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Anyone worried about the possibility of an escalated war in the Middle East following recent military exchanges between Israel and Iran will have taken little comfort from last night’s Vice Presidential debate between the Democrat candidate Tim Walz and Republican J.D Vance.
When asked by CBS moderator Margaret Brennan if he would “support or oppose a pre-emptive strike by Israel on Iran?,” Minnesota Governor Walz basically avoided a straight answer but did state that there “will be consequences” and that the United States wanted to see the “expansion of Israel and its proxies” in the region. A rather ominous hint, perhaps.
As indeed was Vance’s reply that “it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe.” The only difference between himself and Walz was that Vance claimed that Trump had kept everyone in line between 2016 and 2020 through mutual fear of the United States.
Vance does have a point and despite the spiel about “Trump the warmonger” his time in office was almost unique in not seeing any outbreaks of military conflict that directly involved the United States and its closest allies. Under Biden we have seen the ignominious surrender to the Taliban, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and its Islamic state and state sponsored foes.
There is no doubt that Israel is planning its response and such a response is likely to come quickly. Already this morning the Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced that they were refusing entry to the country by UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres because the Israelis were unhappy with the nature of his response to the Iranian missile attacks.
Last night, Prime Minister Netanyahu responded tersely by stating that “Whoever attacks us – we attack them.” That might be fair enough if one eludes the fact that the Iranian attacks were themselves in response to a devastating series of operations by Mossad, in the pager incidents, and the IDF in directly attacking Hezbollah leaders and locations inside Iran.
Lebanon, as so often in the past, is currently at the centre of the Israeli actions against Hezbollah which has responded by firing more rockets into Israel this morning. The Israelis have launched airstrikes against Beirut and the general feeling appears to be that all of this may only be clearing the stage for the expected showdown between Israel and Iran.
As with the Israeli response to the savage Hamas incursion almost a year ago on October 7, the Israeli retaliation is likely to consist of much more than direct retribution. That, and attempts to free the hostages taken by Hamas and presumably kept in Gaza, was the rationale for the ongoing assault on Gaza. If one accepts the Gaza Health Ministry’s figures, more than 41,600 people have been killed and almost 100,000 wounded in the Israeli offensive. That is disproportionate.
The Iranians themselves are well up for it. This morning it was reported by the Iranian English language press agency that the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf had declared: “We advise America, as the supporter of the Zionist regime, to hold the collar of this rabid dog tightly so that it neither harms itself nor endangers its owners. Death to America!”
There is no doubt that the Iranian Islamic Republic is a vile regime. On any metric, including basic human rights, it deserves no support. Yet, as with Hamas and its record of repression of women, gay people, journalists and trade unionists, there are many in the west not only willing to overlook the sort of actual abuses that they accuse others notionally of in their own countries; but many are quite happy to make common cause with them.
The same applied to the regimes in Syria, Libya and Iraq. However, that is not an excuse for full scale military intervention against “rogue states” nor a license to attempt a ham-fisted policy of “regime change” which almost invariably ends up placing another gang of scum in power.
The only difference being that as with the apparently apocryphal statement by some US President about a Latin American dictator being a “son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” that the new gang will sign the Halliburton contracts and not interfere with US interests and especially not with Israel.
And I don’t buy the “moral imperative” either. If that were the nub of the issue then the United States would be actively attempting to overthrow the comic opera but vicious Stalinist regime in Pyongyang. Indeed, if it was genuine about stalling the spread of totalitarianism never mind rescuing its existing victims it would not tolerate the Chinese Communist state; the genocide against the Uyghurs, its denial of basic freedoms to its own people and those in occupied Tibet and its threats against democratic Taiwan.
But then China and its rulers are much beloved of some of the same people – including among our own bien pensants – for pretty basic and obvious material motivations, who get all high and mighty about intervening in other places. If there were more bobs to be turned in Moscow than Kiev they’d be on Putin’s side too.
The situation in Ukraine too has been potentially made more dangerous from a global perspective by the hints that Zelensky might have been allowed to use missiles supplied by NATO against targets inside Russia. Reports this week, however, suggest that American intelligence agencies have taken seriously Putin’s threat to retaliate for any such action against NATO member states.
That war will inevitably end in negotiations and compromise. Either that or a wide scale war involving eastern, and perhaps even central and western Europe. Israel also needs to find some compromise and not be tempted into pursuing what is in effect a plan that has wide credence for the dismantling of the Palestinian states and the mass displacement of the Palestinians – except this time to Europe.
Ireland has already seen the beginning of this with the huge increase in the numbers of ‘Jordanians’ and Palestinians claiming asylum over the past 12 months. There are now almost 1,900 Jordanians and almost 700 Palestinians in IPAS accommodation compared to 200 in total at the beginning of October 2023.
That might appear selfish but all states are selfish – or ought to be when it comes to prioritising the interests of its own people, born in the country and of national descent, rather than potentially endless streams of random arrivals. If the world is becoming a more dangerous and volatile place then Ireland and the other European countries need to take better measures to protect themselves.
Part of that needs to be not being led into disaster by non-European states whether they be declared enemies or putative friends from undermining the basis for social order. The same applies to the United States. Walk softly and carry a big stick and only intervene and support the actions of allies when they are proportionate and justifiable in the interests of maintaining that order.
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