Updated Aug. 1, 2024 at 1:30 p.m.*
-Analysis-
BEIRUT — The suburbs of Beirut and outskirts of Baghdad — and the heart of Tehran. Three targeted attacks on three regional capitals in the Middle East in less than a day that now threaten to escalate the regional conflict in the Middle East on multiple fronts.
In Beirut, senior Hezbollah military commander Fouad Shukur was targeted on Tuesday. The U.S. had announced a financial reward for anyone who provided information about him for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing of the Marines headquarters in the Lebanese capital.
In Iraq, a base of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia southwest of Baghdad was bombed, killing at least one militant and wounding two others. The base of Kataib Hezbollah is located in Jurf al-Sakher, an area from which Iran-backed militias launched missile attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
The attack comes days after an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias dubbed “the Islamic Resistance” resumed rocket attacks on U.S. military bases in the country and in eastern Syria. No one claimed the attack on the Iraqi militia base.
But it was the third strike that was the most serious and most devastating. The target was at the heart of Iran’s capital, Tehran, killing Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.
While no one claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s killing, all fingers again point at Israel, which has vowed to kill him and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
The Tehran strike raises many questions, including from where the missiles were launched on his residency in the Iranian capital? How was his location known?
A day before the strikes on the three capitals began, the U.S. announced that it would defend Israel against any attack.
False détente
U.S. diplomacy had pushed for an atmosphere of “détente” ahead of the raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut late Tuesday. That prompted the Lebanese government and its Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib to reassure the Lebanese that “the situation is under control.”
The raid killed one of Hezbollah’s most important military leaders, and proved that the Lebanese top diplomat was a victim of a “diplomatic trap.”
We all have become victims of this trap. We didn’t pay attention to the U.S. embassy in Beirut’s statement that called U.S. citizens to prepare themselves for long days of war.
It was highly likely that Hezbollah itself fell into this trap. Why was one the group’s senior commanders present in an area that was pre-announced to be a likely target of an Israeli offensive on Lebanon?
Questions like this show that, this time, Washington is directly involved in the confrontation. This is in fact what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu obtained from his recent trip to the U.S.
Haniyeh in Iran
This is clear from the circumstances of the three strikes and the events in Beirut prior to the strike on the southern suburb, which show that there is a diplomatic administration behind this war!
It will be difficult for Tehran to swallow the assassination of Haniyeh on its soil.
All knew that the southern suburb would be targeted. We thought that the targeting would be limited to its symbolic dimension, since all were aware of the time and place of the raid.
And suddenly a missile killed a Hezbollah commander and another killed the Hamas leader. Between the two, there was the strike on the Iraqi militia in southern Baghdad.
Netanyahu and Washington are pushing the entire region to the brink of war. It will be difficult for Tehran to swallow the assassination of Haniyeh on its soil. At the same time, it appears that its direct involvement in the confrontation will lead to Washington’s direct involvement too.
Israel’s choice
Israel has been exhausted after more than nine months of fighting in Gaza. It appears that its political leaders have chosen to open new fronts to cover their failure in Gaza, and the prospects of domestic defeat following the war.
As the U.S. election approaches, and the prospects of Israel’s political leaders’ domestic defeat, the three strikes were designed as a step towards a regional war that is likely to help Netanyahu survive, and the Democrats avoid defeat in November.
The civilian cost of the looming regional war remains a marginal matter in the calculation of the parties
The next few hours will bring more answers about the possibilities of regional war. This time “diplomacy” will not be able to deceive us — we who were told not to be concerned.
The civilian cost of the looming regional war remains a marginal matter in the calculation of the parties, as the two children and women who were killed in the Israeli strike on Beirut were considered “collateral damage.”
*Originally published July 31, 2024, this article was updated Aug. 1, 2024 with enriched media.
