Israel and Iran, like Athens and Sparta?
It is a year since the barbarism of Hamas murdered over 1200 Israelis in the most disgusting manner possible. In that year many tens of thousands of innocents and not-so-innocent have been killed, maimed and broken in Gaza and now Lebanon, whilst Israel has been under constant attack. As ever, the West has wrung its hands and called repeatedly for cease-fires which they know have little or no chance of happening and, frankly, few want. Why? The Wars of the Levant have been caused by Iran. The goal of the Iranian Supreme Authority is the expunging of the state of Israel, control over all Shia Muslim communities in the region, the suppression of Sunni Muslims and the expulsion of all Sunni Muslim powers, most notably, Saudi Arabia, and the West.
Tehran’s strategy has five main lines of action. First, to keep Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in a state of profound crisis. Second, to manipulate the Israel-Palestinian struggle to that end. Third, to use proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah to both threaten Israel and foment crisis across the region with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) the primary agent. Fourth, construct a nuclear weapon to neutralise the Israeli arsenal at Dimona and ultimately enable Tehran to conduct both regular and irregular war against Israel. Fifth, to build a relationship with Russia that Tehran hopes could counter the influence of the US in the region.
Has the strategy failed? No, but it has suffered a major setback. First, the Hamas attack on southern Israel was not sanctioned by Tehran and Iran was not ready for the consequences. Second, Israel has systematically dismantled Hamas and Hezbollah thus effectively depriving Iran of its two main instruments of crisis and coercion in the region. Third, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States regard the failure of Iran at Israel’s hands as in their own critical interests. Fourth, Iran is still some way from building a viable nuclear weapon and has consequently been reduced to launching salvos of relatively unsophisticated intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) at Israel. Tel Aviv’s advanced Iron Dome integrated air and missile defence (IAMD), reinforced by the US Navy, has countered. Most of the Iranian missiles that struck open Israeli country on October 1st were effectively ignored by the Iron Dome tracking system. Fifth, Russia is fully engaged in Ukraine and has no interest and little capability to support Iran in a struggle with Israel, and by extension the United States.
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Does that mean the end of the war? No, it is just the beginning of the next phase. Iran will absorb Israel’s coming counterstrike. So long as Tehran is governed by the Iranian Supreme Authority it will continue to conduct both hybrid and kinetic war against Israel and use the peoples of the Levant as pawns in that struggle. Tel Aviv may have bought time in its struggle against Hamas and Hezbollah, but its brutal conduct of the war has simply stoked hatred for another generation of Palestinians and much of the ‘Arab Street’ beyond. It is a struggle which will doubtless profoundly affect neighbouring Europe.
What is now likely to happen? For Tel Aviv the 2010 Accords with the Palestinian Authority are dead and with it any hope of a Two State Solution. Israel will now seek to build buffer zones in Lebanon in the north, the Sinai Desert in the south, and Jordan in the East. Israeli strategy thus entails Tel Aviv’s complete control over all the lands from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan.
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This means either Gaza and the West Bank will be brought under Israeli control, difficult though that will be, or simply kept in a state of permanent crisis. The latter strategy would deepen existing splits within the Palestinian resistance and with it the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians in what both sides see now as an existential struggle.
Thucydides famously wrote: “The real cause I consider to be the one which was formerly most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired the Lacedaemon (Sparta), made war inevitable”.
So, Athens and Sparta like Israel and Iran? The irony of history is that Sparta was ultimately triumphant when backed by the Persian Empire, modern day Iran. The Peloponnesian Wars were thus the first known-world war and marked the end of the Athenian Empire. Israel now seems set on destroying Iran’s empire of despair with profound implications for both the region and the world beyond.
