Mick Hartley

Jonathan Spyer in the Spectator:

As Israel advances its surgical reduction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and senior command, and Iran continues to launch missiles randomly at Israeli population centres in response, it is interesting to note what is not happening. Notably absent is any ground element to the war, which is currently being fought entirely between air and missile forces.

This brings home just how much the picture has changed in Israel’s favour over the last 20 months. It also reveals the deeper logic of this war. On 6 October, the Iran-led regional alliance stood as the most powerful strategic axis in the Middle East, pursuing clear goals via proven modes of action. As a result of an ill-fated decision by one of its most minor members (Hamas) to launch a war it could not win, the regional components of this alliance were neutralised. Israel is now seeking to complete the job by pulverising Iran itself. An optimal result would be the fall of the regime. But a battered, isolated Tehran, stripped of its nuclear programme, missile array and allies, would also suffice.

Since the October 7th Hamas massacre, Israel has been busy destroying Iran's proxies. The once-lauded Shia crescent surrounding Israel is looking a lot less threatening. Hezbollah has been destroyed, Hamas and the Houthis have been severely weakened, and Syria – though the aims of the new regime are still unclear – is now clearly sided with Sunni Turkey. Next, Iran itself… 

What all this means is that, little noticed by western commentators who were busy with their myopic focus on Gaza, Israel has, over the last 18 months, effectively reversed two decades of Iranian advance across the Middle East. The result is that Iran now finds that its intended envelopment of Israel with proxy militias has been dismantled. Tools for Iran to exert pressure from the ground no longer exist.

This means that the current confrontation looks set to focus on air, missile and drone warfare. As to how things proceed, much will depend on the continued capacities of Israel’s air defences, its ability to keep its current air corridor to Iran open and to continue reaping a toll on Iranian regime assets and personnel.

The goal must be the crippling or drastic weakening of both the regime’s nuclear programme and its ability to govern. The result: either the permanent weakening of the Islamic Republic to a point where it can no longer busy itself with seeking to project power and aggression against its neighbours, or, preferably, the reduction of the regime’s capacities to a point where the Iranian people are able to free themselves from the mullah’s yoke. The latter outcome would be an appropriate end both to Tehran’s two-decade project of aggression in the Middle East, and to its ally Hamas’s decision to launch war in October 2023.