When it comes to the Iran-Israel conflict there is one concerning detail we shouldn’t ignore
Nothing is certain in the Iran-Israel conflict right now, says former foreign secretary and Iran expert Jack Straw, who looks at how bad the situation could get and how the UK could feel the sharp end of any attack
I have been frequently asked in the last few days whether I could recall a time as dangerous as this feels today. Yes, the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. That was terrifying for the whole world, as the two major superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union, faced off. I was scared stiff. After 13 days, when the world really did appear to hold its breath, the crisis was resolved by diplomatic means.
And so to the question today and the threat of this sparking a nuclear armageddon we live in fear of – existential or otherwise. Violence is literally chaos. Wars rarely go according to plan. History shows us that a relatively prosaic error by one commander on the ground can sometimes spark a conflagration. Thus, nothing is certain about the Iran-Israel conflict right now.
Could Pakistan – and other countries in the region – come out actively to support Iran in its struggle with Israel, as was reported yesterday?
Frankly, I see little prospect of Pakistan, or other key Muslim countries, or Russia or China, getting involved militarily in this conflict. Suggestions on Monday that Pakistan could use its nuclear arsenal against Israel if the latter uses nuclear weapons against Iran came not from any official Pakistani spokesperson, but from a General Mohsen Rezaee of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in a TV interview in Tehran.
These suggestions have not been confirmed by any official Pakistani source. The odds of Israel using nuclear weapons against Iran are long, to non-existent. It is almost certain that Donald Trump would veto such a move, and the Israelis have such an upper hand in the conflict that they would not need to contemplate this. Iran itself is close to being able to produce a nuclear weapon, but it has not yet done so.
On Sunday, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian was reported as telling his cabinet, “We expect Muslim and [Middle East] regional countries to adopt a clear, firm, and effective position against the aggression of the Zionists and their supporters”.
But even if there were such a crazy attack by Israel, would Pakistan join in? Almost certainly not. Pakistan is Iran’s neighbour, but relations between the two countries have in recent times been far from easy, and Pakistan’s military leaders would be taking leave of their senses to use nuclear weapons in support of Iran. The US, a major financial backer, would be strongly opposed, and so would China, Pakistan’s most important and long-standing ally.
Sadly, however, for the beleaguered Iranian president, all that Iran’s erstwhile allies, like Russia and China, have done so far is to issue formulaic statements condemning Israel’s aggression. Yes, countries in the region have expressed mounting concern and have called for restraint, but no more. In Lebanon, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, has declared his “support [for] the Islamic Republic of Iran in its rights and position, and in all the steps and measures it takes to defend itself and its choices”.
To my mind’s eye, what is striking is that no action in support of Iran has followed. Hezbollah plainly do not wish to get involved.
Before he was ousted last December, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad could have proved a formidable ally of Iran, but his regime is no more. Hamas is but a shadow of what it was. Indeed, only the Houthis in Yemen appear so far to be willing to take concrete military action in support of Iran, though the damage they could do, not least to impede shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, could be serious with a spike in oil prices.
Where else could we feel the sharp end of an attack? Britain does have two important military bases in its “sovereign areas” in Cyprus; there’s also a UK Naval Support Facility in Bahrain. The UK also has a military presence in other Middle East nations like Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. These could be attacked by Iran or its proxies with the idea of dragging the UK directly into the war.
I am sure adequate steps are being taken to increase security at each base, and it’s also hard to see what advantage Iran would gain from any attack.
One of the many fascinations about Iran (and I confess, I am addicted, for which there is no known cure) is that although those who speak out too far can easily end up in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, there are still quite a variety of views being reported in the Iranian press, or being published by courageous bloggers.
While Iranian papers carried entirely predictable denunciations of the “Zionist entity” – hardliners cannot bring themselves to use the word “Israel” – and of its allies, including the US, France, Germany, and the UK, there is something more curious happening that is worth noting.
There is a really very surprising public debate that is being had alongside this rhetoric, discussing whether Iran should continue negotiations with the United States on a new nuclear deal. To the moderate newspaper, Arman-e Melli, talks with the US would be “a sign of strength”; even the conservative paper, Jomhouri-e Eslami, has urged that talks with the US should be maintained.
However, whether any proposed talks or deals by the Trump administration would play out is still debatable. What's different – and more concerning – about the current conflict from the one back in 1962 is that neither the US nor the Soviet Union were committed to eliminating the other nation.
Since the early 1990s, Iran’s religious and military leaders have fomented a visceral, irrational hatred even for the idea of Israel. Israel’s foundation in 1948 was controversial – but so have plenty of other nations too. Israel is recognised by the UN in just the same way as Iran. It’s a tragedy for the Iranian people that they are now paying a high price for this mad conceit of their supreme leader that denies the right of a fellow member of the UN to exist.
Israel will be able to delay Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, but military action alone will not wipe out the accumulated knowledge and skills of Iran’s nuclear scientists. The only way to achieve that would be by a new nuclear deal, with intrusive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Donald Trump is right to suggest that ‘better than a ceasefire’ between Israel and Iran. For Iranians, a serious deal is the only way out of the doom loop they’ve been placed by their myopic leaders.
The great irony is that there was a serious deal of the kind which Mr Trump is now seeking, agreed not least by the US back in 2015, the ‘Join Comprehensive Plan of Action’. It was Benjamin Netanyahu who reportedly persuaded Donald Trump in 2018 to pull out of that agreement, and the Iranian hardliners (always opposed to a deal) got to work on enriching uranium to levels needed for a nuclear bomb.
Jack Straw is the author of ‘The English Job: Understanding Iran and Why It Distrusts Britain’
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