Israel and the Failed Strategy Against Iran

Israel and Iran are engaged in a multi-front war that could at any time develop into a regional conflict of unprecedented proportions, as we will see.

Perhaps the biggest problem for Israel is the attitude of the world community, which is overwhelmingly obsessed with the war against Hamas in Gaza and also appears to be blind to the nuclear danger that Iran poses to the entire world.

The United States and Israel agreed at the end of June to conduct a strategic dialogue after a long visit to Washington DC by Yoav Galant, the Israeli Minister of Defense.

Galant held a series of conversations with senior US government officials among them Lloyd Austin the US Secretary of Defense, Jake Sullivan the US National Security Advisor, Amos Hochstein the US envoy to Lebanon, and, Antony Blinken the Secretary of State.

After the meeting with Austin, Galant made an unusually dramatic appeal to the United States, saying that time is running out to halt Iran’s nuclear programme while warning Austin that now is the time for the US to take action against Iran and its nuclear programme.

“We are currently in phase three of the multi-front war against Israel, and this involves opening multiple fronts…”

“Now is the time to fulfil the promises made by all US administrations in recent years and prevent a nuclear Iran that will pose a danger to the entire world,” Galant said.

Iran has again made major progress in its nuclear programme recently and now has enough highly enriched uranium to produce six atomic bombs in a short period. New cascades of P-6 centrifuges are currently installed at breakneck speed in the underground uranium enrichment plant Fordow, making the enriching process even more massive.

At the same time, Iran refuses to allow full inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and also refuses to answer questions about undeclared nuclear activities.

In addition, several Iranian government officials and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have recently hinted that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon if threatened by Israel.

The so-called E3, the European superpowers Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, now want to bring the Iranian nuclear file before the UN Security Council in the hope that the severe sanctions against Iran that have been abolished will be reinstated.

However, this has proven to be insufficiently effective in the past and at this point, it will no longer make a difference for Iran because time is on its side.

It appears that the regime in Tehran is using the current chaos in the Middle East and the war against Israel to break out into an atomic bomb, as was always planned in the four-phase plan drawn up by the liquidated commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani.

We are currently in phase three of the multi-front war against Israel, and this involves opening multiple fronts and creating chaos in phase four; a regional war will break out, and Iran will use that chaos to take the final steps towards producing a nuclear weapon.

In fact, when one looks closely at the bigger picture of the war that Iran is waging through its proxies in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Judea and Samaria, the heartland of Israel, it is clear that the current strategy is not good. The same goes for the strategy to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme.

Take, for example, the actions taken against the piracy and aggression of the Ansar Allah or Houthi militia in Yemen against shipping traffic in the Red Sea and other waters around Yemen.

“The only thing that could put an end to the aggression of the Houthi militia is an extensive ground operation in Yemen and military action against Iran itself…”

The almost daily attacks on civilian shipping and warships of Western countries in these waters have so far been answered by defensive actions with interception batteries and by air strikes on Ansar Allah bases and missile launchers.

However, the only thing that could put an end to the aggression of this Iranian proxy is an extensive ground operation in Yemen and military action against Iran itself, which supplies all weapons and ammunition to Ansar Allah.

Now, the international community is allowing this Iranian proxy to bring 90 per cent of shipping traffic to a standstill in the Red Sea, and as a result, companies have to pay millions of dollars extra to transport cargo through the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Israel itself has so far taken no action against Ansar Allah, despite the non-functioning of the port of Eilat, attacks on the resort town at the Gulf of Aqaba and terror against Israeli ships in the waters around Yemen.

Then there is the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), a group of Shia militias previously called al-Hashd al-Sha’abi and co-founded at the time by Soleimani.

IRI continuously attacks US bases in Iraq and Syria with kamikaze drones and missiles and also occasionally attacks Israel, as was the case in late June when Eilat in the far south of Israel was attacked with a kamikaze drone. The plane caused no damage because it exploded over the Gulf of Aqaba. IRI can exercise its terror virtually unhindered and has rarely been attacked by the US or Israeli military.

When we look at Hezbollah in Lebanon, we see the same pattern so far.

Since 8 October, when this part of the war began, Israel has contented itself with carrying out air strikes, artillery fire, and a series of assassinations of Hezbollah commanders.

All military experts agree, however, that to remove this Iranian proxy from the border area around Israel, a ground manoeuvre will have to take place, but so far, Israel’s political leaders appear to have bowed to foreign pressure and have still not made the decision to allow the IDF to carry out the ground operation for which it has been training for months.

“Iran itself feels untouchable and does not pay any price for the terror it organises through its proxies since military action seems out of the question because the West always opts for diplomacy”

Hezbollah also sees the pattern and plays along by occasionally creating pauses in the shelling and then launching massive attacks again, as happened at the end of June when a huge rocket attack and an extensive drone attack were carried out in the north within two days. This is clearly part of the attrition strategy employed by the Iranian axis.

Iran itself feels untouchable and does not pay any price for the terror it organises through its proxies since military action against the Islamic Republic, whether aimed at stopping state terror or against the nuclear weapons programme, seems out of the question because the West always opts for diplomacy and is very averse to military operations.

In the case of Iran, however, this has clearly proven to be counterproductive, and to understand this, one need only look at Israel’s current war with Hamas.

For more than sixteen years, Israel tried to keep the tiger in its cage with limited IDF operations and non- military means and even allowed Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s top leadership, to send large sums of money to Gaza. The consequences of this policy were disastrous, as we now know.

Galant appears to be right by now, sounding the alarm to the Americans about the nuclear programme and insisting on a strategic dialogue with Iran.

After all, it is five to midnight in the fight against the fanatical imperialistic regime in Tehran and its nuclear weapons programme.