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Six months on from the horrific terrorist attack on October 7th , we can increasingly say it marked not only the beginning of a war with Hamas but also an increasingly decisive turn towards a war with Iran.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Hamas, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, governs approximately 2 million people in the territory of the Gaza Strip and is best known for what the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes as its “commitment to armed resistance against Israel.”
How did this Sunni-based jihadist group achieve an armed invasion of Israel – killing more than1200 people and taking more than 240-people hostage?
The answer: Iran.
Iran, a Shia-led theocracy, has “funded, armed, trained, and provided intelligence to Hamas for decades,” according to Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Why would a Shia-led sovereign country support a Sunni-based jihadist group?
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar of the Harvard Kennedy School and Texas A&M argues in Foreign Affairs that Iran pursued such a strategy to achieve five strategic objectives:
Bring the fight to Israeli soil: “Already, Hamas has succeeded in bringing the proxy war between Iran and Israel—typically fought in Lebanon and Syria—to Israeli soil.”
Deter Israel: “As Tehran sees it, the conflict could help Hamas permanently deter Israel from attacking Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by teaching Israel that the costs of invading the territory are prohibitively high.”
Unite Iran’s axis of resistance: “The conflict could further unite Tehran and its allied militias into a lethal and highly coordinated fighting machine.”
Increase Iran’s standing in the region: “It could give the Islamic Republic a new claim to moral leadership among states outside the West and restore Tehran’s credibility in the Arab world.”
Justify completing a nuclear weapon: “…should the war expand into a regional conflict, it could create a window of opportunity for Iran to finally build a nuclear weapon.”
Tabaar goes on to argue: “As Israeli forces advance through Gaza, the war could escalate to the point where Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’—Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere—become direct combatants. Such developments could, in turn, drag the United States into the fighting.”
It appears Tabaar’s prediction in November of 2023 may be coming to fruition.
The United States and Israel are bracing for an attack by Iran against not only US forces in the region but also Israel itself – an attack that senior US officials describe as “inevitable.”
A direct attack on Israel represents a dire scenario. Even if Iran selects military targets they believe represent a re-establishment of deterrence in response to Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, Israel may not view such an attack by Iran in the same way.
There has been a fundamental shift in Israel’s perspective in the wake of the October 7th attack. Israel views October 7th as an invasion of its territory not only by Hamas but also a nation-state: Iran. Israeli leaders believe October 7th represents an on-going existential threat to Israel’s ability to continue as a sovereign state. Accordingly, Israeli leaders would likely view any direct attack by Iran as a further confirmation of an existential threat to Israel, its people, and Jews across the world. There is only one country that can step in to both deter Iran and de-escalate the situation.
The United States.
But even if the United States deters Iran from conducting such an attack and/or influences Israel’s response to an escalation by Iran, the implications of Iran’s attacks against Israel (by proxy on October 7th and perhaps directly in the coming days) have now extended beyond Gaza – and even the region – to a larger, global dimension that takes on more of the guise of great power competition than terrorism in Gaza and the region.
The on-going war in Gaza has not only catalyzed empathetic sentiment in the “global South” (a part of the world increasingly exploited by the likes of China and Russia) but also the West. As Tabaar further explains in his analysis in Foreign Affairs: “Last year, the streets of Berlin, London, Washington, and other cities across the world were filled with people protesting the
Islamic Republic’s violence against women. Now, those same streets are occupied by people protesting Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
By both aligning itself with and directly supporting the Palestinian cause through Hamas, Iran believes it may be positioning itself as part of a larger “resistance” against what it describes as US and Western “hypocrisy” and “oppression” – notably a narrative that China and Russia also employ to attempt to expand their influence across the globe. Iran may well view the sentiment among the “global South” and parts of the West as what Tabaar describes as a “broad, once-in- a-generation shift…[in which] the United States is in decline and that new global and regional powers are upending the order that emerged after World War I and World War II.”
Indeed, October 7th unleashed forces that are less akin to what we are immediately witnessing in Gaza and increasingly more akin to great power competition – a new fight for the long-term primacy of the global order in the second half of the 21st century – and beyond.
The United States’ actions and decisions in response to this apparent and “inevitable” Iranian attack over the coming weeks may well influence this long-term future. Israel’s security is, therefore, global security.
Sources:
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/hamas_fto.html
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-hostages-israel-gaza-41432124
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/why-iran-gambling-hamas?check_logged_in=1
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/politics/us-israel-iran-retaliation-strike/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/syria-iran-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-consulate-amirabdollahian-
68c7a652c5434d80fbff47e0ddbdd483
Dr. Alex Gallo is the author of “Vetspective,” a RallyPoint series that discusses national security, foreign policy, politics, and society and highlights the analysis of thought-leaders, policy analysts, and scholars. Alex also serves as a fellow with George Mason University’s National Security Institute, an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and a US Army Veteran. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexGalloUSA.
Foreign Affairs
VetSpective
Middle East
Israel
Edited 7 mo ago
Posted 7 mo ago
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I disagree with the headline on this article. The war in that region started over 2000 years ago and never settled.
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MAJ Byron Oyler
CPT (Join to see) - You are 100% correct and if I was a Jew in 1948 I would not have moved to an area where people all around want to kill me.
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SFC Kelly Fuerhoff
MAJ Byron Oyler 3 d
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
I understand the historical reason Jews settled there in 1948 but will never understand why a group of people would want to live in an area surrounded by people wanting to kill them. If I was a Jew at the end of WWII, I would have been like, "can we get some land in Montana or Idaho?" The Mormons have been pretty happy in Utah
--- Why they settled there? No one else would take them in their land. Not anyone in Europe. Not the US. And "surrounded by people who wanted to kill them?" Really? Seems like Israelis are the ones committing ethnic cleansing since 1948. " The creation of Israel was a violent process that entailed the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to establish a Jewish-majority state, as per the aspirations of the Zionist movement.
Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres."
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PO2 Robert Carrillo
They want to live there because it's their land, would you like to be forced off and out of the USA, and if you were and had the chance to get it back would you, and then fight to hold on to it . That's why, I would fight for this country and it's value, no matter our faults it's still the best country in the world.
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Maj Bruce Miller
There's a 23 lecture series on the streaming service Great Courses Plus called The World of Biblical Israel. The lecturer, professor Cynthia Chapman Th.D. goes into a thorough history of the original formation of Judea beginning in old Babylonia up thru recent history. Fascinating stuff!
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Excellent article. ANY U.S. administration which allows Iran to achieve a nuclear weapon on their watch will go down in history as an epic failure. A nuclear Iran, is a destabilizing rogue nation that the world cannot allow.
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