Salem Alketbi
Israel Hayom, Dec. 26, 2023
“Iran realizes that the intervention of its terrorist militia arms in the region under the pretext of defending the people of Gaza contributes to attracting the sympathy of the Arab and Islamic peoples and prevents the governments of these countries from uttering the facts and confronting the Iranian deceptive plan, which contains something contrary to what it declares.”
At a press conference in Tehran, Abdullahian said: “I warn the United States and its agent Israel, if they do not stop the war, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza, everything is possible at any moment, and it could put the region out of control.”
Although American concern focused on the possibility of igniting Israel’s northern front, Iran chose the lesser of the two “harms” from the standpoint of geopolitical calculations. Especially with regard to the repercussions of any escalation of the situation regionally on Iran, which has absolutely no desire to engage directly in a wide military conflict with the United States or Israel.
It also realizes that there is a very high possibility of destroying Hezbollah’s operational capabilities in light of the stationing of a huge American naval force in the Mediterranean, which included two aircraft carriers, and support ships, and about two thousand Marines to help deter any attacks launched by Hezbollah against Israel on an expanded basis.
Therefore, Iran chose to send lighter signals regarding its threats to expand the circle of conflict in the Middle East through the Bab al-Mandab Gate and the “Houthi” arm, which is less strategically costly according to Iranian calculations.
There is no doubt that the failure of the Houthi missiles directed at Israel to achieve the goal of pressuring the United States to force Israel to stop its pursuit of the terrorist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip played a vital role in escalating Iranian signals by targeting Israeli ships and then expanding the circle to include all ships heading to Israel, in the framework of a series of carefully calculated Iranian steps that are unmistakable to an observer, as part of an Iranian deterrence strategy aimed at resolving the strategic conflict in the Middle East to its advantage.
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