It is hard to recall a time when events in the Middle East escalated as quickly as they have in the last week. And they threaten to deteriorate further still.
Whilst Israel, and what’s left of humanity, are still collectively reeling from Hamas’s barbaric assault on the Israeli people, regional terror groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen do all they can to advance their cause: the destruction of the Israeli state.
It is the Iranian regime’s strategy to create a ring of fire to ultimately destroy Israel. For our elected officials to ignore this most basic premise of regional geopolitics is professional negligence.
It is important to understand that what many are calling “regional escalation” is in fact this Iranian strategy at work: seeking to starve Israel of oxygen. There is little doubt that Tehran were warned about the October 7 attacks, if it did not have a more direct role in planning, training or otherwise facilitating the Hamas fighters.
Since then Iraqi and Syrian Shia militias directly controlled on the ground by the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have launched in excess of 130 attacks against American forces, attempting to ratchet up political pressure on Israel.
Elsewhere the Houthi’s campaign against the international maritime trade has been directly overseen by IRGC commanders, including intelligence gathering and targeting of these vessels, with Iranian supplied ballistic missiles. This Iranian campaign – using the Zadi Shia Houthi tribe as a proxy against Israel – is not about supporting Palestine.
The mullahs ruling Iran do not care about the Palestinian cause, much less a two state solution – sharing this trait with the Arab world elite. Rather, the Houthis peddle this line to help mask Iran’s true intentions – the destruction of Israel and the collapse of any American and British presence in the region.
There are no easy answers for Western policy makers who wish to aid Israel whilst kowtowing to an increasingly militant domestic audience rallying against Israeli support. But they must do all they can to ensure both Israeli survival and the survival of our national interests.
The time has come to realise that appeasing Iran is to directly subvert our national security. The woeful Biden administration has simply continued Obama’s disastrous appeasement of the murderous Iranian regime by attempting to restart the deeply flawed nuclear talks with Tehran. As long as Ayatollah Khamenei dangles the threat of an Iranian bomb over America, Washington seems unable to act.
And act, it now must. Whilst last week’s targeted strikes on Houthi military infrastructure was the correct response, it came two months too late.
Whilst the strikes did result in degrading some Houthi military capability, not 72 hours later the terror group responded with further missile attacks against US ships. The deterrence that Washington and London sought to re-establish quickly vanished, as Iran can sense Western indecision, and thus weakness.
There needn’t be such paralysis over how to react to Iran. Striking Houthi targets is merely a low-risk, high political return quick gimmick. We must cut the head off the snake once and for all, by actively targeting Iranian military command and control of their proxies planning the destruction of Israel, and threatening our military personnel.
The West (once again, America and Britian) must now be prepared to strike IRGC targets in the region, including the IRGC spy vessel the Behshad, operating south of Yemen and feeding intelligence to the Houthis to strike western ships. IRGC regional commanders must also be prioritised. If attacks keep occurring, and Iran seek to further escalate, then legitimate military targets inside Iran must also be considered.
Whilst many will claim that this strategy will only embolden Iranian aggression further, two things are worth remembering. The long overdue killing of IRGC commander Qassim Soleimani, four years ago this month, went largely unanswered by a stunned Iranian regime, stunned that the US, under a more assertive Trump administration, had the appetite to meet the Iranian risk-threshold. We are currently acting far below that threshold.
The indecisive Biden administration have deliberated over striking Houthi targets for well over two months. Trump seized the initiative by killing Soleimani without warning.
We must relearn how to seize the initiative when it comes to ending Iranian aggression against our national interests.
Source » telegraph