Gaza is a minnow: the big fish they are after is Iran

The forecast is of greater geopolitical instability, the challenge is of rising insecurity and the need of the hour is of a coherent political strategy to get out of the big hole that Hamas, Israel, the US and its allies have dig for the world in the Middle East. There is huge international outrage but the Arab world’s outrage seems mild considering that it is their own brothers who are defenceless and being massacred by Israelis in cold blood.

Most Arab leaders are painting themselves in ‘Churchillian colour’ by likening Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, but clearly this is more to appease their own people and the Muslim world rather than to confront Israel. The Arab dilemma is very clear to understand. Most don’t have an independent foreign policy. Those that seem to have the independent foreign policy have already been sorted out, such as Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Some of the big fat Arab countries were working overtime on liberalising their social order and were showcasing to their superior master, the US, how they had enhanced civil liberties and human rights in their countries. Dependent on the US for their defence and security could any one of them do something against the master’s will?

Libya has expelled the American, British, French and Italian ambassadors. It has done that because these countries support Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But the other Arab countries have their liberal agendas. Qatar just finished hosting the FIFA 2022 World Cup. Since it is building its soft image, why it would like to spoil it. MBS needs lots of foreign investment for his mega projects, thus he would not like to scare away the foreign investors and do nothing that would spoil his efforts of refreshing the social and political profile of Saudi Arabia. This is true for all the GCC countries as much as it is true for Egypt and Jordan.

In his January 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared Iraq, Syria and Iran the axis of evil. Twenty-one years later, the US and Israel have sorted out Iraq and Syria but the third pillar of the axis still stands. It is this third pillar which is the actual target of the US-Israeli military campaign. Gaza is a minnow attached as bait with the Israeli hook. The big fish that both the US and Israel want to catch is Iran. All they are doing is waiting for Iran to bite. The political end goal against all three Arab countries was to deprive them of having nuclear weapons; and after Iraq and Syria were sorted out, Iran would have been next in line. But due to overwhelming losses in the Iraq war, the US preferred to impose economic sanctions on Iran and made efforts for a regime change.

President Trump’s tweets reflect how the US practised anti-Iran policy. He advocated to Iran through his tweets to ‘respect peoples rights’, ‘allow them free expression’ and ‘cease restricting the access of the people of Iran to internet and social media’ and he tweeted that ‘the world was watching’ and that ‘it is time for change’. He even pledged to support Iranians who would attempt to take back their government. So, there was a deliberate effort on the part of the Americans to ensure that the people of Iran rise against the existing Iranian regime. Because of the sanctions, the Iranian rial depreciated and inflation fueled the prices of the basic necessities, like eggs and vegetables, by 30 to 40 per cent. President Trump tore up the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Against Iran the American message to its Arab partners in the Middle East was that they must realise that Iran was more dangerous to them than Israel and that Arabs have an option to reconcile with Israel and sign the comprehensive peace agreement with it, thus freeing themselves to tackle the Iranian project in the Middle East together with Israel.

If the Arabs were ready to join hands with Israel then the benefits were pretty much clear. If the Iranian-supported Houthis would fire 600 miles plus range of modified Scud missile at Saudi Arabia then Saudi Arabia was able to defend itself by knocking it down by the US-provided Patriot Air Defense missile. So, anyone who expects any of these Arab countries, who rely on American support for their security and survival, to come up openly in support of the Palestinian cause is not reading the history and not following the changing trends of geopolitics in the region.

So, if Iran was in the Israeli and American cross hairs for a long time, what was its response supposed to be? Iran needed to have an Iranian plan and the plan was simple — reinforce the axis of resistance together with Syria and Lebanon against the American and Israeli aggression. If the Americans and the Israelis wanted to topple the Iranian government then Iran will fight against it but not inside but outside its borders. It went about consolidating the land corridor from Iran to the shores of Mediterranean Sea. There it initiated underground work that the Americans and Israelis are constantly on the lookout for. This work is being executed underground in Syria and Lebanon to manufacture precision-guided missiles.

Iran has stuck in principle to a simple doctrine since its existence. No non-Muslim state no matter how powerful should have any role in the defence of any littoral Muslim state in the Gulf region. Iran has paid a huge price for following this doctrine but the economic sufferings have only made Iranian belief much stronger. Resultantly, the only country in the Middle Eastern power politics that is self-reliant and has an independent foreign policy is Iran. Turkey also follows in the footsteps of Iran partially and very cautiously and one cannot blame it as it is the only Middle Eastern country that is part of NATO.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was recently in Iran showing solidarity with the country. Hamas’s delegate is in Moscow, as I write, meeting President Vladimir Putin. Chinese warships have moved towards the Middle East. Hooking the Iranian fish will not be as easy as the Americans and the Israelis think. Realism is all about achieving security through balance of power. There will be no war as China and Russia will balance out against the US and Israel.

However, the rise of China and Russia and the decline of the US as a global hegemon will be the greatest story of the 21^st Century — a century of multilateralism and multipolarity. A parallel world order will rise against the current order of liberal internationalism because this order is failing to promote liberalism and all it is promoting is injustice, exploitation, genocide, war crimes and unaccountability.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2023.

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