A Preliminary Reading into the Dimensions, Meanings, and Consequences of the Iranian Strike Targeting the Zionist Entity

Unfortunately, within this sharp polarization of opinions, objective truth is almost absent, or rather it is obscured by military and security details to the point that it loses its value and meaning.

Below, we try to develop a preliminary idea about the meanings, implications, and results of the Iranian strike, based on the abundance of information thereabout. At the same time, we will try not to drown in that abundance.

Let us begin with attempting a simultaneous reading of the available data and their meanings:

First: This strike is the first direct at the Zionist entity in 33 years. That is, since Saddam’s 40 missiles in early 1991, which cannot be compared to the current Iranian strike, for many reasons, the most important of which is not the volume of each of the two attacks. Rather, the most important reason is the regional and international context within which each attack occurred. Meaning:

1) The Iraqi attack was in the context of the war with the American coalition to “liberate Kuwait”, so it came on the margins of another war, and not at the core of that war.

2) Within the same framework, the Iraqi attack constituted a leap out of context, and did not come within a continuous escalating battle, unlike the Iranian attack, which can simply be placed within an escalating context that is at least two decades old and entered an accelerating phase several years ago. This is extremely important in understanding the positioning of this attack and predicting its meanings and what might follow. This attack, even if it constitutes a qualitative shift, is an integral part of one continuous context, which has what preceded it and, of course, what will come after it.

3) The Iraqi attack was not destined, regardless of intentions, to go further than it did. The reason is that it came in an international context in which the Soviet Union was collapsing and Washington – the current largest owner of the project called “Israel” – had absolute dominance over the world. While the current Iranian attack comes in the context of an accelerating decline of the entire Western camp, including Washington, and against the backdrop of a defeat – which has become clear, although not yet officially announced – for this same camp in Ukraine, not to mention the productive, economic, and financial decline of Western influence and the influence of the dollar on the global level.

Second: Also, within the international context, it is not difficult to capture the difference in the Russian and Chinese positions towards what is happening. Officially, the two countries call for calm and restraint, and refer the whole matter to its root related to the Palestinian issue, stressing that not resolving it in a just manner, and that the American role in preventing that solution is a central basis for the various crises in the region. Practically, it is no secret there is sizable economic cooperation among the three countries: China, Russia and Iran. It is also no secret there is sizeable military cooperation between the Russians and the Iranians, especially with regard to drone technologies, not to mention hypersonic missile and air defense technologies, as well as open talk about Russia possibly supplying Iran with fifth generation aircraft. This international context as a whole allows for a better understanding of the overall environment within which the Iranian attack took place, which can – within a certain margin of error – be considered part of the comprehensive confrontation between the rising powers and the West – including “Israel” – whose open contradiction with Russia escalated significantly during the past two years, that is, after Ukraine, reaching the point of legally prosecuting and trying the Jewish Agency in Russia.

Third: If we adopt the distinction mentioned in the previous two sections between the Iranian and Iraqi attacks on the Zionist entity, this leads us to say that the last direct attack is not a specific milestone that has not been achieved for only 33 years, but also for 50 years, when the last direct confrontation took place at the level of “state/states” against the Zionist entity. Over the past 50 years, the Zionist entity’s battles have been limited to the Palestinians inside and abroad, and with various resistance groups, all of which follow a method closer to that of guerrilla warfare, and do not fight as states but as groups. We claim that this contextual framing of the Iranian attack is necessary in understanding its meanings and the possibilities it opens.

Fourth: Also, within the framework of understanding the context – the regional context – it is not possible to skip over the fact that the US is now calling on the Arab Gulf states to take one of two sides, either with “Israel” or against it. Practically, these countries must – from the American perspective – allow American weapons to be launched from the American bases therein towards Iran, whether in defense or attack, which is what some of these countries have openly refused, especially with the clear Iranian threat that the bases used against it would be a legitimate target. This is something that, if it happens, would not only overthrow the Saudi-Iranian settlement that was painstakingly reached through long-term Chinese and Russian mediation, but would also overthrow the relative stability these countries are experiencing in their relationship with Iraq and Yemen in particular, which came after a tangible and failed experience in relying on the Americans to help maintain their security. As everyone now knows, the Americans did nothing through that experience except exploit actual and imagined threats against the Gulf countries as a tool to blackmail, tighten control over, and financially plunder those countries.

Moreover, during the war on Gaza, and with the Houthi activity and the Americans’ attempts to control and prevent it, whether false or true, it became clear that the Americans and their allies do not have the power and control that would enable them to encircle the Houthis and paralyze their influence. If we were to ponder these matters, it would not be difficult to discern the beginning of strategic coups in regional positionings from what they were only a few years ago. At that time, projects such as the “Arab NATO” – that brought together the Gulf with the Zionist entity against Iran – and the “Abraham Accords” were the prevailing fashion in the region. Today, several Arab regimes, including those that have taken steps in these projects, are seeking to remain neutral between the two camps in the hope of reducing their losses to a minimum. This in itself is a transformation that should be seriously considered, not to mention that increasing the levels of American blackmail and pressure, and in light of the decline, if not collapse, of the “Israeli” deterrence, opens the door to a greater shift in positioning for these countries, and the possibility that they will lean toward the rising powers is objectively enhanced with each additional day within the comprehensive confrontation.

Fifth: Many analyses tend towards saying that the attack is nothing more than Iranian “face-saving”, about which all countries and its timing were informed in advance, and that in this sense it is nothing more than “theatrics”. Let us assume this statement is true, and ponder its meanings, away from tension and fanaticism. Was it possible or “permissible” (assuming it was theatrics), over the past 50 years, for any country attacked by “Israel” to save face, even through theatrics? Was the political will and practical capability available in any of the countries that “Israel” has repeatedly attacked over the course of half a century, to take any measure that would ensure it “saves face”? Absolutely not. Therefore, even those who are aligned with the Americans and the Zionist entity, openly or secretly, consciously or naively, implicitly acknowledge that the equations have changed, and that a country like Iran, even in a supposed theatrical framework, can have the ability to save face.

Sixth: If Iran has taken an important step forward within the limits of regional moral influence through its declared support for the Palestinian resistance, and through the resistance factions – including Hamas – repeatedly ratifying this support in its various forms, then Iran has taken a wider step through its recent attack on the level of popular awareness of the Arab and Islamic peoples. Even the regimes, whose fear of what they called “a Persian/Shiite/etc. project” was shared by some of their peoples, are now viewed, on a broad level, as saying that their talk about the “Iranian threat” is intended to cover up their negligent roles with regard to Palestine. Not to mention the normalizing regimes, whose stocks dropped exponentially after October 7. If we want to be objective, we must acknowledge this fact, regardless of the nature of our individual alignment towards them, as even Western and “Israeli” think tanks have come to acknowledge it openly.

Seventh: We should always remember that it is not a coincidence at all that the three main regional centers in all the region’s conflicts are: Iran, Turkey, and “Israel”. These three powers are the ones among which regional influence has been distributed over the past 20-30 years, while other regional powers have retreated and their influence has declined, especially after Camp David, which nearly removed Egypt, albeit gradually, from its Arab and African role and influence alike.

We should also pay attention to the fact that the ongoing regional conflict cannot be explained solely by conflicting interests at the regional level. It represents one of the aspects of the comprehensive international conflict, in which the US is retreating, including the possibility of it retreating militarily from the entire Middle East region within the framework of its comprehensive conflict, which requires rationalization in the distribution of retreating powers before the adversaries within the various global arenas of conflict. This rationalization requires placing “Israel” as a regional power that dominates and subjugates the entire region on behalf of the Americans and for their benefit. In other words, with the objective decline of the influence and presence of the Americans in the region, there is a vacuum emerging, which the three aforementioned regional powers, and to a lesser extent the powers trying to restore their role, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are scrambling to fill. Therefore, what may appear negative in the expansion of the influence of Iran or Turkey in the region should be viewed simultaneously from two other angles. The first angle is that it is an expression of progress at America’s expense. The second is that countries and peoples seeking a place under the sun must rise up to the historical moment, the moment of disruption and repositioning, to reserve a place for themselves in the spotlight, through an alignment that is in the interest of all the peoples of the region, and it is necessarily an alignment against the US and “Israel”.

Eighth: According to what is declared, at least each of the US, the UK, France, and Jordan – in addition to the Zionist entity’s multi-layered defenses – in addition to information assistance to various American bases in the region, participated in the process of confronting Iranian drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Despite all that, according to admissions of the “Israelis” themselves, two targets were hit, which are the two main symbolic targets from which the planes that bombed an Iranian consulate building in Syria took off on April 1.

If we add to this the fact that the American and “Israeli” intelligence services were fully prepared and alert (it is said that they were notified in advance that the attack was coming, although the statements varied in the amount of information provided by the Iranians about their attack, its size and timing), and if we add that the attack included a clear demonstration part, represented by the drones that took many hours to arrive, and which were announced almost as soon as they were launched, then the complete picture allows for additional conclusions in the political and military sense:

Politically: Iran has controlled the size and form of its attack, and the degree of escalation that it will cause, within a specific ceiling that does not allow for a transition to all-out war on the one hand, and does not allow for mistakes to occur against civilian aircraft in the countries that the drones and missiles will cross, which at the same time constitutes a public challenge to all American and “Israeli” threats, if there is a response.

Militarily: The attack did not use the highest level of military equipment available to Iran (for example, but not limited to, it did not use the hypersonic missiles that Washington says publicly that it is still working on manufacturing and failing to, not to mention that its experts say that all current Western defense systems are incapable of dealing with these missiles. Even at the level of drones, the most advanced models were not used, nor was a large-scale attack launched with them through an agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example – and it is known that the capabilities of the drones double over short distances). On the other hand, the highest “Israeli”, American, and Western armed defense and intelligence capabilities were used to confront the attack. However, if we accept the “Israeli” story, one percent of the Iranian attack tools have reached their goals. If we add to this two clear things, the first is the huge difference in cost between Iranian attack tools and Western defense tools (which amounts to $1 for attack versus $1,000 for defense, and sometimes more), and the second is the huge declared attrition in munitions of all types, which not only the Zionist entity, but also the US is experiencing, which the Ukraine battle, then the war on Gaza, has made clear. Therefore, it has become clear that the threat “Israel” will be under if the confrontation expands, is neither a simple nor a moderate danger, but rather a high-level danger.

Finally: The American strategy for our entire region has become clearer since October 7. This strategy seeks a comprehensive, hybrid chaos that includes all the countries of the region, including Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and the Arab Gulf states, a chaos that simultaneously allows for American withdrawal, Zionist domination, and where the Russians and Chinese are neutralized in the region for as long as possible, except within specific roles whose function is to exhaust them.

Within this strategy, it is not permissible to move towards direct comprehensive wars, because, with their course and outcome, they allow for the opposite effect and effect of inter-hybrid wars. Direct comprehensive wars allow for creating a general alignment against the Americans and the “Israelis”, not at the popular level, which is already aligned in this direction to a large extent, but also at the official level, which will no longer have many options within the framework of the narrow interests of the regimes.

The primary goal of the presence of American fleets in the region, and the almost daily threats to Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi resistance factions, over the past six months, was to maintain a specific scope for the war, and a specific intensity that would allow it to be extended for long periods during which the internal explosion factors mature in several countries in the region, especially in Egypt, Lebanon, and even in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

The other side, too, is not in the mood for a direct comprehensive war. We implicitly mean China, Russia, and Iran, because the risks of a war of this kind are too great to be predicted.

If standing between the two extremes – between long-term hybrid war and direct war – is the ideal situation for the Americans in the context of preparing and intensifying creative chaos, then the resilience of the resistance in Gaza and the great pain it inflicts on the enemy on the one hand, and the controlled direct Iranian strike on the other hand, together appear to be part of the magical solution to the equation, in a way that breaks American blackmail of a direct war on the one hand, and in a way that disrupts and makes it difficult to operate fissures within countries in the region, and among them, within the framework of comprehensive hybrid chaos.

(النسخة العربية)