THE GAZA WAR EXPOSES IRAN´S EMPTY THREATS / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

The Gaza War Exposes Iran’s Empty Threats

Tehran and its axis have little appetite for a confrontation with Israel and the United States.

By: Hilal Khashan

Soon after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel, senior members of the Palestinian Islamist group anonymously claimed that Iranian security officials had ordered and helped them plan the attack. 

Many commentators agreed, arguing that Hamas, as the recipient of Iranian military and financial aid, was duty-bound to execute Iran’s wishes. 

However, subsequent events cast doubt on this claim. 

Specifically, the weak response of Iran and its proxies to Israel’s retaliation has highlighted their military vulnerability and disinterest in going to war against Israel. 

Rather than strengthen Iran, the Hamas attack threatens to sabotage its ambitious regional objectives.

Tunnel Vision

Hamas, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded in 1978 during the First Intifada by its spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, who died in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. 

Hamas, which has pledged to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic state in its place, rejected the Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, led at the time by Yasser Arafat. 

The group said it would conclude a long-term truce only if a Palestinian state were established on the lands occupied by Israeli forces in 1967. 

Because of Hamas’ rejection of peace agreements, Israel and Western countries isolated it. 

In 2000, at the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Hamas launched a campaign of suicide bombings against Israel.

Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, having pledged to eliminate corruption in the Palestinian Authority and to fight Israel. 

Its network of charities in both Gaza and the West Bank appealed to many Palestinians. 

A year later, Hamas evicted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza, prompting Israel to blockade it.

Over time, Hamas grew frustrated by the blockade and its treatment as a pariah by most Arab countries. 

It feared that Saudi Arabia’s rush to sign a peace treaty with Israel would prompt other Arab and Islamic countries to do the same. 

Hamas’ leaders assumed that a surprise attack in Israel would generate an unprecedented wave of support and kick off a third intifada, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority opening additional fronts against Israel in the north. 

They believed that by taking Israeli hostages, they would tie the Israeli government’s hands and compel it to negotiate. 

In other words, they trusted in Iran’s so-called axis of resistance. 

After years of living in tunnels, it seems Hamas’ leaders had lost touch with reality, inviting Israel’s wrath and sealing Hamas’ fate.

Axis of Resistance

The idea for an “axis of defiance and resistance” came as a reaction to U.S. President George W. Bush’s description in 2002 of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” because they sought weapons of mass destruction and to challenge U.S. global supremacy. 

The Iranian-led axis of resistance gradually expanded after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Bush's announcement of his intention to spread democracy from Tehran to Damascus. 

In addition to Iran, the axis now includes Syria, Yemen, the Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. 

However, this conceals its true nature as an Iranian expansionist project that aims to export the Islamic Revolution and establish a Shiite state under the rule of the Guardian Jurist throughout the Arab region.

The Gaza war is an embarrassment for Iran. 

For more than four decades, Tehran has been making fiery speeches threatening to destroy Israel and wipe it from existence. 

The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Aerospace Force said three months ago that Iranian missiles were sufficient to plow through Israel. 

The Revolutionary Guard’s commander said Hezbollah, with its more than 150,000 missiles, was prepared to “open the door of hell to Israel.” 

Before that, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that holding Israel accountable for targeting Iran’s regional interests was one of the main goals of the resistance forces in the region. 

But with the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas entering its second month, it appears that the axis, despite having consolidated Iranian influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, is unwilling to engage in open confrontation with Israel. 

Instead, Iran entrusted its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to launch limited attacks on U.S. bases in the region and on northern Israel. 

These attacks have been small enough not to trigger harsh military reactions that might threaten 40 years of Iranian accomplishments in the Middle East.

Iran, despite its loud rhetoric and accusations that the U.S. is masterminding Israel's war on Hamas, is unwilling to challenge the vastly superior U.S. assets and the Israeli military. 

Worried about the possibility of a Republican candidate winning next year’s U.S. presidential race, Tehran has a keen interest in seeing Joe Biden remain in the White House. 

Instead of escalating, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has urged the U.S. and Israel to stop the war, vaguely warning that all possibilities are on the table. 

Iran distanced itself from the Hamas attack because it did not want to enter a confrontation with Israel.

Hezbollah's Deterrent Debunked

Hamas has also been shocked by Hezbollah’s limited participation in the war. 

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Hamas political bureau, expressed dissatisfaction with Hezbollah and said Hamas was expecting a lot from Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Iran created Hezbollah during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. 

The token force of 1,000 Revolutionary Guard members it sent to Lebanon to fight the Israelis headed instead to Baalbek city in the northern Bekaa Valley to train a local cadre committed to the ideals of the Islamic Revolution, giving birth to Hezbollah. 

Hezbollah became the primary vehicle for Iran's Arab policy by focusing on the Palestinian question after Arab countries lost interest in it. 

Iran reasoned that to become a critical regional player, it must be involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and champion the Palestinian cause. 

Iran used Hezbollah to resist the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon until 2000, when Israel opted to withdraw without even signing a peace treaty with the Lebanese government. 

Since then, Hezbollah, having won popular legitimacy among Arabs as a liberation movement, claimed it had achieved a deterrent military capability against Israel. 

The group promised to defend Lebanon against future Israeli encroachments.

The Israel-Lebanon border was relatively quiet until 2006, when Hezbollah launched a cross-border raid to kidnap Israeli soldiers, whom it hoped to swap for Lebanese prisoners in Israel. 

Hezbollah was under pressure from most Lebanese political groups to disarm, and it intended the raid to justify the existence of its military component. 

War ensued in July 2006, which Israel conducted under strict U.S. instructions to avoid mass destruction.

When the war ended after 34 days, Hezbollah claimed it as a divine victory, even though Israel had no intention of reoccupying south Lebanon.

Over the next several years, Hezbollah shored up the regime of Bashar Assad against the Syrian uprising, trained Iraqi Shiite militias and cooperated with Houthi fighters in Yemen. 

It built a versatile business empire spanning the Middle East and West Africa, including a leading role in trafficking narcotics and amphetamines.

After the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah waited three weeks to deliver a speech about his party’s role in the conflict. 

He said Hamas had kept its plans secret from everyone, including Hezbollah, and that it was entirely the work of the Palestinians. 

He claimed that the operation revealed Israel's frailty and seemed confident that Hamas would eventually achieve a divine victory, hinting that it did not need Hezbollah’s full involvement to win the war.

Nasrallah's deputy, Naim Qassem, called on the “arrogant world” to stop the war in Gaza before it engulfs the region. 

In his own speech, Nasrallah relied on strategic ambiguity concerning whether the war might expand. 

Rather than discuss aiding Hamas, he threatened Israel, which he said would face a terrible catastrophe if it thought of repeating in Lebanon what it was doing in Gaza – despite the fact that Israel has not indicated a desire for war with Lebanon. 

He said that Hezbollah’s current military activity in south Lebanon aims to deter Israel from considering escalation and warned that, in the event of a total war, Hezbollah’s response would shake the foundations of Israel. 

Still, he said it was not the time for a final blow against the Israelis.

Nasrallah specified two conditions that could draw Hezbollah into the war. 

The first is if Hamas appears to be losing the battle. 

The second is if Israel violates the rules of engagement currently in effect with Lebanon. 

These were set by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which stopped the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. 

Nasrallah ruled out a significant battle at present because, he said, the Israelis do not dare to do so and the Americans will not accept the risk.

In his speech, Nasrallah held the U.S. responsible for the war's outbreak. 

He warned the U.S. that Hezbollah was ready to fight back and destroy its two aircraft carrier task forces deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Addressing the Biden administration, he said that those who bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 were still alive, joined by their children and grandchildren.

Beneath the bluster, Nasrallah does not want escalation with Israel. 

Even though he had threatened to cut off Israel’s hand if it encroached on Lebanon’s oil and gas resources, he did not get involved last year in the demarcation of the contested exclusive maritime zones between Lebanon and Israel because he knew Hezbollah could not prevail. 

He instead authorized the Lebanese government to negotiate with Israel through U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein, who was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military in the early 1990s.

The Israel-Hamas war has exposed the weakness and disunity of the axis of resistance. 

The threats emanating from Iran and its proxies have not translated into meaningful action. 

Apart from the fate of Hamas, the war likely will weaken Iran's regional influence, tarnish Hezbollah’s image and at least temporarily quiet the axis’s bravado.