EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis): I warned you a few days ago (link here) that the Iranians are the inventors of chess and might take a different way than attacking Israel heavily. During the last seven days the developments in the Middle East made it absolutely clear that this was the case. Here is what happened:
- Right after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Russia went on overdrive and immediately supplied Iran with advanced weaponry, namely the S-400 missiles (Iran already operates the S-300). More importantly, they supplied very advanced electronic countermeasures equivalent or superior to what Israel had. As we speak, both in Israel and Iran, electronic communications of all types are very limited, as both countries are afraid – and preparing – for missile attacks. The difference is that for the first time, Iran is completely covered, and any Israeli attempt to penetrate its airspace will likely fail. Russian experts operate these advanced systems, which Iranians likely help.
- The Biden Administration is using every means possible to achieve a ceasefire by asking all its allies (including Turkey, of course) to mediate with Iran to back off and open the road for renewed negotiations for the release of the hostages. In no way do the Democrats need an open war in the Middle East in the middle of the elections.
- A few days ago, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Netanyahu’s plans for victory in Gaza “nonsense.” Earlier, other Israeli military officials had made it clear repeatedly that “We cannot defeat Hamas because Hamas is an idea!”. The huge rifts inside Israel have become more evident than ever and Iran had to consider them.
- Having secured its air space (and, therefore, its important military, industrial, and nuclear installations) with Russian assistance, Iran had no reason to start a wider war. Russia and China, in particular, had asked Tehran to keep their eyes on the ball. Where is the ball? The next BRICS summit will be held on October 22-24 in Kazan, Russia. Just imagining Russia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa sitting at the same table as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Ethiopia, along with numerous other countries as observers, including Turkey and even possibly Serbia, makes Israel and the entire West, and especially the Globalist Elites, seeth with rage. At that point, they would have lost the entire Middle East, and they could kiss goodbye to their remaining “global dominance” wet dreams. The Iranian leadership can clearly see that a successful BRICS summit will be their true victory (which will also eliminate the West’s power in the Middle East) and not hit Israel with a few missiles to let some steam off.
- Did I mention that the Iraqi FM will visit the Pentagon in the next month or so to discuss the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq (except for the northern Kurdish region)? We have in front of our eyes the withdrawal of the US from most of the American strongholds in the Middle East.
Therefore, Iran had to take a different route. Offering to “delay retaliation” with a Gaza ceasefire will force Israel, divided as it is internally, to sit on the negotiating table. This, if it happens, and we can see no way out as the Biden Administration and all other governments are loudly supportive, will be a final defeat for Netanyahu and the Zionists. They already lost the game the moment that Russia made Iran “unreachable” with Israeli fighter jets and missiles.
August 13, 2024, n.stamatakis@aol.com www.helleniscope.com
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Exclusive: Only Gaza ceasefire will delay retaliation, say Iranian officials
DUBAI/BEIRUT, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Only a ceasefire deal in Gaza stemming from hoped-for talks this week would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on its soil, three senior Iranian officials said.
Iran has vowed a severe response to Haniyeh’s killing, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement. The U.S. Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defenses.
One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as Hezbollah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before responding.
With an increased risk of a broader Middle East war after the killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iran has been involved in intense dialogue with Western countries and the United States in recent days on ways to calibrate retaliation, said the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
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In comments published on Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey confirmed Washington was asking allies to help convince Iran to de-escalate tensions. Three regional government sources described conversations with Tehran to avoid escalation ahead of the Gaza ceasefire talks, due to begin on Thursday in either Egypt or Qatar.
“We hope our response will be timed and executed in a way that does not harm a potential ceasefire,” Iran’s mission to the U.N. said on Friday in a statement. Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said calls to exercise restraint “contradict principles of international law.”
Iran’s foreign ministry and its Revolutionary Guards Corps did not immediately respond to questions for this story. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the U.S. State Department did not respond to questions.
“Something could happen as soon as this week by Iran and its proxies… That is a U.S. assessment as well as an Israel assessment,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday.
“If something does happen this week, the timing of it could certainly well have an impact on these talks we want to do on Thursday,” he added.
At the weekend, Hamas cast doubt on whether talks would go ahead. Israel and Hamas have held several rounds of talks in recent months without agreeing a final ceasefire.
In Israel, many observers believe a response is imminent after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would “harshly punish” Israel for the strike in Tehran.
“We are closely following what happens in Beirut and Tehran, and are working to thwart any (possible) threat, while also preparing a variety of offensive options,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to an intelligence base in Northern Israel.
“We are determined to fulfill our mission – we must ensure the safe return of (Israel’s northern) residents to their homes, once we ensure that Hezbollah withdraws north of the Litani River.”
Iran’s regional policy is set by the elite Revolutionary Guards, who answer only to Khamenei, the country’s top authority. Iran’s relatively moderate new president Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly reaffirmed Iran’s anti-Israel stance and its support for resistance movements across the region since taking office last month.
Meir Litvak, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, said he thought Iran would put its needs before helping its ally Hamas but that Iran also wanted to avoid a full-scale war.
“The Iranians never subordinated their strategy and policies to the needs of their proxies or protégées,” Litvak said. “An attack is likely and almost inevitable but I don’t know the scale and the timing.”
Iran-based analyst Saeed Laylaz said the Islamic Republic’s leaders were now keen to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, “to obtain incentives, avoid an all-out war and strengthen its position in the region.”
Laylaz said Iran had not previously been involved in the Gaza peace process but was now ready to play “a key role.”
Iran, two of the sources said, was considering sending a representative to the ceasefire talks. However, they said the representative would not directly attend the meetings but would engage in behind-the-scenes discussions “to maintain a line of diplomatic communication” with the United States while negotiations proceed.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York told Reuters that Tehran would not have a representative present on the sidelines of the ceasefire talks. Officials in Washington, Qatar and Egypt did not immediately respond to questions about whether Iran would play an indirect role in talks.
Two senior sources close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said Tehran would give the negotiations a chance but would not give up its intentions to retaliate.
A ceasefire in Gaza would give Iran cover for a smaller “symbolic” response, one of the sources said.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry.
APRIL MISSILES
Iran has not publicly indicated what would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination.
On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging two airbases. Almost all of the weapons were shot down before they reached their targets.
“Iran wants its response to be much more effective than the April 13 attack,” said Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East policy.”
Nadimi said such a response would require “a lot of preparation and coordination” especially if it involved Iran’s network of allied armed groups opposing Israel and the United States across the Middle East, with Hezbollah the senior member of the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” that along with Iraqi militias and Yemen’s Houthis have harried Israel since Oct. 7.
Two of the Iranian sources said Iran would support Hezbollah and other allies if they launched their own responses to the killing of Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukr, who died in a strike in Beirut the day before Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.
The sources did not specify what form such support could take.
Nick
The BRICKS are a non entity. I don’t know why you keep bringing them up as the West’s boogey man.
As for Iran’s response, time will tell. The April response was an indication that they are a paper tiger. When Israel is able to penetrate Iran’s “secure” zone that houses important visitors and kill at will, they are worse than the keystone cops.
As of this week this is no longer tge case: Israel cannot penetrate Iran’s airspace. Also in April a few advanced hypersonic missiles naturally penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome, which is also vulnerable to saturation. Why do you forget that Hezbollah has hundreds of thousands of missiles hidden a few miles to the north of the border in Lebanon? Israel has lost the war. Netanyahu’s only game is to make the US fight his war. It looks like it will not happen for many reasons.
Nick
Never bet against Israel. Israel will never lose a war. If they lost a war against Hezbolah or Hamas, it means the end of the country. That is their stated goal. If all the other Arab nations that surround it couldn’t do it, those terrorists sure won’t.
Israel has lost against Hezbollah in 2006 and that’s why they want to destroy it now. But they can’t, unless the US and Britain put boots on the ground. I doubt they would and so Israel (meaning Netanyahu) will have to retreat. If they do not, Israel will not exist in a couple of years. They will fight tooth and nail but they will lose. Read again the Defense minister’s statements. Zionism’s biggest vice is arrogance about supremacy – the same with the neocon’s “exceptionalism”.
Mr Karp, surely you can’t be serious. Given the fact that we increase our national debt by $1 trillion every 100 days, I have to ask you how you can say “Brics are a non-entity.”
Nick, I agree with your assessment, that BRICS is holding back Iran. I too believe it’s in Iran’s interest to not widen the conflict. My only concern is that Netanyahu is not constrained by rationality. The man is truly a loon.
A couple of weeks ago, Israel was getting ready to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities – several analysts suggested this and there was serious rumors in higher Israeli power circles (it was not not only Senator Lindsey Graham, aka “the perfumed ass” who suggested it). This is not the case any longer. what changed? Russia has already installed the weaponry I mentioned in Iran. If anything Iran will keep striking through Hezbollah – who is already hitting Israel daily – and the Houthis. If Israel has no response against the Hamas and the Houthis (who two weeks ago hit Tel Aviv), how can they attack Hezbollah? Only with US help – meaning US boots on the ground. This will not happen.
George.
BRICS are a non entity as far as being a threat to the West. They are not a “block” as NATO is. And they are not a “UNION” as the EU is. When you compare the BRICS to the West, and America is not the only nation of the West, which you failed to comprehend, the BRICS are a loose federation, with no ties that bind, such as cultural, civilizational, language, or historical. Nothing like what unites the US with Europe, and Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
And remember, no matter how much they’ve tried, they can’t break away from the dollar and from the financial controls that are set by America and the West. The world is and will remain at least for the next 100 years a Western oriented world.
All these statements prove to be wrong daily, weekly and monthly. By October 22-24 when the next BRICS meeting will take place in Russia, they will belong to the trash can of history.
Nick
Exactly what do you anticipate will happen at the next BRICS meeting in October? An announcement that the hegemony of the West is at an end?
Be a little more specific
There is some news out there that you choose to ignore. But they will not betray the specifics so that the hegemonic West start undermining. Also, creating a new reserve currency is groundbreaking. It has started already with Saudi Arabia abolishing petro-dollar.
Nick
The ending of the agreement to use the dollar as the main currency by Saudi Arabia will have very little, if any impact. Ans that’s not my opinion. Here’s the reasons why: Oil is losing its pre-eminence as the only energy source. America produces enough oil to meet its own needs and even export huge quantities. Saudi Arabia will not drop the dollar, even when the agreement with the US expires. What nation in their right minds would keep the Rial for instance as a foreign currency reserves? They will exchange it for dollars immediately. China, Saudi Arabia’s BRICS partner wants to pay with yen. Even if that happens, the Saudis will not keep it as yen, but change it for dollars.
You have to keep up with the news: China is already paying with renminbi for the past two years at least.