On 4 October, Israel and the United States were discussing how to respond to Iran’s second missile attack on 1 October. In particular, an attack on Iranian oil facilities was on the agenda. Iran made it clear to the US and Israel that it would no longer be limited to ‘unilateral restraint’ and that any Israeli attack would be met with ‘extraordinary retaliation’. As a result, international oil prices rose for three days in a row, to $75 a barrel for Brent and $71 a barrel for Texas crude, the longest such increase since August.
Israel’s military means are now advancing rapidly and ignoring US President Biden’s suggestions and concerns, constantly escalating the situation in the Middle East and worsening the crisis. It does not even hesitate to pay a huge price for the global economy by jeopardising the world energy supply. Israel may even decide to end its 45-year proxy war with Iran and engage in direct conflict.
In this new era, during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the verge of a one-year peace, Iran fired 200 medium-range missiles at Israel, reigniting a potential regional crisis stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Iran claimed that the massive airstrike was carried out to avenge the deaths of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilfrushan, deputy head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. On 28 September, the Israeli Air Force dropped at least 80 depth charges on the Hezbollah headquarters in southern Beirut, immediately destroying several buildings and killing Nasrallah and Nilfrushan.
In the aftermath, Nasrallah’s body was found intact and without obvious wounds, apparently killed by the shock waves from the massive explosion. This suggests that Israeli intelligence knew Nasrallah’s whereabouts and movements very accurately, and that an intensive bombardment of the target was carried out.
On October 2, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Habib told CNN that Nasrallah’s death occurred after he had shown a willingness to approach a ceasefire. Habib explained that following calls from U.S. President Biden and French President Macron at the UN General Assembly, the Lebanese government had negotiated a ceasefire with Hezbollah. Nasrallah had accepted the ceasefire for 21 days, and this was communicated to both the U.S. and France. Iran, however, claimed that Nilfrushan died because he told Nasrallah to go to Tehran to avoid the risks.
The trees want to be quiet, but the wind won’t stop. If Lebanon confirms the above statement, it shows that the Netanyahu government does not want to see Hezbollah declare its acceptance of the ceasefire, that it has no intention of stopping its ‘Northern Offensive’ against Hezbollah, and that it is determined to escalate the conflict to target Iran. The war may even turn into an all-out war involving Lebanon, Syria and Iran. On 2 October, an Israeli air strike on a house in Damascus killed Nasrallah’s son-in-law, Hassan Karsi. Nasrallah has two daughters married to senior Hamas officials, and Nasrallah’s other son-in-law is likely to be on Israel’s hit list sooner or later, as the Netanyahu government is determined to fight Hezbollah to the death.
Hezbollah accepted the ceasefire offer and Nasrallah was killed. Is this a strange situation? No, it isn’t. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by Israeli military intelligence in Tehran on 31 July, was also a peace leader and wanted a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the basic logic and formula of the Netanyahu government to eliminate negotiating partners, to block peace talks, to fight with super-military means, to import endless economic and military aid from the United States and to achieve a zero-sum outcome.
Since Iran’s attack used strategic strike weapons and partially penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, although it deliberately avoided casualties, it ultimately broke Israel’s strategic defence and deterrence system and increased Iran’s capacity for strategic surprise and deterrence. This increases the likelihood of a major Israeli retaliation. It is expected that Israel will not rest and will not rule out that the retaliation will go beyond the symbolic attack of 18 April, that Iranian political and military leaders, government and military units, nuclear and oil facilities, important ports and airports, etc. could become the target of the attack, and even that warplanes could be sent deep into the Iranian hinterland to carry out the attack. In short, the show of force ball is once again in Israel’s half, and it is up to Netanyahu and his war cabinet to decide.
The Netanyahu government has turned into a real war cabinet, a combination of ‘Ivan the Terrible’ and ‘Ivan the Mad’. ‘Ivan the Terrible’ refers to Ivan IV of the Russian Empire, who, out of mistrust, killed anyone he perceived as a threat, including the elderly Crown Prince; “Ivan the Madman” refers to Cold War tactics in which Soviet Union submarines risked collision at sea by making sudden manoeuvres to evade pursuit.
Instead of a ceasefire in Gaza, the Netanyahu government is rejecting the terms of the Axis of Resistance and expanding its attacks in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah, which is stronger and more flexible than Hamas. This is being done at the risk of escalating the regional conflict to the Third Lebanon War or the Sixth Middle East War, putting Israel in a protracted state of war and provoking a war between the United States and Iran.
The American political news network ‘Politico’ reported on 2 October that the Biden administration has become ineffective against the Netanyahu government, trying only to persuade Netanyahu not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities directly, but with little room left to influence his decisions. Citing two anonymous American officials, the report noted that the Biden administration has recognised that its influence in the Middle East is diminishing and that, after a year, it is no longer able to prevent the situation – regional war – that it has been trying to stop. The current option is to limit Israel’s response, but not to stop its actions altogether.
The article also stated that the Netanyahu government has repeatedly ignored American proposals and expanded its war aims in Gaza, which has created serious domestic political pressures on the Biden government due to the growing humanitarian crisis. This has led to even stronger calls for Biden to distance himself from Netanyahu. It was stated that with the weakening of Biden’s influence on Netanyahu, his anger increased, and his phone calls began to turn into more and more ‘loud debates’. Biden told close friends that Netanyahu had no intention of reaching a ceasefire, but rather was trying to save his own political future by prolonging the conflict and at the same time trying to help Republican candidate Trump in the November elections.
Netanyahu is known to have strong personal ties and interests with Trump and his Jewish son-in-law Kushner. According to some reports, Netanyahu stayed at the Kushner family home while studying in the United States. When Trump entered the White House in 2017, he made his first official visit to Israel; recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with the policies adopted by more than 20 years of bipartisan government; terminated the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), hated by the Israeli right; presented the ‘Deal of the Century’, which sacrificed key Palestinian interests; and persuaded four Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel, abandoning the principle of ‘peace in exchange for land’.
In contrast, Netanyahu’s relationship with the American Democratic Party is highly sensitive and turbulent. Although Biden is personally close to Israel and the Jewish people, the Obama administration tried to balance Palestine and Israel, promoted reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, reached a nuclear deal with Iran despite the opposition of the Israeli right, recognised the ‘Shiite crescent’ as Iran’s sphere of influence, and had the United Nations Security Council adopt Resolution 2334 condemning Israel’s illegal settlements before the end of its term at the end of 2016.
A month before the American elections, the Netanyahu government decides to expand the scale of the Middle East war, putting the Biden government and the Democrats in a difficult situation, and raising the suspicion of winning votes for Trump and the Republican Party. The problem is that as long as Netanyahu continues to go this far, the Biden team cannot stop, even if it wants to; it follows Israel’s war policies dependently, constantly supplying it with weapons and continuing to offer strategic support. It can be said that America maintains its security commitment to Israel, but in fact America’s Middle East policy and national interests are completely under Israel’s influence.
If the Netanyahu government shows some respect to the Biden team and prevents attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation, but will it miss the opportunity to attack Iran’s oil facilities, restrict oil revenues and drive a wedge between the Iranian people and their government? Iran is one of the leading oil producing countries in the world, although it is under US sanctions and embargoes, its actual daily production and grey exports are estimated to be around 2 million barrels. Although the oversupply situation in the world oil market is currently quite stable, the destruction of Iran’s oil facilities could lead to a major contraction in future energy supplies, especially since Russia is not expected to resume normal oil and gas exports in a few years.
More importantly, how will Iran retaliate against Israel again? After the Haniyeh incident, Iran announced that it would take revenge on Israel, and even notified Israel of predetermined targets through Hungary, but the second move has still not materialised. For Iran, the killing of Nasrallah and Nilfrushan meant that a new hatred was added to the old revenge unpaid, and it was a great humiliation for Iran that Israel went one step further. Therefore, with no chance of retreat, Tehran was forced to respond harshly and for the first time used medium-range missiles, difficult to defend and of great political significance.
Of course, regardless of whether the revenge was real or not, one should look at the effects rather than propaganda. Such a massive and shocking punitive air strike seems to have caused no serious damage to Israel, the only confirmed death being a Palestinian civilian in the West Bank who died from the debris of Iranian missiles. What an irony this is!
Iran has already announced the end of its military confrontation with Israel, which means that they are loudly presenting their ‘peace offer’. The question is that Netanyahu has now realised that Iran does not want to escalate and that America will support Israel in any case, so it is entirely up to him to decide when to attack, how small or how big. The conflict and hostility between Israel and Iran is a structural and long-term problem. Either Israel ends its illegal occupation of Arab lands, or Iran renounces the export of the ‘Islamic Revolution’; there is no other way to peace.
Prof. Ma is Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University (Hangzhou). He specialises in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle East politics. He worked for many years as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine and Iraq.
