Iran and its Arab allies may not want an out Middle East war, but that has not stopped them from increasingly engaging Israel on multiple fronts.
The Iranian-backed strategy aims to pressure Israel to agree to a Gaza ceasefire by sapping its military strength and fueling mounting domestic pressure on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The strategy is also geared towards enhancing the Islamic Republic’s regional influence at a time of mounting widespread anger at Israel and the United States, the Jewish state’s main military and political supporter.
This month, Iraq quietly allowed Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to open offices in Baghdad as the United States and Iraq finalised plans for the withdrawal of most US troops from the country over the next two years, leaving only a small residual force in the northern Kurdistan region.
Iran’s strategy is proving effective militarily and politically, even though it builds as much on bluster as on kinetic action and threatens to undermine newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian’s efforts to reengage with the West.
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“What Israel has done in the region and what Israel tried with the assassination of (Hamas political leader) Ismail Haniyeh in Iran was to drag us into a regional war. We have exercised restraint so far but we reserve the right to defend ourselves at a specific time and place with specific methods. However, we are preserving everything to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza,” Mr. Pezeshkian said at his first news conference since taking office on July 31.
Mr. Haniyeh was killed while in Tehran for Mr. Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
Maintaining thinly veiled plausible deniability as a way of constraining a potential Iranian response, Israel has not confirmed or denied responsibility for the killing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Iran that it could not have it both ways.
“Iran’s new president and foreign minister have repeatedly said that they want to restore engagement with Europe; they want to receive sanctions relief. Destabilizing actions like these will achieve exactly the opposite,” Mr. Blinken said.
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The secretary was referring to Iran allegedly supplying ballistic missiles to Russia for its war against Ukraine. The United States imposed new sanctions in response to the missile shipment.
The US Treasury said Iran and Russia had agreed on the missile supply long before Mr. Pezeshkian came to office.
Iran has denied the US assertion as a “vile propaganda ploy and a blatant lie.”
Even so, Mr. Blinken could just as well have been referring to Iranian support for its non-state partners’ attacks on Israel.
Last week, Iranian allies pushed their strategy with stepped-up drone and missile attacks by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, and a Yemeni Houthi missile strike aimed at Tel Aviv.
In his response to the Houthi attack, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged the Iranian strategy. “We are in a multi-front campaign against Iran’s evil axis that strives to destroy us,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah and the Houthis reject Israel’s right to exist but insist they will stop attacking Israel once it agrees to a Gaza ceasefire.
The latest Houthi attack, despite Israel’s denial of the Yemenis’ assertion that they fired a hypersonic missile, raised the spectre of the group’s potential to disrupt Israeli commercial air traffic. The Houthi missile exploded near Tel Aviv’s main Ben Gurion International Airport.
The attack also sparked questions about Israel’s air defence capabilities. Israel intercepted the missile but failed to destroy it. Fragments fell near the settlement of Kfar Daniel, wounding nine people.
It was the second time the Houthis succeeded in breaching Israel’s defences. In July, the group launched a drone that hit a Tel Aviv building, killing one person.
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Mr. Pezeshkian denied allegations that Iran had supplied hypersonic missiles to the Houthis but asserted Iran had such weapons in its arsenal.
Mr. Pezeshkian’s comments and the Houthi and Hezbollah attacks highlight missiles as ‘the poor man’s’ weapon of choice, given that Iran and its non-state allies lack a robust air force or navy.
Nevertheless, more than the Houthi missiles, Hezbollah’s attacks heightened the risk of expanded military conflict in the Middle East by targeting towns in Galilee, relatively far from the Lebanese border that, unlike border settlements, have not been evacuated.
Israel has threatened to wage a Gaza-style campaign against Hezbollah to significantly degrade the group’s military capabilities and force it to withdraw to the Litani River, 30 kilometres north of the Lebanese-Israeli border.
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Adam Hochstein meets Binyamin Netanyahu. Credit: Israeli Prime Minister’s Office
In a meeting this week with US President Joe Biden’s envoy, Adam Hochstein, Mr. Netanyahu insisted that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.”
Referring to tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from towns and settlements on the Lebanese border since the Gaza war erupted almost a year ago because of the tit-for-tat war with Hezbollah, Mr. Netanyahu added Lebanese border security to his war goals as Mr. Hochstein was visiting.
Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Hochstein’s assertion that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes. He warned that the prime minister risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Israel “appreciates and respects” US support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely,” Mr. Netanyahu reportedly told Mr. Hochstein, who was visiting Lebanon and Israel to prevent an escalation in Middle East hostilities.
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The US is concerned that recent developments differ from past Israeli and Hezbollah bluster, with Israel gearing up to match words with deeds.
Even so, it remained unclear whether Mr. Netanyahu was seeking an all-out confrontation or would opt for intensified strikes against Hezbollah that stop short of sparking a regional war.
In an apparent escalation of hostilities, more than 2,700 people, many of them members of Hezbollah were injured in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut when their pagers exploded.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was reportedly among the wounded. Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said at least eight people, including a child, were killed.
Although Israel did not claim responsibility, Hezbollah officials described the incident as “biggest security breach” by Israel since the group was formed.
Hezbollah’s pagers exploded hours after Israel’s domestic security agency, said it had foiled an attempt by the group to kill an unidentified former Israeli security official.
Notwithstanding the pager explosions, what is clear is that Mr. Netanyahu feels he can disregard the Americans’ advice and may not even need to coordinate with the United States, given the Biden administration’s reluctance to apply more than verbal pressure on Israel and the fact that the United States is in election mode. The exploding pagers occurred a day after Mr. Hochstein met Mr. Netanyahu.
Mr. Blinken appeared to highlight US-Israeli differences as he embarked on his tenth visit to the Middle East in 11 months.
Mr. Blinken did not include Israel in his public schedule for the first time. The State Department said the secretary was visiting Egypt to finalize a revised US-Egyptian-Qatari Gaza ceasefire proposal and attend the US-Egypt Strategic Dialogue.
Asked earlier this month whether Mr. Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a ceasefire, Mr. Biden replied, “No.”
Throughout the war, Mr. Blinken spearheaded the administration’s coordination with Israel in the ceasefire talks.
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Feisal al-Turki speaks at Chatham House on 13 September 2024. Credit: Chatham House
Mr. Netanyahu will have been buoyed in his hardline approach towards Iran and its non-state partners by the fact that Saudi Arabia shares his concerns, even if the kingdom has condemned Israel’s Gaza war conduct and the prime minister’s apparent refusal to facilitate a ceasefire.
Last week, Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and diplomat who often reflects Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s thinking, called for stronger international action to halt Iranian support for the Houthis.
“We have seen the deployment of European and US fleets along the Red Sea coast, and more can be done there to interdict the supply of weaponry that comes to the Houthis from Iran. Putting pressure on Iran by the world community can have a positive impact on what the Houthis can do in launching these missiles and drones to hit international commerce,” Mr. Al-Feisal said.
Mr. Al-Feisal was referring to US and British strikes against Houthi military positions in response to the group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping.
He asserted that Iran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and groups in Iraq and Syria violated understandings underlying the 2022 China-mediated restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic.
Saudi Arabia broke relations with Iran in 2016 after Iranian mobs ransacked Saudi diplomatic missions in protest against the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
“The kingdom would have expected Iran to be more forthcoming in showing not just to us but to others that it can be a positive factor in securing stability and removing differences not just with Saudi Arabia but the rest of us,” Mr. Al-Feisal said.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.