
The world watches with deep anxiety how Israel will respond to the 200 ballistic missiles launched at it from Iran on Tuesday night. In April a similar attack, mounted by hundreds of drones, was launched in response to an Israeli strike near to the Iranian consulate in Syria. What followed included the assassination of Hamas’ political leader in Tehran itself, just a few months later. The ballistic missiles are a response to Israeli efforts to neutralize Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. A cycle of violence is engulfing the region.
This cycle, the players in it, and the motivations behind each though have become lost in some of the discourse on the British left. Their line is simpler. Israel is an aggressive terror state seeking total war while Labour’s belligerent foreign policy advances the needs of British imperialism.
It is horrifying how much the brutal reality of last year’s Hamas Pogrom has been diminished, how Hamas claims are often taken at face value, and how fools even hail it as a liberation force.
The actual picture is much more multifaceted. The Arab/Israeli conflict ended with peace accords between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, followed later by the Abraham accords between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. While Saudi Arabia and Israel have long been discussing diplomatic, security, and economic links, Hamas sought to scupper the Arab/Israeli détente with a barbaric outrage.
Iran have much to lose from this rapprochement, much as the Russians had much to lose from Ukraine’s pivot to Europe under Zelensky. The same people contort themselves in oddly similar ways to make that war the fault of NATO (somehow) rather than deal with the real face of the parties to the conflict.
Preventing the deaths of more innocent civilians in Gaza, which is the desire of both the British people and the British government, requires a solidarity movement that pushed both sides to the table rather than crudely bashing one side only.
The faults of the current Israeli regime are rightly often discussed (if too often this turns into a villainization of the Israeli people themselves) but too many internationalists ignored the upsurge in support for the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that followed the killing two years ago by the morality police in Tehran of, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman for ’not wearing her hijab in accordance with government regulations.
Iranians are sick of a regime that robs working people to drive external aggression and represses women and ethnic minorities. It’s highly likely that most Iranians want rid of their leaders but are not yet convinced it is safe to try.
Iranian hardliners see themselves as in a long-term war with America and its allies to become a stronger regional hegemon. Iraq is falling increasingly into the Iranian orbit. Iran and their Iraqi proxies both loathe the Kurds, a more secular and moderate people, and are severely limiting their autonomous rights. Baghdad has criminalised homosexuality and contact with Israel, both punishable by death in extremis, and is trying to restrict women’s rights. Lebanon is held hostage by Hezbollah, a large non-state militia that is deeply integrated into the Iranian military.
Iran also brings together the war theatres of Ukraine and the Middle East. It supplies munitions to Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran is sending drones and ballistic missiles to Russia to deploy against Ukraine. There are even suggestions that Russia is transferring nuclear know how and materials to Iran.
Much of this is ignored by a left resolutely stuck in the last century. Russian and Iranian imperialism is incompatible with a worldview that says only the West attempts to interfere in other countries. After Iraq and Afghanistan, it is possible to understand, if not agree but the stakes now are too high to allow the delusion to continue.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy rightly comments that countries, big and small, want to make their own choices but “Putin does not believe Ukraine and other countries in the region should get a choice.” Lammy told the UN Security Council and the Russian representative that he knows imperialism when he sees it, a powerful charge from a man descended from slaves under the old imperialism. Lammy also rounded on Iran at a Labour fringe event organised by Chatham House.
Russian and Iranian imperialism are the main drivers of these conflicts. These regimes rely on each other for oil and arms to domineer and their necks will be on the line if they fail. October the 7th did not happen without Iran’s approval and support and was designed to achieve Iran strategic aims, driving a wedge between Israel and its neighbours. Time will tell the extent to which it has been successful.
The Saudis say that a deal with Israel is “not currently possible.” But it remains feasible and desirable for permanent peace to take root so Palestinians and Israelis can thrive alongside each other and end the occupation of the West Bank.
Israel’s audacious tactics and intelligence may have weakened Iran and its proxies but a smart strategy would recognise that Israel’s security needs a two-state solution, so long disdained by Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is exceedingly difficult of course in a context where Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have zero interest in anything less than victory on their terms.
New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman is well-informed and persuasive in highlighting the grave dangers to Israel’s existence but also the need for savvy action to turn Iran’s ring of fire into a ring of peace. He rightly argues that “If Israel now moved ahead and opened a dialogue on two states for two peoples with a reformed Palestinian Authority, which has already accepted the Oslo peace treaty, it would be the diplomatic knockout blow that would accompany and solidify the military knockout blow Israel just delivered to Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Maybe, just maybe, the Iranian people will finally evict their messianic leaders and the assets of an ancient civilisation of Iran and old affinities between Israel and Iran can be added to the column of peace and progress.
Today’s blood-dimmed mosaic of the Middle East makes it impossible to know how soon any of the makings of a fresh start can emerge, but it is a huge goal of our diplomacy for the sake of humanity and in our own interests.
See Gary’s previous piece Penge, Paris, Southport which looked at Russian influence across Europe.
Gary Kent is an international relations expert and Labour Party member. His column for PB highlights Labour's foreign policy challenges.
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