The Middle East is at a crossroads in potential Iran-Israel conflict - analysis

• Published date: 19 April 2024
• Author: SETH J. FRANTZMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Iran's regime has vowed to destroy Israel over the years, and it has empowered groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis in Yemen, who all want to dismantle Israel. For instance, the Houthis in Yemen have "cursed the Jews" and "death to Israel" as part of their official slogan

The Middle East is now approaching a new crossroads in history. Iran launched a regional war on Israel in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Iran prodded Hezbollah to begin attacks on October 8, and then it encouraged the Houthis to target Eilat and target shipping.

This is a multi-front war, and Iran has been systematically knitting together its proxy groups in the region for what it says is a war using different "arenas" to attack Israel. Iran and its proxies are open about this.

They want to "ring" Israel with fire, and according to Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah, Israel is weak like a "spider web."

Iran's use of proxies has emboldened Tehran. In the past, Iran used to merely boast that it would destroy Israel, but when asked when this would happen, it would point to some imaginary later date.

Iran moves its pawns in the Middle East

Now, Iran has moved its pawns and pieces across the Middle East, taking over parts of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen using various terrorist groups.

Iran has also increasingly sought to exert influence in the West Bank, and it supports Hamas. Iran is also seeking to destabilize Jordan.

This is where the new regional crossroads becomes clear. In the last decades, the Middle East has changed. In the period of the 1960s-1980s, the region was the realm of the Cold War and superpower confrontation.

There was a brutal war between Iran and Iraq. In 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

This set in motion the Gulf War and the rise of the US to become a global hegemon. In the 1990s, the region was in transition as extremist groups such as Al Qaeda grew more prominent.

They set the world aflame, and by the 2000s, the region was the center of the US-led Global War on Terror.

That, in turn, led to a transition to weak states in the region. The Egyptian government fell during the Arab Spring, Syria, Libya, and Yemen fell into civil war, and ISIS took over a swath of Syria and Iraq.

This led to the weakening of the Arab states, and increased power to the periphery states such as Turkey and Iran.

In some ways the rise of Iran and Turkey as more powerful than the Arab states fits a...