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IRAN -THE BEAST IS ON THE ATTACK

By Josef Olmert

It is arguably the case that the Biden Administration is almost exclusively focused on the Ukraine situation and the possibility of a Russian invasion. This is understandable, but here is what is most NOT understandable-the indifference towards an escalating and very dangerous situation in the Middle East, where Iran is flexing its muscles in a way unprecedented since the heydays of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Just a few days ago, the Iranian regime unleashed its Yemen Houti stooges against the sovereign state of the UAE, with a devastating combined attack of drones and ballistic missiles on strategic targets in the capital city of the UAE. This is no more a signal, no more a step of brinkmanship, this IS the real thing-this is war, and the Iranians are the perpetrators. And where is the US? where is Saudi Arabia? Where is ISRAEL? Why now? All are questions of major significance to be discussed here.

The Yemen Houti rebels are the armed wing of the Yemen Shi’i population, numbering about 30 Percent of the population. They belong to the Zaydia, a Shi’i sect different from the Shi’is of Iran. Still, they accept Iran’s supremacy in the Shi’i world, and their rebellion in Yemen against the Sunni majority is part of the overall Iranian effort to create the Shi’i crescent stretching from Yemen to Lebanon. Their struggle against Saudi Arabia and the UAE is part of the Iranian struggle against these and other Gulf countries. The Sunni coalition fighting against the Houtis in Yemen is far from complying with the ethics of war, this has to be said, but the Houtis are, by far, much less compliant with that, and the poor Yemeni population is suffering probably the worst humanitarian crisis in today’s world. The overall description and analysis of the Yemeni civil war is out of the scope of this paper, but not its regional and international implications. They are of great importance, and the current situation highlights them in a very dramatic way.

Let us start with the US. One of the very first moves of the Biden Administration after inauguration was to take the Houtis out of the terror list of the State Department. This is a step which then and now cannot be explained in any other way than being a stunning example of appeasement going awry. There was nothing in the performance of the Houtis which could justify it, and since then, they have increased and improved their attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This was, therefore, a gesture of the Biden administration towards Iran ahead of the resumption of the nuclear talks, and with the certainty in DC, as well as in other Middle Eastern capitals, that the newly elected president of Iran, Ra’isi was far more militant than his predecessor Rouhani, who himself was anything but a moderate. The Biden administration gave this free gift to Iran while conducting a not-so-subtle campaign of P.R against Saudi Arabia, as part of its overall much-declared policy of supporting human rights all over the world. It is definitely a noble cause, isn’t it? Sure, enough, it is, but NOT when it is so selective, and this is exactly the case with regard to the triangle of Iran, Houtis, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is far from being a champion of human rights, but Iran and the Houtis? Well, this is how appeasement is -the application of double standards, the use of the language of fake righteous morality, exactly what this administration seems to be engaged in. The real problem is that the Iranians are not impressed with the times when Biden’s advisers make the generic statements about ‘’all options are on the table’’, as until now, the ONLY option which is clearly on the table is that of appeasement. All this is reflected in the nuclear talks in Vienna. Iran is the power, which is on top there, showing resilience and consistency. There is NOT going to be anything in the new agreement about Iran’s subversive activities in the Middle East, exactly at the time when these activities have been upgraded and are clear-cut and blatant acts of open war.

While the Biden administration shows all the features of weakness, where are the Saudis and the UAE? Here, the signals are confused. The Saudi-led coalition intensifies its attacks on the Houtis in Yemen, both aerial and ground, though with limited success. At the same time, the Saudis are conducting talks with Iran with the stated aim of restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Saudis have always been the masters of duplicity, almost as good as the Iranians are. Still, these talks seem to indicate something else-The Saudis under Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman[MBS] do not trust the Biden administration. They are trying to have their own channel of communications with the Iranians, realizing that containment of Iran, both in terms of its nuclear program and its subversive activities in the Middle East will NOT come as a result of American resolve. Do the Saudis really believe that they can tame the Iranian Shrew by themselves? I personally doubt it, but the Saudis do what is logical from their perspective. They test the waters with Iran, they try to check all options, they are careful, and to an extent this is also what the UAE does- they also are engaged in diplomatic talks with the Iranians. That said, it leaves us with the question, where is Israel? Well, Israel continues to be part of the big game, if we are to borrow this term. In the day when the extent of the damage in the UAE as a result of the Houtis-Iran attack became clear, PM Bennett promised security and intelligence assistance to the UAE, while not detailing what that meant. Also, it was announced that Israel successfully tested the ARROW 3 system against ballistic missiles. Two obvious signals to Iran. Signals have been sent by Israel for a long time, and they do not seem to have the desired effect on Iran.

Israel finds itself in a situation that is not surprising-one of loneliness. The US will NOT change course about Iran, Saudi Arabia steers clear from an open cooperation with Israel, the UAE is likely to do the same, and on top of all that -IRAN seems determined to continue and escalate its subversive activities whose final aim is to besiege Israel. The Saudis and the UAE still have the option of changing course and joining ISRAEL in going after Iran, but the likelihood of that happening is low. PM Bennett has to make big decisions-something which was discussed already in my previous pieces, and he has to do that with a fragile, fractured coalition government. Israel is in a precarious situation-It wants to trust the US, it wants to have greater cooperation with the Sunni states, it wants the entire world to acknowledge the full, realistic dimensions of the Iranian threat, but it FAILS to achieve all these goals. The JEWS are alone again … nothing new about that. ET ZARA LEYAACOV [Biblical line-troubled time to ISRAEL].

Dr. Josef Olmert is a Senior Fellow at the Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research and an adjunct professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina