—provide the nation with heavyweight backers. An eruption of the conflict has the possibility to unite Russia and China on the Iran axis with their common interest to destroy US hegemony. The US' need for a highly measured, or even lack of response from Israel cannot be overstated. 

Even for the US, engaging in a war with Iran would exhaust its resources. Pentagon officials in 2019, estimated that a strategy to destroy Iranian nuclear weapon facilities would require a minimum of 120,000 troops throughout the Middle East. The US would not be able to overwhelm the Iranian military capacity with a strategy reliant on air and naval power, even more so now that Iran has increased its military spending. 

The US has clearly expressed it does not want war with Iran, which has also sent the same message. Israeli President Herzog has also said they are not seeking war but there's no predicting the leadership of Netanyahu and his cabinet with the likes of its Finance Minister Bezazel Smotrich who called for a retaliation that "resonates through the Middle East," and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who said Israel should "go crazy." The truth is, no one truly knows what lies ahead. Geopolitics is playing like a nail-biting game of chess, and if the action and reaction cycle continues, a slightly wrong move from any key player could tip the world over the edge.

Ramisa Rob is a journalist, in-charge of Geopolitical Insights at The Daily Star. 

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