The Middle East region has been standing on the brink of an abyss since Iran decided to respond to the targeting of its consulate in Damascus by Israel, as it set new red lines that were not known between the two sides. For years, both Iran and Israel had been engaged in what was known as the “shadow war,” a security conflict that took place in total quiet, as Israeli transgressions typically took the form of deliberate assassinations carried out within permissible regional and global frameworks.
However, in light of the events of October 7 and its aftermath, Israel decided to significantly reduce Iran’s capabilities in the Syrian and Lebanese arenas in conjunction with the Palestinian ones. Accordingly, Israel carried out a series of major assassinations of the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria and the elite brigades affiliated with Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to Tel Aviv’s estimates, these actions may cause confusion on Iran’s battlefields in the near future, as Israel gets ready to launch a major war on its armed affiliates, a move that Israel has been planning for years and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents recently disclosed.
In the same context, Netanyahu – representing Israel’s deep state – faces several challenges, that he cannot get rid of except with an active involvement of the United States and its Western allies. It seems that the current timing, according to the Israeli agenda, is the ideal time to eliminate Netanyahu’s challenges, represented by the Iranian nuclear bomb and the growing combat capabilities of the Lebanese Hezbollah after the experience it gained from the Syrian war and the Iranian concentrations in Syria. Israel aims to eliminate such challenges before the American administration is preoccupied with the presidential elections, potential Ukrainian front expansion, or the anticipated Chinese invasion of Taiwan, as predicted by Western intelligence agencies.
Yet, American pressure on Netanyahu increased after the Israeli violations against the Palestinians, with American support in the Gaza Strip after October 7. These violations, along with the failure of multiple ceasefire negotiations and Egypt’s categorically and decisively refusing to invade Rafah or force the Palestinians into Egyptian territory, put Netanyahu in a tight corner and, hence, forced him to adopt a strategy to escape forward, as evidenced by the Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which negatively impacted the Iranian regime’s reputation both internally and externally.
Iran decided to respond, and confirmed that it was only related to the bombing of its consulate, implicitly denying that it had anything to do with the events in Gaza. The response, according to American statements, was agreed upon and did not lead to a major war. However, the Iranian response constituted a dangerous turning point with the possibility of a shift in the pattern of proxy war between Tehran and Tel Aviv into a direct military clash, in addition to saving the Iranian regime’s reputation among its population and followers, and it also gave the Democrats legitimacy for their continued support to Tel Aviv after harsh criticism domestically and internationally, which the administration of President Joe Biden greatly benefited from.
On the other hand, the Iranian response gave Netanyahu an open space to begin eliminating the threats of Israel’s deep state, with a leap to a new front that the Middle East and the world await. Israel has announced that it will respond to Iran, and the war cabinet met five times within two days to consider response options, but the difference in priorities between Netanyahu and Biden remains, as Netanyahu wants to start a war with Iran, and then its armed affiliates, then complete the entire displacement plan, given that Iran is “the head of the snake” – according to the Israeli president – and striking it paralyzes the rest of its affiliates in the region, while the United States believes that the war must start in Syria, to close the Syrian-Iraqi borders to prevent the flow of any Iranian support to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Despite Netanyahu’s threat to strike Iran, he may respond in Syria and Lebanon, in compliance with the American commandments that warned him against this step, to threaten Iran with a broader response within seconds, and because of his confidence that the battle with the Iranian affiliates might unify the agendas between him and his most important ally in the White House after sharp disagreements that headlined the newspapers for days, given that Gaza will be left hanging on the displacement strategy while preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in the northern and central Gaza, and that the Iran war step would be postponed to the last round; If the latter does not agree to manufacture a nuclear bomb at the present time.
In all cases, the indicators of escalation are much higher than the attempts of containment in the Middle East, after the war in the region began to serve Western interests more than the continuation of fragile stability, especially after the growing relations between the Arab world and Russia and China, and their expansion into traditional areas of Western influence, whether in the Middle East or Africa, besides the Saudi-Iranian agreement that aborted NATO’s Middle Eastern project, which includes Israel to confront Iran, and the return of Syria to the Arab League without American desire, and finally the refusal of the most important countries in the region to support the Ukraine front in favor of Washington, in an unusual divergence from the decades-long American umbrella.
