This week has been particularly tumultuous for the Middle East. A Lebanese rocket killed 12 children and teenagers on Saturday during a football match in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. (The victims were Syrian citizens with Israeli residency.) On Tuesday night, Israel killed Fouad Shukr, a commander of the pro-Iran militia Hezbollah, and two children in retaliation for a rocket attack.
Hours later, a bomb killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s politburo chief and chief negotiator with Israel, while he was visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s president. Israel is widely believed to be the culprit. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah have both pledged revenge.
On the same night that Shuker and Haniyeh were killed, U.S. warplanes fired heavily at an Iraqi militia base, killing four pro-Iranian militants. An unnamed U.S. official told reporters that the militia was launching an attack drone and “posed a threat” to U.S. and allied forces. It is unclear whether the Iraqi drones were actually targeting U.S. troops or Israel.
Soon this may no longer matter. The Biden administration on Wednesday reconfirmed that it would help defend Israel in the event of conflict with Lebanon or Iran, as it did during the conflicts in April. The U.S. government has previously hinted that it would intervene directly if Israel suffered a military setback in Lebanon. Israeli leaders may be betting on this outcome.
“Security agency sources” who spoke on condition of anonymity told this jerusalem post They could have assassinated him in Qada, where Haniya usually lived. Instead, these sources explained, “The choice to carry out the assassination in the center of Tehran was precisely because Haniyeh bore responsibility for Iran’s security, which thrust Iran into the world’s spotlight as a host, conductor and purveyor of terrorism.”
In other words, killing Haniyeh could mean turning Israel’s war with Hamas into an international crisis involving Iran and Israel’s allies.
Months before the October 2023 attack, Israeli policymakers had planned an attack on Israel that would lead to a U.S.-Iran war. The Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank with close ties to the Israeli government, conducted simulations in July 2023 and the results were strikingly similar to the current escalation. The episode began with an Israeli assassination campaign in Tehran, provoking Hezbollah and Iraqi militias to attack Israel, and ended with a direct U.S. attack on Iran.
“Former top political and military leaders from Israel, the United States and some European countries participated in the simulation exercise,” the Israeli newspaper reported. haaretz.
In the years leading up to this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders had been asking the United States to support an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It’s not hard to understand why. Khamenei calls Israel a cancer that needs to be removed, while Israeli leaders in turn say Iran is the head of an evil octopus that must be chopped off.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 seemed to confirm Israel’s view. Whatever role Iran played or did not play in orchestrating the attack—which the U.S. government believes was as surprising to Iranian leaders as anyone—Iran’s allies immediately joined the fight, attacking Israel in the name of the Palestinian cause.
Many American politicians want conflict for their own reasons. Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called for bombing Iran regardless of whether there was evidence that Iran was behind the attack. On Wednesday, he claimed to have intelligence indicating that “Iran will have a nuclear weapon in the coming weeks or months” and introduced a bill calling for war with Iran.
The conflict with Iran also helps Netanyahu relieve some domestic political pressure. Before the Oct. 7 attack, he faced protests for proposing to weaken Israel’s Supreme Court. Rather than unite Israelis around Netanyahu, the attacks have galvanized the opposition, as many Israelis blame Netanyahu for security breaches and failing to rescue hostages.
This week, those tensions exploded into outright rebellion. After months of international pressure over the treatment of inmates at Stettman prison, Israeli military police began investigating the most shocking case. Nine soldiers allegedly raped a Palestinian prisoner so severely that he was taken to hospital with a ruptured intestine, severe anal injuries, lung damage and broken ribs.
Police detained some of the accused soldiers, and Israeli nationalists accused the government of betraying the military. Nationalist rioters, including members of parliament, attacked the Stettman and Beitlid military courts in support of the alleged rapists. The army was forced to withdraw three battalions from Palestinian territory to guard the court.
Killing Shuk and Haniyeh, then, would be a good political bet for Netanyahu. At the very least, Netanyahu drowned out the headlines about the Stutt Tayman riots with a brilliant military victory. If Iran strikes back hard enough, Israel may be able to become the world’s superpower against its greatest enemy.
But a full-scale U.S.-Iran war would be a disaster for the region and the Americans. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie warns new yorker In December 2021, Iran had “a powerhouse on the battlefield – missiles that overwhelm” U.S. air defense systems. U.S. forces would face attacks in Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and a few well-placed Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv or Abu Dhabi could cause severe damage to the world economy.
This would be a disaster of the Biden administration’s own making. Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, President Joe Biden embraced the “bear hug” theory of diplomacy. In theory, by providing Israel with public assurances and unlimited military support, Biden would win enough goodwill from the Israelis to contain their war and ultimately broker an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.
Instead, the bear hug turns out to be sleepwalking. Netanyahu sees U.S. support as a license to continue to expand the conflict. The Biden administration appears to have little to say about the latest escalation. Secretary of State Antony Blinken played deaf when asked what impact the assassination of one side’s chief negotiator would have on ceasefire talks.
“Well, I’ve seen the reports, and what I can tell you is: First of all, this is something that we have no knowledge of or involvement in,” Blinken told Channel News Asia. “It’s very difficult to speculate on the impact that one incident might have on something else. Impact, and I’ve learned never to speculate, so I can’t tell you what that means.”
