What is really happening between Iran and Israel
Israel's move to Damascus. Iran's attack. And the conflict scenarios. Conversation with Andrea Molle, associate professor of Political Science and International Relations at Chapman University in Orange (California)
Be careful not to define last Saturday's Iranian attack against Israel as merely symbolic and therefore harmless. As Andrea Molle, associate professor of Political Science and International Relations at Chapman University in Orange, California, explains to Start Magazine , that episode is, if anything, part of the de facto state of war between the two countries that began on 7 October if not even much earlier. It is therefore not even true, the professor clarifies, that the attack was triggered exclusively in reaction to the raid conducted on 1 April in Damascus by the Jewish State nor is it true, he adds, that the one hit by Israel was the Tehran embassy.
Was Iran's attack against Israel really just a symbolic attack that didn't really want to do any harm?
To some it might even seem that Iran was joking in some way, but I struggle to define the launch of over 300 bombs as a joke, which in any case had a cost and the aim of causing as much damage as possible, even if not of a strategic nature.
So if it wasn't a symbolic move, how can we define it?
Iran had promised a reaction after the raid in which Israel killed seven Pasdaran in Damascus on April 1st. However, by attacking Tehran it achieved something else, namely to test the reaction of the Arab countries, to understand in particular the positioning of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Emirates and other nations in the area and whether they would therefore accept an attack on Israel.
The test, however, gave a negative result, because those countries actually helped Israel.
That's right, those countries first of all protected their own sovereignty violated by the overflight of those 300 bombs. Secondly, the security agreements established in recent years by the USA in this area seem to have come into force in order to include the Jewish State in an overall architecture which has the precise purpose of defending itself from Iran.
However, as you yourself said, Iran attacked in response to the Israeli raid on April 1st.
This is also not true because it does not take into account the fact that Iran has been in some way at war with Israel since last October 7, i.e. the day on which Hamas carried out its violent attack against Tel Aviv making use of logistical support and financial of the Islamic Republic.
But Israel is accused by all of having bombed Tehran's embassy in Damascus. Isn't this an illegal act?
However, there is a lot of confusion here and a clarification is therefore necessary: Israel did not bomb any embassy, contrary to what almost all the newspapers headlined. The embassy remained intact.
But Iran invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter which establishes the principle of self-defense.
In reality, Iran's invocation of Article 51 does not take into account the fact that a country can strike a building or complex in which a hostile military meeting is taking place, naturally provided it warns the government on whose territory it is taking place. find the building in question. Well, this building, which I repeat was not the embassy but one of its appurtenances located not far away, was located in Damascus and therefore in a country like Syria with which Israel not only does not have diplomatic relations but has actually been at war since time immemorial.
Are you telling us that the one hit in Damascus was a legitimate target?
Iran claims that the building enjoyed diplomatic protection, but according to Israel, a meeting between senior officials of the Revolutionary Guards was taking place there, which led Israeli intelligence to assume that some hostile act was being prepared.
So the question is another: what were the Iranian Pasdaran doing and what are they doing in Syria?
The Pasdaran have been present for at least a decade in Syria where they supported the dictator Assad during the civil war, effectively creating a rear area a few kilometers from the borders with Israel which is used to move men and weapons which partly benefit Hamas. Relations between Iran and Syria are very strong also from an anti-Israel perspective. I therefore find it completely natural that Tel Aviv intelligence reads these movements with concern especially in these times, interpreting them as a threat to the very existence of the Jewish State.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/attacco-iran-israele-intervista-molle/ on Tue, 16 Apr 2024 06:39:51 +0000.