The first constraint Israel faced was logistical. The Netanyahu government could not have its fighter jets fly straight to Iran, which would have allowed a more extensive set of attacks. Israel could not gain overflight permissions from Turkey, Iraq or any of the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman). Sean Matthews at Middle East Eye points out that as a result, the Israelis would have had to fly down the Red Sea, go west across the Gulf of Aden, and approach Iran from the Arabian Sea. It is a long way around. They would have had to bring along large hulking refueling planes. This long, clumsy flight path limited what the Israelis could accomplish.

Extremist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier not ruled out hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities or its oil fields. Iran, however, essentially held the GCC countries hostage, warning that if US-backed Israel hit Iranian oil fields, Tehran would retaliate against US-backed Arab oil monarchies in the Gulf such as Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration is trying to woo those countries into recognizing Israel, and having a berserker Israeli government draw them into hostilities with Iran would instead make these Arab countries flee both the US and the possible Israeli embrace. For some diplomatic purposes, as with detente with Iran, Saudi Arabia has already gone to China instead.

According to Middle East Eye, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had announced Tuesday that Iran had been promised by the Gulf Arabs that they would not allow their air space or soil to be used for Israeli attacks on Iran.

At the same time, Joe Biden pressured Israel not to attack Iranian nuclear facilities or oil fields.

I view Netanyahu as an adventurer who has been attempting to widen the war so as to force the Biden administration to support him. Although Iran backs Hamas, the CIA assessed that the ayatollahs had no idea Hamas was planning to carry out the October 7 attacks, and, indeed, that the Iranian leadership had declined to support Hamas during the past year precisely because they were furious that Yahya Sinwar had tried to drag them into a war without so much as consulting them. Iran also put pressure on Hezbollah not to provoke a war with Israel.

“Fighter Jet,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024.

That is, though Iran certainly supports anti-Israel guerrilla groups in the region and enjoys harassing the Israelis through them and their rockets and drones, it doesn’t appear to have acted aggressively given the ferocity of Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza.

Netanyahu struck the Iranian embassy in Damascus last spring in an obvious attempt to bring Iran into the war, and Iran replied with a missile barrage that the US shot down.

Then this summer Netanyahu assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the civilian head of the Hamas Party politburo (which is not the same as the al-Qassam Brigades paramilitary). The assassination was carried out in Tehran, in a clear attempt to get Iran’s goat. Likewise, Netanyahu’s creepy pager booby trap attack on Hezbollah personnel (and some Iranians, such as the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon) and his assassination of Hassan Nasrallah in September were in part aimed at humiliating Iran.

Iran’s October 1 missile barrage at Israel was mostly shot down by the US, but some missiles got through and one hit an Israeli military base. This attack was revenge for the killings of Haniyeh and Nasrallah.

Israel’s riposte was so limited that it might well not elicit any response from Iran, drawing a line under this phase of the Israel-Iran conflict.

But Netanyahu was forced into a limited response by the Arab Gulf states (two of which –Bahrain and the Emirates– recognize Israel) and by the Biden administration. The refusal of overflight permissions by the GCC states also limited what Israel could accomplished with its F-35s.

I view Iran’s missile program as largely defensive. They have used it against Israel twice this year, and both came in response to Israeli provocations (provocations that I believe to be deliberate on Netanyahu’s part). Israel has made the point that its jets can now reach Iran with extensive refueling. Iran has made the point that a swarm of missile attacks can penetrate Israel’s missile defenses and hit an Israeli military base.

Each side is seeking some form of deterrence against the other, a deterrence that has broken down this year because of Israel’s aggression in Gaza and Lebanon and its anti-missile defenses.

I think Iran will be satisfied if it feels that a restoration of deterrence has been achieved. I don’t think Netanyahu is defending; I think he is attacking and attempting to expand his influence in the region. For that reason, it will be difficult to reestablish deterrence between the two countries.

For the moment, however, all-out war seems to have been averted.

I told him, but if Iran is attacked, Iranians will all suffer to no end.  

The lines spoken by that man have always stayed with me.  

For nearly four decades, Iranians have lived under oppression, tormented by corruption, mismanagement, and the burden of sanctions.  

Yet, I believe most Iranians do not want their county to be attacked much less destroyed. Yet, there are those who want regime change at any expense.

Perhaps some “L.A. types” or some monarchists are rooting for it.  In fact, in recent weeks, some in the Iranian diaspora have been calling for direct attack.   

As history shows, foreign intervention does not ensure the well-being of the citizens of those countries involved.

Look at Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.  Life is not better, nor is democracy in full swing in any of these countries. 

In 2006, the Bush administration allocated some $75 million for regime change in Iran.

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that the US would “actively confront” Iran and called for an extra $75 million to fund anti-Tehran propaganda and to support opposition groups inside and outside the country.

  There were many willing Iranians who accepted funds and worked towards that goal.  NGOs too were involved in this initiative, among them the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Tavana, Freedom House, Iran Wire and various others in and around the Beltway. 

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) received a good chunk, close to a million dollars.   A few Iranian “analysts” were and are working for this entity. 

“Azadi Tower under Attack,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024

In 2007, John Mearsheimer, the Chicago professor who co-authored a book on the Israeli lobby, described FDD as part of the Israel lobby in the United States.  

In addition to making money out of the “regime change” gravy train, there are also those who seek money by suing the Islamic Republic.  Many names come to mind, even some progressive Iranians.  

According to Mr. Hooman Fakhimi, a lawyer in California who has tirelessly investigated these lawsuits.  Nearly 200 billion dollars has been filed in judgement against the Islamic Republic in various courts by individuals and organizations from victims of 9/11 (!) to those whose families were directly or indirectly harmed.  Many of these lawsuits are spurious.  Even Ukrainian nationals have entered the fray, presumably because Iran has sold drones to the Russians in its war on Ukraine.   

Mr. Fakhimi acknowledges that if all these lawsuits succeed, “It could bankrupt Iran.” 

The Israeli regime under the war-monger Netanyahu has been itching for a war with Iran for years. Remember him showing maps and graphs at the UN every year?

Additionally, most mainstream U.S. media,  mainly CNN and MSNBC warn us daily of an upcoming surprise attack on Iran.

It is as if we are watching a war game on play station.  But this is no child play.  It is the real thing as we witness the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon.

Is Iran next?

As an IDF spokesman said recently, “Iran is next.”

Israel has destroyed Gaza and is now in the process of destroying Lebanon.  The excuse is Hamas and Hezbollah. Many in the Israeli government are now openly spewing the idea of annexing and appropriating the occupied West Bank, the Gaza strip and parts of Lebanon. 

War is always destructive.   Look at Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon.

Far from bringing about regime change, an attack on Iran will only strengthen the current rulers in power.

(The Conversation) – With Iran’s firing of some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel overnight, the Middle East is again on the brink of what would be a costly, ruinous regional war. Israel and its ally, the United States, shot down most of the missiles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately vowed to retaliate for the attack. He called it a “big mistake” that Iran will “pay for”.

The strike marked a dramatic shift in Iran’s calculations following weeks of escalating Israeli attacks on the leaders of its proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and their forces in both Gaza and Lebanon.

Iran has traditionally outsourced its fighting to Hezbollah and Hamas. It has been very much concerned about getting dragged into direct confrontation with Israel because of the ramifications for the ruling regime – namely the possible internal dissent and chaos that any war with Israel might generate.

When Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in late July, Iran’s leaders said they would respond appropriately. They basically left it to Hezbollah to do that.

And as Israel intensified its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks, another Iranian proxy group, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, claimed to have retaliated by launching missiles and drones at Israeli cities and US destroyers in the Red Sea. Israel responded with airstrikes on Yemen.

In this context, from the Iranian point of view, it looked like Iran was just sitting on the fence and not performing its leadership role in challenging Israel. So, to a large extent, Iran had to exert its role as the leader of the so-called “axis of resistance” and get into the fight.

Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity.

A delicate balancing act

Yet there are clearly serious risks to this type of direct attack by Iran.

Domestically, the Iranian political regime is suffering from a serious crisis of legitimacy. There have been numerous popular uprisings in Iran in recent years. These include the massive “Women, Life, Freedom” movement that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab.

There is also a major dissenting view in Iran that challenges the regime’s anti-US and anti-Israel state identity and its commitment to perpetual conflict with both countries.

So, the authorities in Iran have been concerned that direct confrontation with Israel and the US would unleash these internal dissenting voices and seriously threaten the regime’s survival. It’s this existential threat that has stopped Iran from acting on its principles.

In addition, Iran has a new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who belongs to the reformist camp and has an agenda of improving Iran’s relations with the West. He has been talking about reviving the Iran nuclear deal with the international community, sending signals that Iran is prepared to talk with the Americans.

But the problem is the regional dynamics have completely changed since that deal was negotiated with the Obama administration in 2015. Iran has been a pariah state in recent years – and even more so since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began a year ago.

Since then, no Western country would deem it appropriate or politically expedient to engage in nuclear talks with Iran, with the aim of alleviating international sanctions on the regime. Not at a time when Iran is openly calling for the destruction of Israel, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks on Israel, and now engaging in confrontations with Israel itself.

So the timing is awful for Pezeshkian’s agenda of repairing the damage to Iran’s global standing.

“Iran Ballistic,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

Ultimately, though, it’s not the president who calls the shots in Iran – it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council who consider matters of war and peace and decide on the course of action. The supreme leader is also the head of state and appoints the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC generals have been advocating for more serious and resolute action against Israel ever since the war in Gaza started. And it looks like the supreme leader has finally listened to this advice.

So, the regime has been maintaining a delicate balance of these factors:
preserving Iran’s state identity and what it stands for in the region, and the need to manage internal dissent and ensure its survival.

In normal circumstances, it was easy for Iran to maintain this balance. It could manage its internal opponents through brutal force or appeasement and advocate an aggressive foreign policy in the region.

Now, the scales have tipped. From the Iranian perspective, Israel has been so brazen in its actions against its proxies, it just didn’t look right for Iran to continue sitting on the fence, not taking action.

As such, it has become more important for Iran to emphasise its anti-American, anti-Israel state identity and perhaps deal with an acceptable level of risk coming from a rise in internal dissent.

Where things go from here

With its attack on Israel, Iran is also prepared for another risk – direct retaliation from Israel and all-out war breaking out.

The conflict in the region is really going according to Netanyahu’s playbook. He has been advocating for hitting Iran and for the United States to target Iran. Now, Israel has the justification to retaliate against Iran and also drag the United States into the conflict.

Unfortunately, Iran is also now prepared to see the entire Persian Gulf get embroiled in the conflict because any retaliation by Israel and perhaps the United States would make US assets in the Persian Gulf, such as navy ships and commercial vessels, vulnerable to attacks by Iran or its allies. And that could have major implications for trade and security in the region.

This is the way things are heading. Iran would know that hitting Israel would invite Israeli retaliation and that this retaliation would likely happen with US backing. It seems Iran is prepared to bear the costs of this.

Shahram Akbarzadeh, Convenor, Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), and Deputy Director (International), Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, amplifying tensions in the Middle East that are increasingly marked by “escalation after escalation,” as United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it.

Iran’s attacks – which Israel largely deterred with its Iron Dome missile defense system, along with help from nearby U.S. naval destroyers – followed Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Tehran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, on Sept. 27.

Hezbollah has been sending rockets into northern Israel since the start of the Gaza war, which began after Hamas and other militants invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed nearly 1,200 people. Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have displaced around 70,000 people from their homes in northern Israel.

Amy Lieberman, a politics and society editor at the Conversation U.S., spoke with counterterrorism expert Javed Ali to better understand the complex history and dynamics that are fueling the intensifying conflict in the Middle East.

How much more dangerous has the Middle East become in recent weeks?

The Middle East is in much more volatile situation than it was even a year ago. This conflict has expanded far outside of fighting primarily between Israel and Hamas.

Now, Israel and Hezbollah have a conflict that has developed over the past year that appears more dangerous than the Israel-Hamas one. This involves the use of Israeli special operations units, which have operated clandestinely in Lebanon in small groups since November 2023. In addition, Israel has been accused by Hezbollah of conducting unconventional warfare operations – like the exploding walkie-talkies and pagers – and launched hundreds of air and missile strikes in Lebanon over the past few weeks. The combination of these operations has destroyed Hezbollah’s weapons caches and military infrastructure and killed several senior leaders in the group, including Hassan Nasrallah.

The human costs of these attacks is significant, as more than 1,000 people in Lebanon have died. Among this total, it is unclear how many of the dead or wounded are actually Hezbollah fighters.

Israel and Hezbollah last had a direct war in 2006, which lasted 34 days and killed over 1,500 people between Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah fighters. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been in a shadow war – but not with the same kind of intensity and daily pattern that we have seen in the post-Oct. 7 landscape.

Now, the conflict has the potential to widen well outside the region, and even globally.

What does Iran have to do with the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah?

Iran has said it fired the missiles into Israel as retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military.

A coalition of groups and organizations has now been labeled as Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, and senior military commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or the IRGC, have issued unifying guidance to all the different elements, whether it is Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon or Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.

Before Oct. 7, 2023, all of these groups were ideologically opposed to Israel, to a degree. But they were also fighting their own conflicts and were not rallying around supporting Hamas. Now, they have all become more active around a common goal of destroying Israel.

Iran and Hezbollah, in particular, have a deep relationship, dating back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon in order to thwart cross-border attacks the Palestinian Liberation Organization and other Palestinian groups were launching into Israel. The newly formed Iranian IRGC sent advisers and trainers to southern Lebanon to work with like-minded Lebanese Shiite militants who were already fighting in Lebanon’s civil war. They wanted to fight against the Israeli military and elements of the multinational force comprised of U.S., French and other Western troops that were originally sent as peacekeepers to put an end to the fighting.

How does Hezbollah’s history help explain its operations today?

The relationships between these Iranian experts and Lebanese militants during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war led to the formation of Hezbollah as a small, clandestine group in 1982.

During the following few years, Hezbollah launched a brutal campaign of terrorist attacks against U.S., French and other Western interests in Lebanon. The group, then known as Islamic Jihad, first attacked the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983. That attack killed 52 Lebanese and American embassy employees. However, at the time, U.S. intelligence personnel and other security experts were not clear who was responsible for the embassy bombing. And given this lack of understanding and insight on Hezbollah as an emerging terrorist threat, the group aimed even higher later in 1983.

Following the embassy attack, Hezbollah carried out the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. service personnel. Before the 9/11 attacks, this was the biggest single act of international terrorism against the U.S.

Hezbollah was also responsible for the kidnapping and murder of American citizens, including William Buckley, the CIA station chief for Beirut. And it carried out airplane hijackings, including the infamous TWA 847 incident in 1985, in which a U.S. Navy diver was murdered.

So, Hezbollah has a long history of regional and global terrorism.

Within Lebanon, Hezbollah is a kind of parallel government to Lebanon. The Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to be this state within a state, but they don’t collaborate on military operations. Currently, the Lebanese military is not responding to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. This shows how dominant of a force Hezbollah has become.

How damaging are Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah?

Hezbollah has clearly taken losses in fighters, but Hezbollah is a far bigger group than Hamas and operates on a much bigger physical territory across Lebanon.

It has far more inventory of advanced weapons than Hamas ever did, and a large fighting force that includes 40,000 to 50,000 regular forces organized into a conventional military structure. It also has 150,000 to 200,000 rockets, drones and missiles of varying range. It operates a dangerous global terrorist unit known as the External Security Organization that has attacked Israeli and Jewish interests in the 1990s in Argentina and Jewish tourists in 2012 in Bulgaria.

The Israeli military assesses they have destroyed at least half of Hezbollah’s existing weapons stockpile, based on the volume and intensity of their operations over the past few weeks. If true, this, would present a serious challenge to Hezbollah’s long-term operational capability that took decades to acquire.

What security risks does this evolving conflict present for the U.S.?

Looking at how Hezbollah demonstrated these capabilities over a 40-year stretch of time, and based now on how Israel has hit the militant group, it would not be a stretch to speculate that Hezbollah has ordered or is considering some kind of terrorist attack far outside the region – similar to what the group did in Argentina in 1992 and 1994. What that plot would like look, how many people would be involved and the possible target of any such attack are not clear.

Hezbollah’s leaders have said that they blame Israel for the attacks on it. About a week before Nasrallah’s death, he said that Israel’s exploding pager and walkie-talkie operations in Lebanon were a “declaration of war” and the “the enemy had crossed all red lines.”

Since then, Hezbollah has remained defiant, in spite of the significant losses the group has sustained by Israel these past few weeks. Questions also remain about how Hezbollah’s leadership will likewise hold the U.S. responsible for Israel’s actions. And if so, would that mean a return to the type of terrorism that Hezbollah inflicted on U.S. interests in the region in the 1980s? As recent events have shown, the world is facing a dangerous and volatile security environment in the Middle East.

Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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India Today: “Iran’s Missile Attack On Israel Ignites Massive Tensions In West Asia | Iran Israel War Escalates”

From a military perspective, both the Iraqi and Iranian attacks failed to achieve any immediate military objectives. Yet both attacks may have achieved a symbolic victory in the long term.

The events that brought the decades-long shadow war between Iran and Israel out into the open occurred in March. Until then, both states had mostly fought each other through proxy wars and assassinations.

Seven months ago, however, Israel killed a general belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran’s diplomatic facility in Damascus. That provocation was enough for Tehran to retaliate the following month when it fired 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. Israel then responded by conducting a long-distance air raid against a military base in Isfahan that same month, marking its first ever direct attack on Iran.

Both states claimed victory. Iran demonstrated for the first time that it has weapons that can reach Israel, even if most were intercepted. Israel had to rely on American and British aircraft to intercept these projectiles, further elevating Iran’s status as a Middle Eastern actor that provoked all three powers to react. Israel’s retaliation, meanwhile, was a message to Iran that it can conduct long-distance air raids to hit its nuclear facilities in the future.

That episode appeared to have ended, giving each state the chance to claim that they had established deterrence against the other. It appeared to be a repeat of the crisis of January 2020, when then US president Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the IRGC general Qassem Suleimani. Iran retaliated with 22 ballistic missiles launched at US forces in Iraq. No Americans were killed, and the episode ended for both sides.

What upset a similar balance between Iran and Israel came in late July, when Israel conducted a more significant long-range aerial attack that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. At the time, Israel struck Iran’s capital, violating not only its sovereignty but also its reputation of protecting its guests. Yet Iran did not retaliate.

This begs the question as to why Tehran chose to attack Israel last night. After all, its April salvo was intercepted, and it appears even weaker now given that no missiles were able to hit significant targets yesterday either.

There are two explanations for this. Having failed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s death, Tehran would have appeared particularly weak had it not responded to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week. Going farther back, Saddam Hussein’s strike against Israel in 1991 might shed important light, too.

“Mulla-Rocket,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam launched close to 40 Scud ballistic missiles towards Israel, aimed at Tel Aviv and its nuclear facility in Dimona, the same facility that Iran targeted in April.

Saddam had sought to disrupt the large international coalition that the US had assembled, and which had included Egypt and Syria, by attempting to force Israel to strike back and thereby dividing the Arab world. The attacks killed 13 people, but with Washington having restrained Israel from its longstanding policy of swift retaliation, Saddam’s ruse appeared to have failed at the time.

In 1999, just eight years after those events, I got into a taxi in Jerusalem that was being driven by a Palestinian. When he enquired about my origins after I spoke Arabic to him, I responded by saying “Asli Iraqi”. He then praised Saddam with a by-now familiar refrain: “Saddam was the only leader who fought for the Palestinians,” regardless of facts on the ground. Relations between Iraq and Palestinian leaders have, of course, historically been strong. But that’s when I realised that while Saddam had lost the Gulf War, he had won the war for Palestinian memory.

Israel may have intercepted Iran’s missiles last night, but it is painfully clear to every Israeli that Tehran has the ability to target their country on a consistent basis. Further, it has been widely reported that many Gazans mourned the death of Nasrallah, even though it was met largely with indifference in the rest of the Arab world. Many Gazans also reportedly cheered Iran’s overnight attack on Israel, if only because it had forced Israel’s government to divert some of its attention away from the beleaguered enclave.

Palestinians are not going to forget what they have endured since October 7, for generations to come. Many are just as likely to remember Iran’s strikes on Israel, regardless of their merit, as a show of solidarity with Gaza.

Reprinted from The National with the author’s permission.

For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.

Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.

Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.

President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”

On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors. 

“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.

Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.

“Yahoo-Tank,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

“I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”

The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran. 

That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition. 

On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.

Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. 

When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.

But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.

Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.

Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.

So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”

Via Code Pink

According to the UAE’s al-Khaleej, Wang told Pezeshkian, “No matter how the international and regional situation develops, China will always be a reliable partner of Iran.” This statement seems to have been intended to reassure Tehran in the wake of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, where the Hezbollah party-militia is a close ally of Iran.

Wang continued, “China will continue to support Iran in maintaining its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity and national dignity.” He insisted that China will take a strong stand against all those who “interfere in Iran’s internal affairs and impose sanctions.” The latter is a slam at the United States.

Wang is not only the foreign minister but also serves on the 24-member Chinese Communist Party Politburo

Iraq’s Shafaq newspaper reports that China is more dependent than in the past on Iranian and Russian petroleum exports. About 17% of its oil comes from Iran now. These two countries have cut their prices for China and so have displaced Saudi Arabia and Iraq as the largest oil exporters to China.

China is investing billions in the Iranian economy, especially in the transportation and industrial sectors.

On Monday, Yi had met with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib (a Christian), and attacked Israel for its invasion of Lebanon, Lebanon’s al-Ghad News reports.

Wang pledged that no matter what changes take place, China will persevere in standing “on the side of justice and on the side of our Arab brothers, including Lebanon.”

Wang added, “We are closely following developments in the regional situation, especially the recent detonation of telecommunications equipment in Lebanon, and we firmly oppose indiscriminate attacks on civilians.”

He expressed the conviction that replying to violence with more violence will just lead to increased humanitarian catastrophes in the region. He called for a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of forces (including, he seemed to say, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied Palestinian territories), so that a two-state solution can be practically implemented.

For his part, Pezeshkian addressed the UNGA on Wednesday concerning the Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon, saying that the global community must urgently halt the violence and establish a lasting armistice immediately, bringing an end to Israel’s extreme brutality in Lebanon before it incites further chaos in the region and across the globe.

The Iranian president implied that the Israelis are now attacking Lebanon in a bid to cover up their failures in Gaza and the loss of their myth of invincibility. He vowed that the “indiscriminate and terroristic actions of recent days, along with the extensive aggression against Lebanon, which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent individuals, will not go unpunished.”

He implicitly slammed the US for forestalling any international effort to resolve the appalling crisis, while posing as a champion of human rights.

He said that the only solution was to reinstate the Palestinians’ right to self-determination through a referendum in which all Palestinians, including expatriates in the diaspora, could participate. This is a reference to Iran’s long-standing proposal for a one-party state in which both Palestinians and Israelis could vote equally. He concluded, “Only through this approach can Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexist harmoniously in a united land, free from racism and segregation.”

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

South China Morning Post: “China voices support for Lebanon as Israeli strikes kill hundreds”

A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare. -Mahmoud Darwish

Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – A few days before the invasion of Iraq by American forces under G.W.  Bush, on March 16, 2003, a young woman from Seattle, Washington, who had gone to Rafah, in Gaza to help Palestinians halt the demolition of homes died under the bulldozer of the Israeli army.  

Her name was Rachel Corrie. 

She was 23 years old. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) 

Her parents fought the judiciary system in Israel for two decades to no avail.  The court rejected their appeals, and no one was prosecuted.  It is the usual case in Israel, the only “democracy” in the Middle East.

On May 11, 2022, the renowned Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, while reporting at the Jenin refugee camp and having reported from the occupied territories for nearly 25 years, was shot in the neck by IDF while reporting for Al Jazeera.   It took more than a year for the Israeli officials to admit that their army was responsible for her death.   Was anyone put on trial for her murder?  No. 

She was wearing a blue vest with the word Press on it.  An Israeli solider shot her just below her helmet.  While her funeral was being held, all kinds of barriers were set to prolong the procession.  She was finally laid to rest in the Mount Zion cemetery in Jerusalem where she was buried next to her parents.  She was a Roman Catholic.

On September 7, 2024, a young woman also from Seattle, this time a Turkish American aged 26 had gone to the West Bank for the very same reasons.  She was shot in the head by the Israeli Army.

Her name was Ayşenur Eygi.

She was also a volunteer with the ISM and had recently graduated from the University of Washington.  She and others including many Jewish activists had been demonstrating against an illegal outpost called Evyatar, an offshoot of the settlement of Beita. 

She had arrived there only two days before her untimely death by a gunfire of an Israeli soldier. Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli peace activist, participating in Friday’s protest was an eyewitness. He held her bleeding head before the ambulance arrived.  She died at the hospital.

She, like Rachel, had a full life ahead of her. 

Not only did these women want a better world but they also put their aspirations into action. They could have had a career like so many others but instead they took a different route: To be instrumental in making a change in this very unjust world of ours. 

Rachel had been born into a middle class, peace-loving family.

Ayşenur was born into a Turkish American family. She resisted and struggled for the right of a people whose livelihood and land were being stolen by settlers, guarded by the most immoral army in the world.

She was shot to death like countless others since and before October 7. 

The Americans and the Israelis did nothing to secure justice for any of these women. 

 In another part of the Middle East, on 16 September 16, 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini, also known by her Kurdish name Jina, went to Tehran with her brother and friends to have a good time.  She was twenty-two.   She was stopped by the morality police and taken to a van by force.  She was interrogated viciously for not having the right hijab and was hit hard on her head.  She was taken to the hospital and a few days later, after going into a coma, she was pronounced dead.  She was not political.  Her only sin was that her attire was not to the liking of the authorities.   What followed later after her shocking death was the largest uprising in Iran called Woman Life Freedom, perhaps the largest feminist movement in our time.  

Photo by Inimafoto A: https://www.pexels.com/photo/plate-with-a-slogan-woman-life-freedom-14413071/

In the Middle East and elsewhere, women have proven that they will take to the streets and encounter the oppressors to fight for freedom whether for others or themselves. 

It will not be the last time nor the only time.

Just like a century ago,  Mary Harris Jones—aka “ Mother Jones ” who was also called “the most dangerous woman in America”,  walked miles to fight for freedom and the rights of workers,  these young women also took their fight to the streets of Jerusalem, Rafah, the West Bank, Tehran and elsewhere to prove that women will not be stopped — not by guns, by bulldozers nor intimidation.

(The Conversation) – The current phase of fighting in the Middle East began almost a year ago, with the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas and the subsequent pummeling of Gaza by Israel. But to many academics, foreign policy experts and international observers, what is taking place is also the latest episode in the decadeslong conflict commonly referred to as the “Arab-Israeli conflict.”

The experience of the past 11 months has led many experts on the region like myself to reassess that term. Is “Arab-Israeli conflict” an accurate reflection, given that the active participants are no longer just Arabs and Israelis? Should we retire that term for good now that the conflict has widened, drawing in the United States and Iran – and potentially Turkey and others in the coming years?

How it all began

The Arab-Israeli conflict began after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. In what is now Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, but was then the Palestine mandate under British rule, sporadic disputes over land ownership led to violence between the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities.

When Israel declared independence in 1948, the conflict expanded into an interstate war between Israel and several Arab countries – Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Hence it was named the Arab-Israeli War by both the media and political leaders at the time.

This name remained accurate for several decades as the conflict remained geopolitically and geographically confined to the Arab countries and Israel.

After the initial 1948 war, the unresolved conflict resulted in several other wars between Israel and Arab countries. Some oil-exporting Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, also became indirectly involved by providing financial support for the front-line Arab states and declared oil embargoes against the West during the 1967 and 1973 wars.

Iraq was also directly affected by this prolonged conflict in the 1980s when Israel destroyed its nuclear facilities. Subsequently Iraq targeted Israel with missiles several times in 1991 during the first Gulf War.

Going beyond the Arab world

The phrase “Arab-Israeli conflict” isn’t heard as much these days, but it’s still commonly in use, including by the United Nations, the United States government, media outlets and many scholars of the region.

Usage of ‘Arab-Israeli conflict’ has declined in recent years

However, reference to “Arab-Israeli conflict” obscures the active role of several other participants, particularly in recent decades.

The U.S. diplomatic support for Israel began with President Harry Truman’s decision to be the first to recognize the new state in May 1948. This was followed in the 1960s by an increase in U.S. military and financial support during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.

Substantial U.S. arms transfers to Israel also occurred in September 1970 when, at President Richard Nixon’s request, Israel mobilized its forces to save King Hussein of Jordan from a Palestinian uprising aided by Syrian forces.

In the following decades, however, the role of the U.S. has expanded into direct involvement in air defense operations against missile and drone attacks against Israel. The U.S. Army air defense units, for example, were used to defend Israel against Iraq’s scud missile attacks as early as the 1990-91 Gulf War.

This U.S. participation has been in evidence since the Oct. 7 attacks, too. In the months after the attacks, U.S. operations have been conducted against missile and drone attacks launched toward Israel by the Houthis in Yemen and by Iran.

By all accounts, the U.S. military support for Israel has played a crucial role in Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors. Therefore, an appropriate name for the broader conflict, I would argue, should reflect this active U.S. participation.

On the “Arab” side of the conflict, too, the adversaries of Israel are no longer limited to Arab nations. Iran is now an active participant; Tehran not only provides military support for groups hostile to Israel, including Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah, but it has had direct military exchanges with Israel during the current Gaza war.

Furthermore, Iran and Israel have been involved in covert operations and cyberwars against each other for the past 15 years, which have only intensified since the Israel-Hamas war.

Risk of Turkish involvement?

And with no resolution to the current fighting in sight, the chances of widening the conflict further shouldn’t be dismissed. Two possible scenarios that can widen this conflict are a serious escalation between Israel and Iran, and the active participation of Turkey.

The intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the resulting high casualties have escalated tensions between Israel and Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and politicians from various Turkish political parties have been very vocal in their criticism of Israel’s military operations.

Public anger and anti-Israeli sentiments in Turkey have reached high levels, partly as a result of the extensive coverage of the carnage and human suffering in Gaza. There is even a small possibility that an unexpected event, such as an encounter between the Israeli navy and a Turkish ship approaching Gaza to defy Israel’s naval blockade, might lead to a military exchange between Turkey and Israel. While the likelihood of such an exchange remains small, a military escalation between Israel and Turkey could also be triggered by a major Israeli operation in Lebanon, according to some experts.

“Turkey’s Erdogan meets Iranian Leadership,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024