Iran Focus
London, 7 Nov – No one wants an all-out war with Iran, but that is what we are heading towards at an alarming rate as the Iranian Regime expands its power over the Middle East.
Just in the last week, the Iranian Regime allowed its proxy terror cell the Houthis to launch a ballistic missile on Saudi Arabia, caused the Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri to resign in fear for his life, and been exposed as a key ally of al Qaeda.
These developments cannot be separated from Iran’s consistent involvement in regional conflicts (Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, among others) to the detriment of diplomacy and democracy. The Iranian Regime refuses to withdraw their troops (including proxy militias) from Syria, as they did with Iraq until recently and invaded Kurdistan after the Kurdish people voted for independence.
The Regime controls these battles from a distance and many countries in the Middle East, as well as the US, have failed to implement a comprehensive policy to confront it and are forced to do battle with the proxies. As you can imagine, this doesn’t work too well. By the time one proxy has been defeated, Iran has linked with two more.
This forces opponent of the Regime to either directly confront Iran or form regional proxies of its own to fight the Regime.
It is unlikely that anyone would choose the first option because of how the Regime’s regional proxies have so interwoven themselves within the countries of the Middle East (i.e. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq). It would be intensely difficult to confront Iran with those groups in place. Basically unless Iran launched a direct armed attack on a foreign nation, no one could respond with one.
Therefore it is the second option that must be utilised.
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, wrote on Arab News that this was the only option.
He wrote: “The fields of confrontation are increasing with Iran’s expansion and the absence of a means to deter its control. Iran got even more dangerous after it had succeeded in weakening Saad Hariri’s presence and promoting the Houthis’ capacity to threaten the heart of Saudi Arabia with missiles. Eliminating the option of a direct military confrontation with Iran, which nobody wants to see happening, the only possible option would be strengthening the local militia forces in the troubled countries.”
