October 7 marked the one-year anniversary of the start of the current Arab-Israeli war. Let us summarize the results of the ongoing conflict to date, since there is no truce and no sign of any compromise solution acceptable to the two sides.
A year of war – what is the result?
The Gaza Strip in southeastern Israel forms part of one of the most promising routes for a transit corridor from Asia (i.e. India) to Europe. But will Israel allow its port facilities in the southern Mediterranean to be controlled by Arabs (i.e. Hamas)? For Israel and its main ally and sponsor, the US, there is no need for a final resolution of the Palestinian issue along the lines of proposed by Turkey or Iran. Tel Aviv is not going to recognize the independence of a Palestinian state with inconvenient borders along the edges of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which would result in the problem of a “patchwork” Israel.
Moreover, Israel used the Hamas attack to disrupt the plans of pro-Palestinian forces and shift to a tactic of destroying anti-Israel proxy forces in other countries in the region, namely, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. Today, the Israel Defense Forces are fighting in Lebanon. Moreover, having started Operation Northern Arrow as a limited ground operation in the south of Lebanon, where Iranian Hezbollah forces are deployed, Israel is no longer limiting itself to a 20-kilometer zone but is launching airstrikes on Beirut and the northern regions of Lebanon. In effect, this is a third Israeli-Lebanese war. In doing so, Tel Aviv has again received guarantees and military and diplomatic support from Washington, citing the UN Charter’s “right to self-defense” clause to justify its fight against Hezbollah.
The next major focus of joint attacks by Israel, the US and the UK is Yemen, which has created a crisis for the global maritime trade route through the Suez Canal by effectively blocking ships from entering the Red Sea. The Israelis have also launched periodic attacks against Syria, not to mention a series of targeted Mossad, Aman (Israeli Military Intelligence) and Unit 8200 intelligence and subversion operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran against Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers and pro-Iranian militias.
The past year has clearly shown that the main opponent of the Israeli regime is the Iranian state. If Turkey has limited itself to threatening language and its President Recep Erdoğan publicly criticizes Israel and puts forward diplomatic initiatives for resolving the Palestinian issue, with the transfer of the role of security guarantor to Ankara, Iran had combined the language of diplomacy with real military support for anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. In other words, if it was not for Iran’s military assistance, Hamas, along with Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and other Shiite units in Syria and Iraq would not be able to continue fighting and resisting Tel Aviv’s demands.
For the first time in the ongoing conflict, the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu has provoked Iran into launching direct air (missile and drone) attacks against Israel, on April 19 and October 2 this year, in response to a series of political assassinations of Iranian and pro-Iranian politicians and military officers.
The Iranian airstrikes against Israel allowed Iran both to test the reliability of the Jewish state’s Iron Dome air defense and missile defense systems and to increase the degree of military escalation in the region to the point of permitting the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
In contrast, the truce talks in the Gaza Strip brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt have continued, twice reaching provisional outcomes but failing to bring a final peace to the region. Israel aims for total victory, that is, to achieve peace on its own terms. And in this regard, Benjamin Netanyahu is not forcing a solution to the issue of hostage and prisoner exchanges, but is rather aiming for a new round of war.
What could the consequences of continued military conflict in the Middle East be?
Israel opposes the resumption of negotiations between Iran and Western countries (the US and the EU) over its nuclear program and the easing of anti-Iran sanctions. Attempts by new Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian to define the outlines for such a restart in relations with the West (including on the margins of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York in late September) ended with the Israeli air operation against Hezbollah. Benjamin Netanyahu hopes, by provoking and dragging Iran into direct conflict with Israel, to force the new US leadership after Nov. 4 to participate in defeating Iran and overthrowing the theocratic regime ruling there.
In the US, however, authorities apparently have intelligence about the likelihood of Iran obtaining its own nuclear weapons. In addition, the IRGC’s use of hypersonic Fatah-1 missiles in its latest air attack against Israel does not rule out the subsequent use of nuclear warheads.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale occurred in the Aradan District of Iran’s Semnan Province on October 5. According to Tehran University’s Institute of Geophysics, the origin of the earthquake was at a depth of 12 kilometers. This event may have been the result of a nuclear weapons test. For example, a geological station in Armenia did not record any aftershocks. If Tehran announces possession of nuclear weapons in the near future, it will be bad news for Israel and the US.
In other words, Washington realizes that after the Israeli US Air Force attacks on nuclear facilities on the territory of Iran (for example, in Bushehr), the Iranians will be ready to respond symmetrically and provoke a nuclear catastrophe or a Third World War, with unclear consequences for the USA.
Israel is taking active military actions against countries participating in the anti-Israeli front (in particular, against Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq), and is using its military capabilities in countries bordering Iran (Iraqi Kurdistan and Azerbaijan) to carry out air strikes and sabotage against Iran. Tehran has not ruled out the possibility of symmetrical responses against these territories as part of its opposition to Israel.
The latter is creating additional risks of military escalation in the Middle East and neighboring regions (particularly in the South Caucasus), which could internationalize the conflict and complicate any response by larger powers, such as the United States and Russia.
A provocation by Israel in the form of a nuclear strike on Iran would have the potential to create a global threat. In sum, the prospect of either peace or war depends on, and is the responsibility of the US and its allies. Time has shown that neither Russia nor Iran is inclined to limit itself to verbal warnings of retaliatory strikes. The US will be forced to recognize that the world extends far beyond the ambitions of a single power.
In addition, a number of countries in key regions may in the foreseeable future experience systemic geopolitical transformations, involving a shift from alliances based on a unipolar world view to friendship with a multipolar world. The October 26 elections in Georgia, for example, will determine not only the likelihood of a political resolution of the territorial issue of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but also the fate of the West’s hopes to use the South Caucasus as a springboard for forcing Russia out of the region where it has historically been present, and then to gain a wider position in Central Asia. A strengthening of Russia’s geopolitical, military-strategic and geo-economic influence in the Transcaucasus region could potentially change the nature of its relations with the major countries of Southern Eurasia (Turkey, Iran, China, and India) and the West (the EU and USA). In other words, without Russia’s agreement, all plans for transit routes and corridors through the Caucasus will be ineffective.
Russian stability in the South Caucasus will create key prerequisites in terms of peace and security in the Middle East and an end to the military and political crisis in Ukraine in favor of the revival of a Greater Russia.
Alexander Svarants ‒ Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
