The Spreading Iranian Plague

 

The entirety of the events makes for a grand conspiracy or the script for a Hollywood movie script. The miracle is that if the story which we will lay out has any validity, then the American people intervened to foil the grand scheme and likely hardly realized their miraculous part in foiling the great laid plans of mice and men thus, as oft claimed, went awry. So, let us dive into a little theater of the absurd and believe that there might have been a master plan. It all starts with the events around the Arab Spring which, as we all remember, became more of an Arab Winter. One need inquire as to what avail and whose advantage would a plan to turn the Arab world upside down serve. Looking at the current picture and the answer becomes plain to see, it would serve allowing Iran to extend their power across the entirety of the Middle East and on to North Africa in the process taking control of the Arabian oil fields and the Suez Canal. This part almost came to fruition only being prevented by the Egyptian Military ending the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt and Saudi Arabia coming to the rescue of Bahrain when the Shiites rose to overthrow their Sunni rulers. Without these two events, Egypt would have been weakened to such a point in the ensuing two years as the Muslim Brotherhood eviscerated the military command to solidify their hold, or so they would believe, and given Iran, the real beneficiary of the Arab turmoil, a solid foothold completely surrounding Saudi Arabia and for taking the rest of the Gulf States. Once Iran held the areas of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Oman in addition to their ally Qatar and their hold of Yemen using the Houthis as their advance force, then strangling Saudi Arabia into eventual submission would have been set in motion. The completion of such would have left Kuwait equally vulnerable along with its oil wealth. Add in a weakened Egypt and Israel would have had the only force of equal or superior ability to prevent an Iranian assault. This was part of an initial phase which might be called the southern front.

 

Map of Face-off had Iran Taken Gulf States
in Addition to Iraq Syria and Yemen

 

The northern front was a greater success as the great enabler needs only pull the United States military out of Iraq and leave the door open and the equipment in place for the taking. Once President Barack Obama pulled out the American forces, the Shia majority in Iraq quickly accepted Iranian assistance in routing their Sunni adversaries and taking their revenge for the years of suffering under Saddam Hussein. Iran is now assisting in the final part of the Shiafication of Iraq with the pressing the Kurds further and further north with Turkey now pressing them in Syria sweeping towards the Kurds in Iraq who will eventually find themselves fighting on two fronts. It will be interesting to see what develops when the Turkish push against the Kurds meets the Iran-Iraq push on the Kurds, which will not be of any advantage at that point for the Kurds. The final hurdle was taking the American equipment such as Abrams Heavy Battle Tanks and armored personnel carriers into the hands of Hezballah. This is where the plan received a probably unexpected break when the Islamic State rose up in the Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria, where a civil war had left a large power vacuum, and brought much of that equipment into Syria where Iranian assisted forces of Hezballah and Iraq mopped up after the Kurdish forces had done the heavy lifting against ISIS. After the fall of the Islamic State, there were pictures of Iraqi and Hezballah troops riding around in their newly acquired Abrams tanks and armored vehicles. Iran, with an assist from Russian air cover, is now winning the war in Syria slowly taking back the rest of the beleaguered country. The Houthis have almost completed the taking of Yemen to the point that they now take an occasional missile strike against Saudi Arabia. Once Yemen has been completely subdued, Iran will hold control over two main choke points for all naval trade going through the Middle East from the vantages of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (see map below). The Strait of Hormuz controls the passage for all oil shipments from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia while and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait controls the southern entrance to the Red Sea and thus the Suez Canal. With these two waterways controlled by Iran, all naval trade through the Middle East can be choked off by their shore batteries.

 

Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait

 

As everything stands, Iran is slowly solidifying a large swath across the Middle East from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. They hold this through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon which they either are actively stationing forces or have their proxies holding the areas. The two areas they have left to complete are restoring Bashir al-Assad in Syria and completing their conquest of Yemen. Without Oman and the Gulf States, Iran is still stymied in their desires to take over the Saudi Arabian oil fields and coming up along the Red Sea coast to take Mecca and Medina which would permit Iran to claim that they were now the guardians of the Two Holy Cities of Islam. Iran also desires one more prize in Jordan as control of Jordan would provide them with an ability to strike the western coast of Saudi Arabia from both the north and south and complete their virtual surrounding of Israel leaving on the Sinai Peninsula border, which is held by Egypt which is why weakening Egypt was furtherly important, though Iran has injected some terror forces as well as Hamas aiding these forces from Gaza which Iran also controls. All of this brings us to the question of what exactly is going to happen this summer in Israel.

 

Currently, Hamas continues to hold daily rioting along the Gaza border which includes flying kites and launching balloons both carrying incendiary devices which have ignited near countless fires within Israel. These conflagrations have left millions of dollars worth of crops in smoldering ruin and destroyed forests and wilderness preserves. These riots include the burning of thousands of tires causing breathing problems and ecological damage which has risen almost off scale. The only comparable case of such damage, one which was levels of magnitude worse, was the almost unimaginable ecological damage caused by Saddam Hussein when upon leaving Kuwait he had his forces torch a large majority of that nation’s oil platforms. Hamas had fired a series of rockets early in the rioting after which Israel struck hard at Hamas and Islamic Jihad infrastructure. That had appeared to quell their desire to launch rockets into Israel for a while. They are once again firing rockets and this time in greater numbers. We suspect that this escalation has been taken at the insistence of Iran. The remaining question is exactly how far Iran will go in their attacks this summer. Always weighing over Israel like the Sword of Damocles are the over one-hundred-fifty-thousand rockets and missiles, a large number of which can strike with relative accuracy anywhere within Israel and beyond. That brings the question to the forefront, does Iran believe that an all-out war on two fronts will cause Israel sufficient damage to allow for its destruction.

 

Does Iran feel they have sufficient strength in place to destroy Israel in a single stroke lasting only a few weeks thus preventing the United States from intervening or do they believe that they are not yet prepared sufficiently to take that risk? This will be what Tehran will weigh before deciding to involve Hezballah creating a second front. There will always be the possibility that Iran would rather involve Israel in a greater conflict even believing that they will not prevail simply to consolidate their position at home. It would be a grand spectacle proving to the Iranian people that their hardship has been for a purpose, the eradication of the Zionist menace. They could even take a defeat and use it as a reason for a purge to eradicate their internal opposition thus eviscerating the political will to remove the Mullahs from power. Iran knows that even if they should be defeated, they would still hold all of Lebanon with Hezballah, Syria with Bashir al-Assad, Iraq with its Shia governance and the rest of their satellite nations. Further, a valiant effort against Israel would raise their image across the Muslim world and particularly the Arab world. This could cause unrest in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan leading to their making gains in taking control of any combination of these eventual goals. Everything has to be weighed as to how it might have an effect on the eventual Iranian goal of establishing the new Persian Empire reaching from Iran to Morocco. Unfortunately, Iran is one of those nations whose leaders honestly believe that they are destined by their supreme being, Allah in their case, to rule the world and bring everybody to believe in Shia Islam, or else. Thus, even a defeat at any one point now would not change their belief that eventually they will be victorious and glorious days will ensue as they rule the world. The one thing which the rulers of Iran must avoid is having their governance toppled, thus they will also be weighing what would be the chance that President Trump would decide that enough is enough and use the might and power of the United States to bring about regime change. This alone may be sufficient a threat to prevent Iran from pulling the trigger on Israel quite yet, but if they remain in power, the Mullahs will one day launch such an attack.

 

What might be the Israeli reaction to each of these scenarios? If Iran simply lets Hamas and Islamic Jihad carry their offensive, as long as they are not launching missiles into Israel day and night, it might remain a standoff at the level we have already witnessed. Should they start launching missiles into Israel and start striking the major population centers, then Israel will take whatever level of intervention to end their activities for the ensuing few years. There will always be the possibility that should Israel need go into Gaza once again, then they might cleanse the terror infrastructure clean including the leadership, security forces and whatever main support which exists in Gaza and turn Gaza over to the remainder of the population to elect a governance which will repair the damages which Hamas and Islamic Jihad have left untouched in order to complain and have the European Union and others send them more construction provisions which they use to construct tunnels. Gaza could be an economic power if governed correctly and could remain a troubled and economic disaster if they continue on their current path. Since Hamas and Islamic Jihad hold all the weapons and have secret police throughout the populace, there is little possibility of the people overthrowing the terrorists as they would simply kill everyone protesting and continue as if nothing had happened. When your governance is a group of terrorists, you basically are doomed to the likes of Gaza. What people have not heard is that despite there being thousands rioting, they are being paid to do so and still there are millions of Gazans not rioting despite the offer of three-hundred-dollars per day to do so. One can only hope those millions would desire new governance and an opportunity for a better life.

 

What if Iran does attempt to destroy Israel by starting a war in the south with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and then opening a second front out of Lebanon and Syria with Hezballah, the IRGC and Quds Force? The main question then is would Israel hold Iran responsible for this added misery, and if so what would Israel do? The first objective would be to eliminate as many of the missiles and other armaments held by Hezballah as possible. One can be assured that the IDF has been provided with the location of the vast majority of these armaments. The only question then would be how much damage Hezballah could inflict before the Israeli Air Force destroys the vast majority of their missiles and other armaments. The next question is what would be the cost in aircraft and pilots as many of these missions would necessarily need to strike within Syria where a fair amount of Hezballah provisions and forces are stationed. Such a second front would also necessitate a far faster resolution with less concern for delicacies such as worries to eliminate collateral damage. The air assault on the Hezballah supplies would also need strike into the Baka Valley which has most of the Iranian provided anti-aircraft batteries. This is another difficulty which would need addressing. But there still is one major question, would Israel strike Iran, and if so, how? Should Israel strike Iran, it might be done covertly using commandos tasked with beheading the snake, so to speak. This would be an attempt at performing the one move which would end the Iranian threat to the entirety of the world, regime change through a quick coup. This would be coordinated quickly with those known to be trustworthy in the not so loyal opposition to the Islamic Theocracy currently enslaving Iran. This would also require that strikes be initiated against the IRGC, the Basij Militia, any known enforcement personnel, and all of the ruling elite, and that means all of the ruling elite including those who pretend to be the lesser evils, as lesser evils are still evils. The Iranians have been infamous for their double-dealing and glad-handing while stabbing one in the back. Such an attack would require stealth and strict coordination as once an alarm is sounded, the entire mission would be in danger of failure.

 

Another possibility would be a quick strike at many crucial infrastructure to the ruling Mullahs such as IRGC military bases, nuclear facilities, munitions storage, command and control centers plus whatever other vital centers within Iran. Such a strike would be at the furthest edge of the ability for the Israeli Air Force which would be greatly enhanced if they could avail themselves of a closer airfield. Such aid would be performed with the utmost secrecy as any Arab nation aiding Israel would face a severe backlash from their people even against Iran. There is this sensitivity about Muslim assisting others against other Muslims. Still, there are a few airbases which could be utilized and the blame be thrown onto the United States, and President Trump may have been elected just for such a purpose, not by the American people but by, how should we word this, the fates? The one item that is obvious is that had Hillary Clinton won the last American Presidential Elections, Iran would have had a free hand to complete their plans and taken a stranglehold of the entirety of the Middle East. There would even be the possibility that Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even Jordan might have fallen to the Mullahs and Israel would be entirely surrounded. Unfortunately, there is still one piece of low hanging fruit which the Iranians might be able to pluck off the Middle East fig tree, the Palestinian authority and PLO. This would be difficult as long as Mahmoud Abbas remains their leader but should he fall, then it would very much depend on what ensued. Should Iran gain control over the PLO and Palestinian Authority, it would mean that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be on the Israel eastern boundary and hold a fair amount of the higher ground. This would prove to be quite unhealthy to Israel and could not be permitted to stand. Under such conditions, Israel would have no other choice but to annex the entirety of the Shomron and remove anything related to the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other Islamist entities. This would require being executed quickly, efficiently and with little concern for world opinion. We have to face one thing, when there is a knife at your throat, world opinion is meaningless and removing the threat is your only concern.

 

Concluding, we can pray that the Gaza front quiets and the Gazans who are participating tire of the uselessness of their actions. We might even be gifted with regime change in Gaza, Iran and that the Kurds prove victorious on both fronts and declare their own nations with President Trump visiting within the month of their doing so to move the American Embassy to their capital city of their democratic governance. Do we dare wish for Erdogan not win the upcoming Turkish elections, fat chance there. May Jordan and the Palestinian Arabs reach an accord allowing them to be Jordanian citizens and have the choice of relocating to Jordan, for which Jordan and they would be rewarded, or remaining under Israeli law as resident aliens allowing Israel to finally re-achieve the Jordan River as her rightful and legal border. Lastly, may the world find health, happiness and plenty for all, relieving all misery and disease.

 

Beyond the Cusp