Encircled: Iran’s Long Game Against Israel

>> Peter Berkowitz: Stopping your adversary from launching rockets and missiles at you. Stopping your adversary is a legitimate military goal.

>> Peter Berkowitz: We have a lot to discuss in one hour. I will be sure not to speak formally for more than 40 minutes. Then we'll proceed to questions, I hope provocative and challenging questions.

 

In order to make that more likely, I'll offer a provocative or challenging comment or two. Okay, I should say as we speak, Israel, the only rights-protecting democracy in the Middle East, is on high alert. Even as it continues to wage war against Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

 

The IDF is preparing for a large-scale war, beginning with an attack from Iran. Of course, Iran backed Hezbollah, and southern Lebanon could join in, so could the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, about 1,000 miles away. So could Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq join in that wider war? The Biden administration is frantically trying to avert this wider war by brokering an agreement between Israel and Hamas over the return of hostages.

 

Meanwhile, the United States has sent a guided sub a second aircraft carriers on its way to the Middle East. The United States has assets positioned in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Oman. How did we get here? How to understand the larger geopolitical challenges Israel faces?

 

What are America's interests in the region? What has the Biden administration done? Well, whereas it made mistakes, what can we learn about US readiness to meet challenges abroad? From the anti Israel, pro Hamas protests that rocked American campuses following the October 7th massacres. Those are the big questions that we will address in the short time available to us.

 

First, this wider regional war. Regional war that only Hamas wanted. Israel does not want a regional war against what the Iranians call the Ring of Fire that surrounds Israel. What is this Ring of Fire? I need a different map. To the south of Israel, in the southwest corner is the Gaza Strip.

 

That's governed by Hamas, a jihadist organization, meaning it is devoted to fighting religious war to destroy the Jewish state. That's what they say. That's what Hamas says in its 1988 charter, which is easily available online. That charter, that commitment has never been revised. That's one front. A second front is Hamas-backed, I'm sorry, Iran-backed Hamas in Israel's West Bank.

 

That's that area around which the lines are drawn in the middle, what looks to be the middle of Israel. That's an area in which 2.5 to 3 million Palestinians live, even though the Palestinian authority nominally governs the most powerful political force there is Hamas. Then you have Hezbollah, a powerful militia with at least 50,000 soldiers, fighters, at least 150,000 projectiles, rockets, precision guided rockets, several thousand intermediate range missiles and any number of drones.

 

South of Lebanon you have Iran backed militias in Syria and Iraq to the northeast of Israel. And let's go down here in Yemen, the bottom of that map you have the Houthis in western Yemen. That's Iran's ring of fire. Deliberately created by Iran over the last 15 or 20 years, in no small part funded by.

 

Funded by oil monies available to Iran as a result of relaxation of sanctions during the Obama administration and the Biden administration. The purpose of that ring of fire is to exhaust and destroy Israel. By the way, not my opinion. Iran's statements about its ring of fire, that is an Iranian term.

 

So Israel did not want this war. Actually, Iran is not ready for wider Middle east war. Hezbollah to the north of Israel does not want at this time a wider Middle east war. They all want those elements of Iran's ring of fire prefer to engage in a war of attrition by which they slowly, steadily exhaust Israel from the stead from absorbing this steady barrage of rockets from the north, from the south, from the east.

 

Who then wanted this wider war? Hamas wanted this wider war. How do we know that Hamas wanted this wider war? Because Haya, Hamas officials said in the days following the October 7th massacres. I'll come back to describe those in a moment. In the days following the October 7th massacres, leaders of Hamas explained that their intention was to trigger mass onslaught against Israel from Hamas in the west bank, from Hezbollah in the north in southern Lebanon, to bring down and destroy Israel.

 

Hamas has another tactic for destroying Israel. We know of this as a result of emails from Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, now also the political leader after Ismail Haniyeh was killed under mysterious circumstances in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps state house in Tehran about two weeks ago.

 

What is this second tactic? It's especially sly and monstrous. Sinwar said he has Israel right where he wants Israel. Where does Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, want Israel? He wants Israel bogged down in the Gaza Strip, engaged in the worst sort of dense urban warfare. Why? Because as a result of a decision, a manifest violation of the international laws of war, that is embedding Hamas fighters in civilian areas all throughout Gaza and under civilian areas, 500 or so miles of tunnels.

 

Sinwar counted on Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces, killing many thousands of Palestinian civilians. Why would Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, want Israel to kill his own civilians? Because he knew that an all too compliant international press would report these deaths as if they were the moral and legal responsibility of Israel, when in fact, under any reasonable analysis of the international laws of war, those deaths, that destruction, all that suffering, is the moral and legal responsibility of Hamas because of its calculated decision, I repeat, to conduct its fighting in manifest violation of the international laws of war in cities and under cities.

 

 

>> Peter Berkowitz: We'll come back to the October 7th attacks as I promised, but a bit. I wanna concentrate now on recent events. In roughly the last month, Israel has enjoyed some remarkable successes. It killed Mohammed Deif deep in Gaza Strip. Deif was the number two person in Hamas. After Yemen, a drone from Yemen traveled a 1000 miles Red Sea up through Egypt, then the eastern Mediterranean, struck an Israeli building, killing one Israeli, wounding several others.

 

Israeli fighter aircraft flew 1,000 miles, farthest bombing mission ever, and destroyed energy facilities and more in a Houthi controlled port in western Yemen. About ten days ago, Israel killed Fuad Shukr, who was the number two Hezbollah commander, in an apartment in Beirut. And within 24 hours, Ismail Haniyeh had been killed.

 

Haniyeh was the number one political leader of Hamas. He was in Tehran at a funeral for the recently deceased except for the celebrate the incoming president of Iran. Either a bomb exploded under his bed or a missile entered through his window. We're still not clear. Nobody has claimed credit for this killing.

 

It is widely thought that Israel is somehow responsible. In anger over those two killings, Iran and Iran supported Hezbollah have vowed to exact revenge. Suggestion is that they will rain down missiles on Israel. The bigger threat, the more immediate threat actually comes from Lebanon. Let's go back to the Israel map.

 

 

>> Peter Berkowitz: Other direction.

>> Peter Berkowitz: You can see Lebanon to the north of Israel. Hezbollah controls roughly the bottom third of the Lebanon. Why do they represent so fearsome a challenge for the Israelis? As I've already mentioned one because of the size of their army, at least 50,000 strong. Also, it's battle hardened.

 

Battle hardened from what? From almost 15 years of fighting in the Syrian civil war. Second, their arsenal. It contains at least 150,000 projectiles. Rockets, precision guided rockets and missiles. What? Not to be too technical about this is the difference between a rocket and a missile. A rocket most of the time is like a big bullet, meaning it's got to strike you to hit you, or it's got to land on the roof on top of you, causing the collapse of the roof.

 

A missile generally for the most part has an exploding warhead and they can be directed. Missiles are a greater threat. However, if you Send in enough rockets at one time, notwithstanding their inaccuracy, it can cause tremendous damage. Israeli military planners expect that in the event of a wider war, Hezbollah alone.

 

This is not to speak of the Houthis in Yemen, the militias in Syria and Iraq, and Tehran itself, Iran itself. But military planners in Israel expect, in the first days of a wider regional war, Hama, I'm sorry. Hezbollah will launch in the neighborhood of 3,000 rockets and missiles a day.

 

3,000 rockets and missiles a day. The Israelis have by far the best air defense systems in the world. Kipat Bar's Iron Dome, and David Sling, and Arrow for different kinds of threats. Short range, intermediate range, medium range threats, the best in the world. Remember, in April, and with the help of the United States, Israelis, along with the United States, Britain, France and the help of Jordan, Syria, other Middle Eastern countries, shot down 350 or so incoming drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

 

Unheard of achievement, 99% were shot out of the sky. That was 300 with a great deal of advanced warning. Because Iran is 1,000 miles away or so, but Lebanon is on the border. Israeli air defenses would be overwhelmed. Haif in the north would be hit. Tel Aviv would be hit.

 

Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main international airport, would be hit. Air force bases in the north would be hit. In fact, Hezbollah has intermediate range missiles that can reach all parts of Israel, including Eilat in the very south, on the border there with Jordan. Israel no doubt has the firepower to defeat Hezbollah.

 

But keep in mind, Israel will suffer blows to its civilian infrastructure, the likes of which it has never suffered before. Moreover, and this is part of the sinister and monstrous calculations of the jihadists, in order to bring the launching of rockets and missiles to an end, the Israeli air force will inevitably kill thousands, if not tens of thousands of Lebanese.

 

Why do I say inevitably? Because Hezbollah, like Hamas, locates rocket and missile launchers in civilian areas under inside B side apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques. This, by the way, this action operating in civilian areas violates the laws of war. But under the international laws of war it does not block.

 

A country exercising its right of self defense from striking. Country has to strike in ways that are proportional. But what does proportional mean in this context? And we can discuss this more during questions. Proportional in this context does not mean that if Hezbollah rockets kill 1000 Israelis, Israel is only justified in killing in self-defense 1000 Lebanese.

 

Proportional means killing inadvertently, not intentionally, although foreseeably, no more civilians as an indirect result of attacking legitimate military targets, but killing no more civilians than are necessary in order to accomplish a legitimate military goal. Stopping your adversary from launching rockets and missiles at you. Stopping your adversary is a legitimate military goal.