Israel provokes in order to involve Iran in direct war

Columnist Bret Stephens quoted a metaphor from former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett:

“Tehran is the head of the octopus and Hezbollah – like Hamas in Gaza or the Houthis in Yemen – is just one of its tentacles. If Israel wages war against Hezbollah, it risks exhausting itself in a secondary fight.”

Of course, Israel cannot ignore Hezbollah. Their arsenal of 120,000 to 200,000 rockets represents a terrible and direct threat to the Israeli home front. However, it must be clear: “Tehran, not Beirut, is the real center of gravity in this fight.”

“The USA must help us win”

It is not the responsibility of the USA to support a diplomatic solution. Rather, the USA must “help Israel win”.

It cannot be in the interests of the West for a terrorist group with growing ties to the Kremlin to maintain effective control over a Mediterranean state while this terrorist group terrorizes its neighborhood. Aside from Israel’s interest in secure borders, it is also in the US’s interest to “contain the spread of what I call the ‘axis of oppression’.” This axis includes a larger group that also includes Iran, China, Russia and North Korea.

«Competition between the free and the unfree world«

Bret Stephens, in his Sept. 24 Front Page column, calls it “foolish” to view Israel’s “various struggles as regional issues that are far removed from core U.S. concerns.”

Because the USA is at the beginning of a “competition between the free and the unfree world”:

“This conflict extends from Norway’s border with Russia to the Iranian people’s struggle against their own government to the shallows of the South China Sea. The conflict is likely to last for decades.”

«Israel is trying to draw Iran into direct conflict»

On September 26, NYT chief diplomatic correspondent Steven Erlanger doubled down. He quoted Suzanne Maloney, Iran expert and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution:

“Israel is trying to lure Hezbollah into an attack that would lead to a full-scale war and allow Israel to take the fight to where it sees the real strategic threat, namely Iran itself.”

The mullahs in Tehran never thought of waging war themselves: “It was never the intention that Iran would fight in defense of their proxies,” Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, told the ” New York Times». Under no circumstances does Iran want to be involved in a major war in the region. This is probably one of the reasons why Iran has not reacted more violently so far.

According to the chief diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times, the prevailing opinion in Tehran is that Israel wants to involve Iran in a direct conflict by bombing Hezbollah. The new Iranian president is in the process of approaching the West.