Taken from Inprecor
November 1, 2024
By Gilbert Achcar
I then added: “Furthermore, according to US and Israeli media, US President Biden gave Netanyahu the green light for the Rafah offensive in exchange for Israel not launching a major strike against Iran For now. This indicates that the Zionist state will complete the genocidal war it has been waging against Gaza for six and a half months, before inexorably directing its military efforts against Iran and its Lebanese auxiliary, Hezbollah. » (“Israeli attack postponed on Iran”, April 23, 2024).
This is indeed what happened. Israeli occupying forces invaded Rafah on May 6, then completed their control of the Gaza Strip. They then waited until the end of the summer season before launching their large-scale attack against Hezbollah. Previously, Israel had intensified its provocations against Iran by assassinating Ismaël Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran on July 31. Iran hesitated to respond to the assassination of one of its allies on its own territory until Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, along with Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps . He is the second high-ranking officer of this corps to be assassinated by Israel after Major General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, killed in the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, which prompted Tehran to launch its first attack of reprisals against Israel on April 13.
Tehran decided to qualitatively intensify its second retaliatory attack against Israel launched on the first of this month, making greater use of ballistic missiles that the Zionist forces cannot intercept in their entirety: around 200 of these missiles were launched (as of April, 9 of the 55 ballistic missiles that entered airspace protected by Israel’s interception system fell through the holes in the net – see article cited above). The escalation was inevitable, as Tehran began to lose its credibility, particularly among its Arab Shiite supporters, Lebanese in particular. However, he wanted to restrict his attack, this time again, within limits that would not result in a large-scale Israeli attack with direct participation by the United States. Tehran knows that US President Joe Biden’s administration is unwilling to participate in such an attack before the US election, for fear it could backfire on Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
Biden therefore demanded from Netanyahu that the Israeli attack also remain restrained in a way that would not harm Harris’ campaign. He asked him to avoid Iranian oil installations lest Tehran respond by disrupting all Gulf oil exports, thereby causing a serious crisis in the global oil market, with a sharp rise in prices that could have a disastrous effect on the vice-president’s campaign. Biden also asked Netanyahu not to launch a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, knowing that Israel alone does not have the capacity to destroy them anyway. The only effect of attacking these facilities without destroying them may well be to accelerate Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
As for what Biden promised Netanyahu in exchange for his restraint this time, that has not yet been disclosed. However, the decision of the American administration to send a THAAD ballistic missile defense system to Israel, with around a hundred soldiers to implement it, constituted a qualitative step in the transformation of American participation in the Zionist assault moving from indirect to direct, through the deployment of American soldiers alongside Israeli forces – not to mention the strengthening of the American Air Force presence in the region with additional squadrons of F-16, F -15E and A-10.
The nature of the attack carried out by the Israeli Air Force last Saturday is very significant for the near future. This attack, the first against Iran officially claimed by the Zionist state, focused on the destruction of anti-aircraft defenses surrounding the capital, Tehran, and Iran’s nuclear facilities, as well as the destruction of giant fuel mixers that Tehran uses to make fuel for its missiles (the attack also killed four Iranian soldiers). The Israeli attack therefore clearly constituted a prelude to a subsequent attack on Iran by weakening its defensive capabilities and its ability to manufacture more surface-to-air missiles and ballistic missiles.
Netanyahu is now waiting for Tuesday’s elections to decide his next action: If Trump wins, he will consult with him to see if he is ready to carry out a large-scale joint US-Israeli attack, with the main aim of destroying the facilities Iran’s nuclear weapons. To achieve this goal would require the B-2 strategic bombers that the US Air Force alone possesses, which can carry the GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs, each weighing about 15 tons, which Israel also does not possess . If Harris wins, Netanyahu will likely work to drag Biden into leading the attack with him. This could then be Biden’s final and greatest gift to the Zionist state after serving its interests for half a century, in a unique dedication for which Netanyahu publicly thanked him during his last visit to the House White at the end of July.
Translation of my weekly column in the Arabic-language daily, Al-Quds al-Arabi, based in London. This article appeared online October 29 and in the October 30 print issue. You can freely reproduce it by indicating the source with the corresponding link.
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