19/01/2024 strategic-culture.su  6min 🇬🇧 #241154

 Expanding Middle East War

An Expanded War in the Middle East Is Increasingly Likely

🇪🇸 🇸🇹

Eduardo Vasco

Ansarallah's intervention in solidarity with the martyred Palestinian people marked a turning point in the Israeli war of aggression in Gaza.

Contact us: infostrategic-culture.su

Ansarallah's intervention in solidarity with the martyred Palestinian people marked a turning point in the Israeli war of aggression in Gaza. Certainly articulated with the Axis of Resistance, it forced the United States to become directly involved militarily in the conflict, more in aid of international commercial monopolies than in the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu (this will be the first pawn to fall, without any protest from Washington).

But the Americans, who, with the exception of the powerful arms industry, do not want a full-blown war, responded very timidly, attacking only selected targets in Yemen. Ansarallah said that no important infrastructure was hit and that the attacks did not even tickle its military potential. Therefore, it will continue to intercept ships going to or returning from Israel passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Joe Biden violated American laws by authorizing a military attack without consulting Congress, repeating what Donald Trump did when bombing Syria in 2017. But at that time Syria was defenseless, destroyed and in an internal war, while its ally Russia had not yet as much friction with Trump as there is with Biden. Now it's different for the U.S.: the Arabs are on the offensive, not on the defensive. And Russia really wants Biden to sink into the mud.

At the same time, Iran seized a U.S. oil tanker in the Sea of Oman in retaliation for the U.S.'s earlier confiscation of a ship it owned. It is clear that it was a politically designed measure.

For now, everyone is testing their opponent. The assassination of leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iraqi resistance by Israel and the U.S., as well as the terrorist attack claimed by the Islamic State and redolent of Mossad and the CIA, were risky tests against the Iranians. They increased the feeling of revenge on the part of Tehran and its allies.

The U.S. and Iran (in constant communication with Russia and China) are in an increasingly tense chess game right now. In the final months of 2023, several troops were deployed to Iran's borders with its neighbors. This week, missiles were launched against targets in the regions of Iraq and Syria occupied militarily by the U.S., and also against Pakistan, which hit terrorist groups accused of being responsible for recent attacks in Persian territory.

These attacks by Iran had extremely negative repercussions for Tehran. The governments of Iraq and Pakistan have harshly condemned them and the international press has already increased the anti-Iranian propaganda - which has been growing in recent weeks - even further. Iran obviously considered all of this before taking these unprecedented actions. To risk losing many points with key allies, Tehran certainly imagined it would be worth it, as this was a show of strength to the U.S. and Israel. In fact, terrorist targets are nothing more than an excuse for Iran: the real target was the Pentagon. The Iranians have shown that they are not afraid to burn down the entire region if their enemies really want a war.

Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, Iran's Defense Minister, made this clear: "We see no limitations in defending our national interests and the people, and will certainly do this authoritatively. No matter where threats against the Islamic Republic come from, we will react and the response will surely be proportionate, decisive and strong." Repeating: "no matter where threats against the Islamic Republic come from"...

There are increasing signs that the war in Gaza will spread across the Middle East. Israel has apparently reduced operations in northern Gaza, which may suggest that the Zionists are redirecting resources to other fronts - such as the Lebanese, where friction with Hezbollah is only increasing. In Israel, it is admitted that it would be almost impossible for displaced people to return to their homes in the north of the country without Hezbollah being forced to retreat. An article in Haaretz is scathing: "a war with Hezbollah is inevitable." Its author, Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Tel Aviv, warns that "there is a clear danger of a direct conflict between Israel and Iran and from there to a broader regional conflagration." The Guardian has the same fears about the U.S. and its British allies.

The U.S., in turn, suspended arms supplies to Ukraine, perhaps to focus on the Middle East, as it is unable to sustain two such difficult fronts at the same time (and this is a confession that Russia has already won the war in Eastern Europe). The U.S. also started importing oil from Venezuela again, perhaps anticipating the impossibility of doing so from the Arabs due to a war.

Following the attacks suffered by the U.S.-UK coalition, the Ansarallah supreme political council issued a statement warning that "all American and British interests are now legitimate targets of Houthi forces." More than 20 American military bases are within the range of Yemeni missiles, from those in Djibouti to those in Israel, including those in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and all the countries of the Arabian Peninsula.

There are already more than 130 attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, and they occur daily. If the U.S. does not respond in kind, the Iraqi resistance forces will become even more excited. And they are very popular, leading the Iraqi government to publicly declare that it will withdraw imperialist coalition forces from its territory - so as not to be left behind and swallowed up by the popular movement that supports armed resistance.

The great popularity of the entire Axis of Resistance is proven by A+B through numerous opinion polls published in recent months and weeks, which reflect broad support for Hamas and Hezbollah not only among the Palestinians and Lebanese, but throughout the Arab world. This popular support (in addition, of course, to the continuation of the genocide in Gaza) is a decisive impetus for a major offensive against the Zionist and imperialist enemy.

Everyone also knows that the West Bank is "on the verge of explosion", as many newspapers say. Terrorist attacks themselves are increasingly worrying the Israeli army and police. Because they are unable to fight against such powerful forces on so many fronts - war spending and the Houthi economic blockade are leading Israel's economy to collapse and Gaza is already quicksand for Israeli soldiers. Therefore, the U.S. would be absolutely obliged to come to Israel's aid. For the U.S., if Israel falls, the fall of its world domination is certain and almost imminent.

Fewer and fewer boats sail through the Red Sea. More than a fear of intervention by Yemeni revolutionaries, it is a fear of being swallowed up by a real war in the region. News agencies say Germany and Denmark could send their warships there in the coming days. The Red Sea crisis could lead to a reduction in global GDP, according to a new report from the World Bank. This would likely not occur if the crisis ended quickly, but only if it continued, suggesting an escalation and possibly fatal explosion.

All we can do so far is speculate based on the news published by the international press. But the movements indicate that the drums of war are about to beat.

 strategic-culture.su

 Commenter