What next in the Middle East? Is there a way out of the deadly war this is threatening to expand to a regional conflict?
Israel has done what it had to, it is now for Iran and Hezbollah to react. On Sunday Hezbollah and Israel fired rockets at each other’s targets, but till the time of writing there has been no further escalation. Yet tension is high all around the region in expectation of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack on Israel.
Most countries, including India had advised citizens from travelling to Lebanon. Those already there had been asked to leave and those who are unable to do so are asked to exercise extreme caution and be in contact with the mission in Beirut. Many airlines have stopped operations to Lebanon. The region is bracing for war, but is war inevitable?
It is clear that neither the Hezbollah nor certainly not Iran wants a full-scale war. Iran knows well that Netanyahu would love to draw Tehran to a conventional war. The Supreme leader is aware that after nearly four decades of sanctions, Iran is no match for the American armed IDF with its state-of-the-art equipment. Iran has "strategic patience" and will instead activate its proxies in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. A conventional war would weaken Iran considerably. Iran knows well that Israel would be further strengthened with the US backing and Washington’s oft repeated catch phrase about Israel’s "right to defend itself".
A war helps no one but Netanyahu and the hardline fringe groups that now make up his support base. Netanyahu has no vision for the day-after and not willing to accept the two-state formula now back in focus as the only way for a permanent solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The much-anticipated peace deal has been given a death blow with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the chief peace negotiator for Hamas. Back-to-back assassinations in Tehran and Beirut, where Faud Shukr, the Hezbollah commander was taken out is working to Israels’ promise of eliminating all those responsible for the October 7 attack. Netanyahu will win brownie points from his far-right allies, but families of the remaining hostages will not welcome a war which has given a go-by to the release of their loved ones. Benjamin Netanyahu had always been ambivalent about a peace agreement that was desperately being pushed by the Joe Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar. Hamas too was keen, at least the moderate leadership represented by Ismail Haniyeh.
Iran and its proxies:
The killing of Haniyeh in Tehran, where he was a invited guest of the establishment for the inauguration of newly elected president Masoud Pezeshkian, is a double humiliation for Iran’s leadership. The state was unable to protect an honoured guest in its own territory. Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is on a weak wicket. There is widespread unrest in the country, by a people worn-out by decades of sanctions, inflation and economic woes. On top of all these problems there is widespread anger against the regime for forcing down strict Islamic hijab rules on people. The death of young Masha Amin in custody for not wearing her headscarf according to the guidelines set by the moral police, sparked massive anti-government protests rocked Iran in the autumn of 2022.Women threw off their head scarves, cut off their flowing locks in defiance of the regime. The crackdown was brutal. The regime was finally able to suppress it but there is simmering anger.There is no love for the harsh Ayatollah regime among large sections of Iranians and any force be it external or internal that weakens the regime iswelcome.
Speaking of Haniyeh’s assassination, retired US marine Col, Stephen Ganyard, a former deputy assistant secretary of state pointed out: "What's interesting about this is first they [Israel] had to have intelligence to know exactly which room that this leader was staying in and then they would have had to have the precision to hit just that room. And they do have these long-range weapons that have the ability to pick individual windows if needed." He added that Israel likely chose Tehran to kill Haniyeh because it has an "amazing amount of on-the-ground intelligence there."
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad hired Iranian agents to plant explosives in three different rooms in Tehran in the building where Haniyeh was staying. The explosives were detonated remotely from abroad the paper said. Expectedly there is no confirmation of this report. But this falls in place with what Ganyard had said. A disaffected population is Iran’s major weakness. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has accused Israel of killing Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh using a "short-range projectile" fired from outside his residence in Tehran. The IRGC version runs counter to the Daily Telegraph report.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot let the assassination of Haniyeh pass without a response. The question is what can it do. After the attack on the Iranian mission in Damascus, Iran launched a volley of missile and rocket attacks on Israel on April 13, but it did minimum damage. Iran is too weak to do much. Israel with the full backing of the US is one of the strongest military powers in the region. After the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, the US had already sent out additional jet fighters and an aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln, from the Pacific to the middle east anticipating retaliation from for the assassinations.
Hezbollah :
Hezbollah also is not keen on an all- out war with Israel. Like Iran it has to respond but at a time and place of its choice. The Iranian-backed Houthis of Yemen have already made plying the Mediterranean waters a problem for international tankers and is expected to step up attacks against "enemy" tankers. Most analysts believe that Iran, Hezbollah, and other proxies like the Houthi and Islamic groups in Iraq will co-ordinate their response. What exactly that would be is anybody’s guess. But any attack will be met with strong Israeli counterattack that could finally shift the balance of power in the region to Israel.
Much will depend on the US. Will the US restrain Israel, or will it continue to allow Benyamin Netanyahu to break all international norms and get away with what his extreme right-wing supporters want—reclaiming the Biblical promised land?
