Iran has proved a far tougher nut to crack than the other six countries that were said to be on a list of targets of the US Neo-conservatives at the turn of the century. Some of the other six not only had their governments removed, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia have been reduced to a messy chaos in which gangs and warlords fight each other on the streets.
The relative ease with which the governments of those countries were overthrown was probably a reason why Israel attacked Iran on Friday 13 June, even though the US refused to participate—except to lull Iran by engaging it in negotiations over a new agreement about how to safeguard its nuclear programme just when Israel struck.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu may have calculated that it would be as easy to bring down Iran as the other six targets had been. Perhaps Israeli strategists imagined that Iran too would crumble after their initial strikes decapitated the country’s top military leadership. They may have calculated that, at the age of 86, Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamanei would not have the resilience to fight back once they had got rid of his top military aides.
Clearing the way
Overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, and degrading the powerful Hezbollah militia in Lebanon had twin aims. Both countries were on the list of the seven in which Neo-cons and Zionists had aimed for regime change since the turn of the century. But Israel and the Deep State also wanted to ensure that they could not come to Iran’s assistance.
Syria, Hezbollah, and the Houthi establishment in Yemen have been strongly supported by Iran with arms and advice. Indeed, they have sometimes been viewed as proxies of Iran. Yemen did indeed target Western shipping near Aden after the attack on Iran.
Of course, the Zionist establishment had wanted the US to do the dirty work in the attack on Iran, as it had in Iraq and Libya during the presidentships of George Bush Jr and Barack Obama respectively. They went ahead on their own when it became clear, ever since he won power in winter, that Trump was chary of getting mired in a war with Iran.
(When he did bomb Iran’s three major nuclear sites last weekend, Trump tried to use it as his own `mission accomplished’ moment to end the war and call for a ceasefire. After all, Israel had argued that it attacked Iran in order to end its potential to obtain nuclear weapons, and Trump claimed to have gifted Israel that.)
The regime change in Syria, the severe weakening of Lebanon with horrific bombings, and the killing of Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah there over the past few months were aims in their own right, but were also meant to ensure that those forces could not support Iran militarily—possibly by attacking Israel while it attacked Iran.
Another preliminary step: while devastating Gaza, the Israeli state has spent the past 20 months degrading (and now trying to starve) Hamas, which too could have become Israel’s Achilles’ heel if it was intact in Palestine when Israel attacked Iran.
As things stand, Yemen is the only force supporting Iran which remains resilient, although it has endured a massive bombing campaign by the US.
Netanyahu and his aides may have calculated that, having decapitated Hezbollah already, that assassinating Iran’s top military and intelligence leadership would puncture Iran’s morale—more so after the threat to flatten Teheran which Trump implied when he told the citizens of Iran’s capital to evacuate.
But, unlike what happened in Iraq and Libya, Iran remained resolutely undeterred. Hardly anyone expected that it would bomb the biggest US base in the Gulf region in retaliation for the US’s attacks on its nuclear sites. Even fewer expected that the US would accept the counter-strike and seek to de-escalate.
Ground invasion
By comparison, destabilising Iraq, Libya, and the other targets were like running a knife through butter. Iran has proved much harder.
Of course, a major difference between the war against Iran and that against Iraq in 2003 was that the latter was a ground invasion. After sweeping up through Iraq in what the then US defence secretary described as a `shock and awe’ campaign, the US-led forces were able to march into Baghdad unmolested. President Saddam Hussain had gone underground, and the invading forces were able to take over Iraq.
There is little chance of US troops being committed in Iran, or Israeli ground forces either. However, Netanyahu might seek to mobilise some of the various radicalised warlord groups which have been nurtured by Zioinist agencies over the past few decades.
The ceasefire that Trump imposed is fragile. Any of a host of factors could destabilise it.
