ISRAEL AND THE OCTOPUS

It may be the feared yet inevitable outcome of the "octopus strategy" that the mullahs of Tehran have been implementing for four decades: to suffocate Israel by attacking it simultaneously on all fronts. In return, at a critical moment—such as now—there is the risk of provoking an Israeli response so powerful that it could trigger a widespread war throughout the region.

The octopus is an intelligent and cautious creature, typically hidden in a rocky crevice, killing with its eight tentacles spread outwards. Iran has crafted five of these, methodically encircling Israel by exploiting Western or Israeli strategic blunders: in Lebanon, with Hezbollah, the legacy of Israel's 1982 war against the PLO; in Syria, since 2012, supporting Bashar al-Assad's Alawite regime, which was abandoned by Washington to the Russians and Iranians; in Iraq, where the Shia majority was reinstated to power by the Americans after their disastrous 2003 invasion and the ousting of Sunni dictator Saddam; in Yemen, where Saudi and Emirati bombings in support of the Sanaa government (377,000 dead between 2015 and 2021) only strengthened the Houthi militias, who are also Shia and thus backed by Tehran. The fifth tentacle, despite being Sunni, is Gaza: it serves as Tehran's entry point into the Palestinian sphere. Armed by Tehran as well, it was Gaza that triggered the war on October 7 with a mass pogrom against Israeli civilians in the southern part of the country. These five make up the "Axis of Resistance" serving the Persian theocracy, determined to destroy Israel.

And the strategy is working rather well: after 10 months of war, Hamas, though weakened, still holds the enclave, deliberately sacrificing the civilian population that serves as a human shield. Its leader, Yahyah Sinouar, remains in place, untraceable. Israel, on the other hand, pays the disastrous political price of a never-ending, strategy-less urban war, and of the 40,000 Gazan deaths. Never since its creation in 1947 has Israel been so isolated and even delegitimized on the international stage... nor has anti-Semitism been so widespread around the world in the name of defending "Palestine." For 10 months, with 100,000 missiles supplied by Tehran, Hezbollah has relentlessly attacked northern Israel in solidarity with Gaza, forcing the exodus of 160,000 Israeli civilians. Meanwhile, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria strike American forces in the region, while in Yemen, Houthi missiles—also made in Iran—disrupt Western maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf, and, more recently, attack Tel Aviv.

Worse still, on the night of April 14, Iran itself directly attacked Israel with an unprecedented 350-missile strike... in retaliation for the elimination of senior Iranian officers in Syria by Israeli airstrikes.

Besieged from the outside and internally pressured by hostage families and a public opinion largely critical of his clinging to power, benefiting from the war and his alliance with the most fanatical Jewish zealots, Netanyahu, far from heeding Biden's repeated calls to reach an agreement on Gaza, seeks instead to forcefully conclude the conflict. In 48 hours, on July 30 and 31, Hezbollah's military chief, Fouad Shokr, and Hamas' political leader, Ismaël Hanyeh, were eliminated in Beirut and Tehran (!), just a week after a devastating airstrike on the port of Hodeida in Yemen: Israel aims this time to definitively sever the tentacles...

At the risk of triggering a generalized war: understanding this, the Americans have sent two aircraft carriers, air reinforcements, and 4,000 troops to the region to deter Tehran from intervening directly. At the risk also, even if war is avoided this time, of pulling back only to face a bigger crisis later. Like octopuses, these tentacles can also pull back...

Pierre Lellouche

Editorial VA 4/8/24