Since Hamas attacked Israeli civilians on October 7 there have been fears that the conflict could escalate into a regional conflagration. These fears have heightened over the past fortnight.
On April 13 Iran fired hundreds of missiles directly at Israel in retaliation for the latter’s assault on a diplomatic compound. After several meetings of the Israeli war cabinet, Israel responded with a limited scale attack on Friday.
A few factors are significant about these developments. Israel’s response was measured, and it took days to respond, suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli’s hawkish prime minister who has presided over the controversial bombardment of Gaza, must have struggled to persuade his colleagues to support an intense and broad-based retaliation.
The US was warned of the air strikes, and from both sides the missile attacks appear to have been aimed at military targets. Finally, both Israel and Iran have refrained from bellicose talk.
All of these factors point to an unusual realisation that all sides to the conflict are seriously concerned about the exchange of air strikes escalating into a regional war. This would clearly be disastrous. That Iran and Israel have exchanged direct fire is concerning enough. Everything possible should be done to de-escalate and prevent the situation from developing into a full-blown war.
Even though the US, Israel’s foremost ally, has been angered by Iran’s role in the Red Sea conflict, it is worried about a full-scale war between Iran and Israel. Israel is widely seen as an American proxy. The US would struggle to avoid being sucked into a full-blown war between Iran and Israel. A war between Iran and the US is a nightmare scenario. Within no time it would drag in Russia and line up other players in the Middle East on either side of the war.
This has to be avoided at all costs. Commendably, up until now both Tehran and Israel have shown restraint, suggesting that they know how high the stakes are. The events of the past few days provide a rare opportunity for players in the Middle East to show leadership in cooling temperatures.
Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have hitherto shown exemplary leadership in ensuring peace reigns in their region and other parts of the world such as Sudan. They should be encouraged to step up these diplomatic efforts.
The US too has played an encouraging role in the past fortnight. This needs to continue. Iran’s allies in Brics+ — the expanded Global South bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA — have a crucial role to play in preventing the conflict from escalating. Since January Iran has joined Brics+ together with Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Even though Russia, under the emboldened leadership of Vladimir Putin, has been engaged in another unwinnable war with Ukraine over the past two years there is no way of knowing that he will not join the Middle East war in support of Tehran. Some of the missiles the Russian army has been using against Ukraine come from Iran.
Putin sees his war against Ukraine as one against the members of Nato — the military pact of Western countries that is rapidly expanding in Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
China, SA, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia need to intervene before the conflict gets out of hand. India, another key Brics+ members, is having to pay attention to its looming, important elections. Minimally, Tehran’s allies need to encourage both Iran and Israel to exercise restraint, and Russia must be dissuaded from joining the conflict.
Time is of the essence. In a month or so US presidential election campaigning will go into overdrive. This carries two dangers: it could easily turn the Middle East conflict into an election issue in the US; and the elections might relegate the conflict from the US administration’s priority list in favour of the domestic agenda. The latter has already happened with Ukraine. Aid for Ukraine has come in too slowly to turn the war against Russia.
The world remembers that one of the elements of former US president Donald Trump’s legacy was to pull the US out of the nuclear treaty with Iran. If he returns to the White House in the middle of the conflict things could easily go downhill fast.
Both scenarios — forgetting the Iran-Israel conflict and turning it into a US domestic political football — have to be stopped from coming to pass.
