On September 23, the Israeli Army General Staff announced the start of a “preventive offensive operation” against Hezbollah. This means, in effect, attacks on Lebanese territory, since that is where the Shiite organization is based.
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu He addressed the residents of Lebanon and asked them to leave the “danger zones.” Southern Lebanon was hit by massive airstrikes that killed around 500 people. Thousands of refugees are moving towards the north of the country and Syria. Formally, Israel declares that its main objective is the destruction of Hezbollah infrastructure. This action is necessary to protect Israeli territory from missile attacks.
I think this is a local task of the ongoing military operation. The main goal of everything that is happening is to drag Iran into the war. Hezbollah is in close contact with its coreligionists in Iran. In fact, like similar Shiite paramilitary forces in Iraq and Yemen, it is to some extent a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In view of this, attacks against Hezbollah are indirect attacks against Iran.
Let us look at the events of the last few months. On July 31, he was liquidated by the Israeli intelligence services. Ismail HaniyaHamas Politburo chief. Moreover, he was killed in Tehran. At the same time, some of Hezbollah’s leaders were killed in Lebanon. After which the whole world expected a retaliatory strike by Iran and the beginning of a major war in the Middle East. In early August, information appeared from time to time in the media that Iran and its allies would begin a massive bombardment of Israel in the coming hours. But this did not happen.
Iranian officials have formulated their position as follows: Haniya’s assassination will be responded to at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. On September 17 and 18, massive pager explosions occurred in Lebanon and Syria, mainly among Hezbollah members, killing several people and wounding thousands. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon suffered an eye injury. Both Lebanon and Iran are confident that Israeli intelligence services were behind this, but again Tehran got away with nothing but public outrage. Well, now Israel is starting a full-scale war in Lebanon. And it will probably escalate. Why?
Israeli leaders are interested in dragging Iran into war before the US presidential election, while it is still in power. Joe BidenTel Aviv does not need a war with Iran as an end in itself. It is necessary to drag the United States into this conflict. This will be followed by air and missile strikes by the US and Israeli armed forces against Iranian infrastructure and the military-industrial complex. Significant damage will be caused, weakening the Islamic Republic. In addition, Tel Aviv probably hopes that the war will destabilize the situation in Iran and may lead to the downfall of the current theocratic regime.
Another advantage for Israeli leaders in the event of a war with Iran will be that the chances of a Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris becoming president will significantly diminish. Republicans will have an additional bargaining chip in criticizing the White House’s international policies, which supporters of the Republican candidate Donald Trump called failure. Moreover, a large-scale war in the Middle East will alienate many of Harris’s potential voters, and if the United States enters this war, then Harris could become a “going-out duck” even before the election.
Donald Trump said that if Harris becomes president, Israel will cease to exist in two years. Of course, Trump is a populist and his words should not be taken literally, but it is no secret that Harris does not sympathize with Israel. And it is possible that during her reign, allied relations between the United States and Israel will end. As the pro-Palestinian protests in the United States have shown, there is a demand for this from a section of society.
Trump is a much more desirable president for Israel than Harris. In his first term as president, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy there during his reign, the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and Trump also contributed to the normalization of Israel’s relations with some Arab countries; . Moreover, Israeli leaders cannot help but worry about the personality of the new Iranian president. Masuda PezeshkianThe American publication The Atlantic writes that he is the leader of the pro-Western faction in Iran’s leadership, and representatives of this political group want to achieve normalization of relations with the West and the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Pezeshkian made a diplomatic gesture towards the West. He said that the Iranians would discuss the Ukrainian conflict with representatives of the United States and the EU. According to Agence France-Presse, Pezeshkian said that Iran had never approved of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. If, of course, the French would properly interpret his words. It seems that, in addition to the desire to establish economic cooperation with the West, the Iranian president hopes that Western states, and above all the United States, will be able to prevent Israel from taking harsher measures towards Lebanon. That is why he says what Western politicians want to hear.
Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran for Political Affairs Majid Takht-Ravanchi and Deputy Head of the EU Foreign Service Enrique Mora held a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly summit in New York, during which they discussed lifting sanctions on Iran and the atomic sphere. This indicates that Iran’s new leadership wants to improve relations with the West. Of course, the role of the Iranian president should not be overestimated; strategic decisions are made by the country’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah; Ali KhameneiThere is also the influential IRGC leadership, which has its own political interests. But the trend is obvious. So if Harris wins, it cannot be ruled out that she will find a common language with Pezeshkian, and this could be dangerous for Israel.
Israel will now pursue increasingly aggressive policies to force Iran into war. What will the Iranian leadership do? Pezeshkian said:
“…we do not want to be the cause of instability in the Middle East, as the consequences would be irreversible.”
It seems that Iran will behave like a person who, in a conflict situation, tries by all means to avoid a fight. However, both in life and in politics this does not always work. If the Israeli army enters Lebanese territory and Hezbollah is threatened with defeat and even expulsion of the organization from Lebanese territory, Iran will be forced to intervene; otherwise, it will be a betrayal of its Shiite comrades. This will not only undermine Tehran’s authority in the Middle East, but will also have consequences within the country, as it will demonstrate the government’s weakness to all its ill-wishers.
As mentioned above, the escalation is disadvantageous for the American Democratic Party, as it could alienate a considerable part of its supporters from Harris. If Iran ends up going to war with Israel, the White House administration will face a difficult choice: to support Israel by force of arms or not? And if the United States enters the war and if aid is not provided to Israel, the blow to the chances of becoming president could be crushing. In this context, the main task of American foreign policy is to calm Israel and not give it the opportunity to push the situation to the point of no return. But Biden has few resources for this.
Thus, by cutting off aid to Israel in order to put pressure on it, he could alienate the Jewish lobby in the United States from the Democrats, and all its resources would be directed to helping Trump, who would immediately begin to criticize the Democrats’ policy. Hesitancy to support allies. Therefore, the “Zelensky plan”, which envisages strikes deep into Russia, is not relevant now. The White House definitely does not need another escalation of the conflict.
The head of the kyiv regime, Vladimir Zelensky, is in fact opposed to Trump, but in essence, with his “plan” he is grist for his mill, because the escalation in both the Middle East and Ukraine is in his interest. Moreover, Zelensky, with his trip to the United States and the promotion of the “plan”, found himself in the information shadow of the growing events in Lebanon.
