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Six months on from the horrific terrorist attack on October 7th , we can increasingly say it marked not only the beginning of a war with Hamas but also an increasingly decisive turn towards a war with Iran.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Foreign Affairs
VetSpective
Middle East
Israel
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 14
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I pray your conclusions are wrong, but fear they are correct.More than war with Iran, this could well be the ignition point of WWIII.
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"“Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”"
People who opposed the Islamic Republic's violence against women are ALSO outraged about Israel bombing women and children who speak a funny language and have somewhat darker skin than the average Jewish person?
Hmmm. What a surprise.
Maybe people who are opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states committing or permitting violence against women aren't JUST opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states doing so.
Despite what many on the right think, people killing Muslim and/or Arab women and children isn't acceptable simply because the savages doing the killing are Israelis.
Side note: the only way that the US and the world are going to be rid of the Israeli-MENA conflict is if the world gets off of oil as source of energy or if the MENA states eliminate Israel as a state before the MENA states lose their main revenue source and, with it, the political power that comes from it. The US isn't going to stop backing Israel, which is no friend to the US, because the US needs stable oil prices, which are largely dictated by people's sentiments about what MIGHT happen as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
And in the US, the primary group of people who want to keep the US and the world addicted to oil as an energy source come mostly from one party.
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”"
People who opposed the Islamic Republic's violence against women are ALSO outraged about Israel bombing women and children who speak a funny language and have somewhat darker skin than the average Jewish person?
Hmmm. What a surprise.
Maybe people who are opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states committing or permitting violence against women aren't JUST opposed to far-right Muslim-majority states doing so.
Despite what many on the right think, people killing Muslim and/or Arab women and children isn't acceptable simply because the savages doing the killing are Israelis.
Side note: the only way that the US and the world are going to be rid of the Israeli-MENA conflict is if the world gets off of oil as source of energy or if the MENA states eliminate Israel as a state before the MENA states lose their main revenue source and, with it, the political power that comes from it. The US isn't going to stop backing Israel, which is no friend to the US, because the US needs stable oil prices, which are largely dictated by people's sentiments about what MIGHT happen as a result of conflict in the Middle East.
And in the US, the primary group of people who want to keep the US and the world addicted to oil as an energy source come mostly from one party.
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We should also be alert domestically. I am certain a large number of terrorist cells infiltrated the US during the unmonitored Southern mass migration.
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.......F ...iran....send in the wolfhounds of the 25th Infantry.....guarantee they will get the job done or screw things up more !!!!!!!!
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PO3 Paul Lowrey
Hey CPL Larry Frias, I’m not particularly worried about the 25th Infantry screwing things up more or less but what does worry me is having VP Harris as Commander in Chief of our military trying to lead a war while cackling like a settin Hen trying to pass a log chain with her lap boy waltzing and strutting around like Tinker Bell. It wouldn’t surprise me if we do get into some kind of war over there.
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