Tag Archives: Benjamin Netanyahu

Britain, Government, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Politics, United States

Israel is on the brink of total cataclysm

MIDDLE EAST

AFTER more than nine months of desperate fighting against Hamas in Gaza, events in the Middle East with Lebanon now being drawn in suggest that Israel may be on the brink of total cataclysm.

Military action against Hezbollah, Iran’s largest and best-trained proxy group, in neighbouring Lebanon, could bring war on a totally different scale, a war which Israel is far from certain to win.

Worryingly, it is a war that might easily involve Britain – not only in supplying arms and air cover for Israel, but potentially hurling the UK into armed conflict with Hezbollah. Such a war would have a seismic effect on our domestic politics, already riven by pro-Palestinian protests.

The unprecedented chaos in America’s presidential election as it currently stands will be upended if Iran openly declares its military support for Hezbollah. That’s one step short away from a war that would engulf the whole of the Middle East.

And in the ultimate nightmare scenario, if Israel determines that its very existence is threatened and deploys its nuclear arsenal, then a global war would almost certainly ensue, with Russia and Pakistan likely to be among the first to react.

This may seem alarmist to those who have followed the Israel Defence Forces’ unrelenting campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, since the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis. The battering of Rafah and other populous areas, which has reduced entire cities to rubble and forced more than 1.5million displaced people into refugee camps, has given the world an illusion of Israel’s invincibility.

But this is far from the reality. Israel is exhausted by the conflict. Previous wars in the nation’s 76-year history have been brief and decisive affairs, and this one is neither.

After nearly 300 days of conflict, not only does prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline Government continue to resist international calls for a ceasefire, but the army of Hamas fighters has proved to be robust and resilient. Their failure to wipe out Hamas will be concerning for Israelis. And Hezbollah is no Hamas. It is far larger, with the support and backing of 2.5million Lebanese, almost half the population.

In fact, the group rules the country south of Beirut and its leaders have been preparing for war against Israel for many years. Hezbollah is backed by vast funding and training from Iran.

Their fighters are not a volunteer militia hiding among the civilian population and scurrying through underground tunnels, but a highly organised, well-equipped, disciplined army, dug into heavily fortified positions.

Whether the slaughter of 12 children in a rocket attack in the last few days was intended as the starting gun for a war is not wholly clear. It was, however, an outrageous provocation by Hezbollah.

Israel has already retaliated with air strikes against targets in Lebanon. And there is a danger that if its response to the killings is not sufficiently forceful, then Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters will feel emboldened.

Yet if Israel pursues further escalation, as seems probable, it couldn’t come at a better time for Hezbollah. This could start a much wider war most Israelis don’t want, undermining Netanyahu. Already, 120,000 people have fled their homes in the north because of Lebanese rocket attacks.

For western politicians, decision-makers are facing a policy crisis. In the United States, Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate to replace President Joe Biden in the White House, will face a dilemma. If she advocates backing Israel, she will alienate Muslim voters, while attracting no Republicans to her side. Donald Trump is 100 per cent pro-Israel.

For Sir Keir Starmer, the crisis could prove even worse. Many Labour MPs, particularly on the left of the party, are furious at his past support for Israel. Protests on Britain’s streets could quickly escalate to rioting, especially in urban areas with large Muslim populations, such as Birmingham and Leeds.

And if the RAF is deployed to protect Israel against missile attacks once again, Hezbollah could strike at British air bases in Cyprus, which is only 60 miles from the Lebanese coast.

The risks now are higher than ever.

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Britain, Iran, Israel, Middle East, United Nations, United States

Iran’s nuclear threat will be a concern for Netanyahu

IRAN-ISRAEL

ISRAEL’S Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may feel he faces an impossible dilemma following the successful neutralisation of Iran’s missile and drone onslaught.

President Biden has counselled him to “take the win” and refrain from escalating hostilities. But the hawks in Mr Biden’s war Cabinet and the Israeli public want their PM to press home the advantage and take the battle to Tehran. After all, they say, the mullahs have never been closer to developing a nuclear bomb.

While there is no doubt Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose a grave threat to Israel and the West, as David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s prime minister from 1955 to 1963) once said, the Jewish state cannot afford long wars.

Ben-Gurion was right then, and he’s probably right today. Even with its allies’ help, defending itself against last weekend’s single Iranian attack is estimated to have cost Israel no less than $1billion. The last thing Tel-Aviv needs is a long and protracted internecine conflict with the theocrats of Persia.

But nor can Jerusalem do nothing. It does look evident that Israel will mount surgical strikes against Iran’s missile launch sites and the factories that produces its ordnance. Even if Iran does develop a bomb, without a delivery system it will be unable to use it against its enemies.

The world itself should be in no doubt as to the danger an Iranian bomb would present – and just how terrifying close the regime is to building one.

In a desolate mountainous region 140 miles south of Tehran is a one-square-mile site protected by anti-aircraft batteries, and a detachment of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: the Natanz nuclear facility.

Over the years, Natanz has been subjected to a remorseless campaign of sabotage in a bid to prevent it creating the wherewithal for a nuclear warhead.

In 2009, it was hit by a sophisticated cyber-attack using a computer virus called Stuxnet. This is believed to have been created by Israel along with American cooperation.

For months, Iranian scientists scratched their heads in puzzlement as its centrifuges, vital tools in the uranium enrichment process, failed at an unprecedented rate. Israelis also organised the targeted assassinations of key scientists involved in the nuclear programme and destroyed elements of the Natanz facility using bomb-carrying drones.

Now, however, there are signs that great strides have been made in improving security at Natanz, to the point where it has become virtually impregnable.

A recent analysis of satellite images of the site concluded that the Iranians are building an underground facility at Natanz at a dept of between 260ft and 328ft.

As the US’ most advanced bunker-busting bomb, the GBU-57, is designed to plough through just 200ft of earth before detonating, this is bad news for the Israelis and their allies.

Meanwhile, in the five years since President Trump unilaterally withdrew America from a nuclear accord that strictly limited Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 3.67 per cent purity (enough to fuel civilian power stations) and by keeping its stockpile to some 300kg (660lb), it has made good progress towards developing weapons-grade uranium.

Last year, inspectors discovered that it had produced uranium particles that were 83.7 per cent pure, just short of the 90 per cent weapons threshold.

And Natanz and its various sister sites are not the Iranians’ only nuclear option. Just as Britain and Russia developed “civil” nuclear energy, which produces plutonium as a by-product of the electricity-generating process, to give themselves a source of the necessary nuclear warhead material, so Iran has acquired a plutonium-powered plant of its own.

At the port of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, there is an atomic energy plant controlled by Russian engineers.

Conventional wisdom has it that the plant will not bring Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb, because Moscow supplies the enriched uranium for the reactor and – under a “peaceful use” clause in the deal – repatriates to Russia spent fuel rods that could be reprocessed and enriched into weapons-grade plutonium.

Yet much has changed in the world of geopolitics since that deal was struck. Russia has turned itself into a pariah following its unprovoked, brutal, and bloody war against Ukraine.

It was also striking quite how pro-Iran Putin’s UN ambassador was at the Security Council meeting immediately following the attacks on Israel. Who’s to say, then, Russia would object to Iran purloining enough plutonium to produce a range of nuclear warheads?

Certainly, using the plutonium produced at Bushehr would be a quicker route to making a bomb than waiting for Natanz to come up with sufficient enriched uranium.

Given that Tehran could, theoretically, have a bomb within a matter of months, the need for Israel to take out Iran’s ability to make delivery systems could not be more urgent. The destruction of manufacturing facilities for rockets, guidance systems, and detonator plants at centres such as Parchin, would mean Iran would not have a deployable nuke even if it had sufficient highly enriched uranium. Precision strikes would also spare civilian Iranians the calamity engulfing Gaza.

Such a move would also send a powerful signal to Iran’s increasingly restive population. A decisive Israeli military strike now could destabilise the Ayatollah’s regime and remove the fear of his Revolutionary Guards enforcers.

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Britain, Iran, Israel, Middle East, United States

Fears grow that Tehran is plotting revenge attacks

IRAN–ISRAEL

BENJAMIN Netanyahu has warned that Israel would “harm whoever harms us” as the country is braced for an armed confrontation with Iran.

Tensions are high after Iran has vowed revenge following the Israeli defence force’s strike on its embassy in Syria which killed a leading general.

American intelligence suggests that the regime in Tehran is planning a “significant attack” against Israel. There are fears that the Middle East crisis could trigger a global conflict.

Perspective

In January 2020, Iran’s military mastermind Qasem Soleimani was assassinated by missiles fired from an American drone as his escort convoy left Baghdad airport.

In response, Tehran made bloodcurdling threats of revenge.

Five days later, that retaliatory attack duly came. But it proved a pitiful embarrassment.

Dozens of missiles rained down on two U.S. airbases in Iraq. Collateral damage amounted to the destruction of only a gymnasium and canteen; no lives were lost. It seems to have been a moment of shame for the mullahs – and one whose pain still stings.

So, following the attack by Israel on an Iranian consulate earlier this month, killing 13 people including senior military officers, Tehran’s theocratic mullahs are once again thirsting for revenge.

President Joe Biden has warned that a significant attack is imminent. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that his country is primed “offensively and defensively” in meeting all of the security needs of the State of Israel.

Tuesday was the last day of Ramadan: one of the most important dates in the Muslim calendar. It is thought that many Iranian generals will be arguing that the time is ripe to strike.

So, what could they do?

There are three main options. Most apocalyptically, Iran could risk all-out war by targeting specific locations in Israel itself.

Or it could launch deniable attacks via its proxy forces in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Syria and western Iraq (Shi’ite militias), or Yemen (Houthis). Third, it could carry out a tit-for-tat raid on an Israeli consulate.

Each one of these options has its own risks.

An attack on Israel would be a seminal moment in modern military history. For one thing, Iran’s sophisticated arsenal of ballistic missiles bears no resemblance to the primitive home-made delivery systems, fashioned from repurposed water pipes, used by Hamas in Gaza.

Its “Kheibar Shekan” missile alone has a warhead that can be packed with 1,100lb of high explosive. Its range of 900 miles means it could devastate or obliterate targets deep inside Israeli territory.

While Israel’s “Iron Dome” air-defence system has proved effective against Hamas’s periodic onslaughts, it has never faced such formidably fast and manoeuvrable firepower.

But the bigger the action, the bigger the consequences. Tehran is all too aware that Israel boasts equally powerful weapons itself and its own nuclear deterrent (which it has never admitted).

This means the mullahs are far more likely to opt for an attack via one of their proxies.

Hezbollah has traded fire with Israel across the latter’s northern border with Lebanon almost daily since Hamas launched its deadly attacks to the south on October 7. These exchanges have intensified in recent weeks.

With a vast stockpile of rockets and missiles at its disposal, Hezbollah can inflict significant damage at considerable cost. Its threat forces Netanyahu to keep large numbers of young Israelis in uniform – and thus out of work – with sharp consequences for the domestic economy.

Endemic conflict will inevitably play havoc with Tel-Aviv’s lucrative tourism industry. This year, the streets of Jerusalem have been noticeably deserted, even over the Easter holiday, as Christian visitors shunned the Holy Land.

The third retaliation could be simple payback: an attack on one of the Israeli embassies.

They would not be short of targets. Israel has long had consulates in Egypt and Jordan and, following the Abraham Accords in 2020, in Bahrain and the UAE, too.

The danger is that any such attack could carry the risk of a military response from the host country or the US – and from there, matters could swiftly spiral out of control.

While events in Gaza have dominated the headlines in recent months, the risk of a wider conflagration between Israel and Iran would make the conflict with Hamas look like a sideshow. A wider war has the potential to draw in all the Middle East powers.

The United States has promised Israel “ironclad” support in the event of Iranian reprisals, and Britain will stand squarely behind its American ally.

If oil exports are disrupted, with all that means for household energy bills, other Western actors surely will be drawn into the conflict.

The challenge facing our leaders is to avoid an escalation in hostilities which could have devastating consequences for the world.

Sunday, 14 April

It has commenced. Following Israel’s airstrike on key Iranian commanders in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the “phoney war” in which threats and counterthreats were exchanged, have now ended.

Unlike previous skirmishes in which Iran waged war from behind its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels of Yemen, events overnight represent a significant escalation.

In a chilling development, the two dominant military powers in the Middle East have begun to trade punches directly, in a heavyweight contest that could wreak dire consequences on each other, but also the world economy.

The arteries of global trade in oil and natural gas run through the region, as do Europe’s imports of goods from China, Japan, and South Korea.

International shipping is imperilled like never before. Events yesterday also saw Iranian special forces seizing an Israeli-owned container ship in the Persian Gulf. This was not an act of piracy committed by Iran’s proxies in the Red Sea – this was Tehran itself, committing an act of bald aggression.

Israel’s next move is critical. If the country’s Iron Dome anti-missile defence system blunts this onslaught by shooting down most of Iran’s drones and missiles, then maybe an opportunity could present itself in which tensions might ease.

But if Israel feels confident that it can go further and neutralise Iranian attacks, it might decide to go on the front foot.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could strike at Iran’s launch sites and nuclear facilities before Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi can retaliate. But it is a big and highly risky job.

Britain and the U.S. have been trying to silence Yemen’s much weaker Houthis for six months now – without success. Can either side back down?

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, whose senior commanders were assassinated by Israel on April 1, are Tehran’s enforces – at home as well as abroad.

Amid the pressure that has forced the country’s mullahs to unleash their drones on Israel, they will find it difficult to step back from the brink.

The hardmen who keep them in power will push for the attacks to continue, not just on Israel directly but also on her allies, such as Britain and the U.S. – their shipping and embassies will become prime targets.

Backing off now is not an option for either side, nor for Britain. Rishi Sunak has committed UK support to its ally, and it will be seen whether he will waver now a wider war is inevitable.

Any chink in Western resolve will only encourage hostile states beyond the Middle East, like Russia and China – big power rivals who eagerly await a window of weakness in which to further their own territorial aims.

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