STOP PRESS - Iran Attacks Israel Directly

An unexpected turn of events changes everything

Let us be brief. The facts are that Iran has let loose a barrage of missiles against Tel Aviv and that US intelligence appears to have had barely hours warning. This changes everything - not the core of our last analysis as to the pressures and strains on the system but only in bringing forward what we most feared: events that may rapidly spin out of control.

The essence of what has happened is that Iran has made a set of calculations in line with the dilemma that it faces - play for time to rebuild its assets or strike before it is struck. The first probably depended on a) Tehran believing that Washington was in control of Israel (which it clearly is not despite the attempt to indicate that Israeli actions would be limited), b) the moderate reformers persuading the hardliners that waiting was advantageous (they clearly could not) and c) some belief that Hezbollah could fight and survive without direct Iranian assistance (which is something on which we can have no knowledge).

The triggers that may have shifted Iran into full-on war mode were probably the intensification of missile attacks on Beirut combined with rhetoric in Israel that could easily be interpreted as suggesting a pre-emptive strike against Iranian ballistics and sovereign territory - so why not use them before you lose them. Other considerations may be that Iran was now in danger of ‘losing face’ yet that the US was effectively a paper tiger in the region, reduced to offering intelligence and defensive operations to Israel but unlikely to put in ground troops or engage in direct operations against Iran any more than it would against Russia (though they may prove to be wrong in this given the hysteria surrounding US electioneering).

So, it is war but still a war of proxies and missiles unless Syria and Iraq choose to let Iranian troops cross the Northern Mesopotamian desert. We would now expect Israel to strike at key, especially nuclear-related, targets in Iran and to start muttering very loudly about bringing its nuclear capacity into play under certain conditions in a possible rethinking of nuclear doctrine, much as the West has triggered a rethinking of Russian nuclear doctrine.

There is no point in commenting much further on so little information. Most of the missiles appear to have been intercepted with the help of US Central Command and this would have been predictable. The action may thus not have been designed to do much immediate damage but rather to send up a sort of political flare to signal to battered ‘resistance’ movements that they have a friend in Iran and that they have every reason to fight with all the means at their disposal. If there was a morale problem in South Lebanon, Palestine and Gaza, this action would have done a great deal to resolve it.

There is no turning back now. Not only the proxies who are organised as proxies but many young Arabs are going to find it hard to stand back from the fight. We will eventually find out soon whether the simultaneous shooting incident in Tel Aviv was coincidental or another deliberate symbolic signal. As to the ‘West’ (whatever that is beyond an idea) Netanyahu has achieved something already.

For all its attempts at restraining him, the West is almost certainly incapable of standing by and seeing him punished by a Muslim power for his manipulations and presumption. It may not directly engage in the war but Israel and Iran and its allies both know that Israel is protected by Western weapons and intelligence and that both West and Israel are ‘de facto’ enemies of not just Iran but anti-imperialist Islam and the Arab World.

This brings forward both the risk of terrorism in Europe and against Westerners in the military in particular (notably for key US bases in the region) and the growing military alliance with Russia. Tehran no longer has to give a stuff about sanctions or negotiation or Western disapproval - it has made its calculations and its decision. The true crisis comes on the day that Israel faces the threat of defeat, collapse or extinction when it will become clear if the West will or can supply more support than it supplies to Ukraine or risk Israel triggering a defensive Armageddon if it is left to fight alone. This is still not world war in the making but it is getting damn close to hell on earth.