Editorial: Iran On Back Foot As Netanyahu Presses On Aerial Advantage

The armed hostilities triggered by the Hamas’s brutal massacre of over 1,200 Israeli citizens, including women and children, and the kidnapping of over 200 Israelis, on October 7th last year, are yet to see a closure. The retributive assault that was launched by Israel in Gaza, and on its Hamas’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, now threatens to blow into a much bigger conflagration. Iran is set to be penalised for launching a barrage of over 200 rockets and ballistic missiles against Israel on October 1. Needless to say, once the Hamas had taken the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) by surprise on October 7, 2023, brutally murdering innocent men and women enjoying themselves at a music festival, it and its fellow terrorist outfit, Hezbollah, have been on the receiving end of Israel’s unceasing fire-power. Most ably bolstered by its stupendous intelligence, the IDF has inflicted mighty blows against its enemies. None greater than the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic leader of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, Hezbollah, which has tormented Israel with rocket attacks ever since it launched the Gaza offensive last year. In order to neutralise the armed proxies of Iran, Israel has succeeded in degrading the leadership of the two terrorist organisations, killing in April a top Hamas leader in Tehran, and later in virtually wiping out the top leadership of Hezbollah in several aerial strikes. The two outfits are now in total disarray. The public humiliation of the Hezbollah, with the walkie-talkies and cell phones of a couple of thousands of its members exploding in their hands or pockets, had left a dozen people dead and several more injured. It was soon followed by the daring aerial attack in southern Lebanon which killed Nasrallah and a few of his top aides. It was why Iran felt obliged to take revenge for Nasrallah’s killing, but its ballistic missiles on October 1 were neutralised by Israel’s famous Iron Dome. Reluctant to plunge into the war itself, and content to fund and arm its proxies like Hezbollah and Houthis in Yemen, Iran nonetheless had to act in order to boost the morale of its people. But it revealed a weak hand when the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a statement in which he sought to assure Israel that the 200-odd missiles is all it had by way of its response to Israel’s killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran and of the Hezbollah leadership, including Nasrallah, in Lebanon. In short, Iran was chary of a full-scale war. However Israel was unlikely to let go of a golden opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities before it could assemble a full-fledged nuclear bomb.

Notably, there is no love lost between Iran and the wider Arab world. Iran is a pariah among Islamic nations which despite long-standing US sanctions has carved out its own place as a regional power, propping up the Houthis against the Saudi Arabia- backed coalition in Yemen, supporting the Bashir al Assad regime in Syria and generally tormenting the US-supported West Asian powers in the wider Islamic world. Of late, China and Russia have emerged as its sole allies, but in an armed conflict it is unlikely that either country will like to sully its hands. Given the old Shia-Sunni fault lines in the wider Islamic world, it was not surprising to see a large swathes of Islamist terrorist groups rejoicing in the killing of Nasrallah whose fighters had fought alongside Bashiar al Assad’s supporters to repulse the Saudi-supported militants from toppling his regime. It is ironical indeed that there has been a greater show of public support for the Palestinian cause in the Western nations as the war in Gaza has rolled on in the last one year than there is in the Islamic nations. The protesters have often ignored the fact that Hamas still holds over a hundred Israeli hostages, women and children included, while excoriating Israel for its “wanton aggression in Gaza”. The bleeding hearts of the West are oblivious to the contentious relations between the wider Muslim world. To put it bluntly, Israel could not have survived even with the full support of the US if there was unity in the Muslim world. Tussle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for leadership of the larger Islamic world also reflects the inherent Shia-Sunni divide which sunders apart the Muslim ummah. It is notable too that even in Lebanon there was a sense of relief in large sections of the people at the death of Nasrallah whose violent grip on the country’s political, social and cultural life had turned the once vibrant people into a cowering lot always fearful of the wrath of Hezbollah and its armed storm troopers.

Meanwhile, now that Israel has an upper hand, it is quite likely to succeed in creating a buffer between at its border with Lebanon in order to protect more than 60,000 of its citizens living in its northern part. Ever since the last October 7 hostilities, these people have lived in camps away from home due to the threat of Hezbollah missiles. Despite the virtual decimation of its top leadership, the jihadi outfit still has a huge arsenal of long range missiles and boasts of thousands of experienced fighters who had fought against the Islamic State in Syria. On its part, Israel will like to press ahead with its aerial superiority while keeping the fighting on the ground to the minimum possible. How the events will unfold in the coming days is not clear, but Israel has seized the initiative and is likely to do what it can to shield its northern population against terrorist attacks from Lebanon. Benjamin Netanyahu has thumbed his nose at the pro forma homilies from the West while he has single-mindedly gone about destroying the jihadi outfits openly committed to wipe out his nation from the face of the earth. His do-or-die spirit seems to be succeeding against the jihadi terror. Meanwhile, the sharp rise in the price of crude oil due to the feared disruption in the supplies from Iran and the Houthis’ attacks on oil tankers in the Red Sea seems to have subsided, especially when it became apparent that Iran was reluctant to escalate the war any further.