This article is part of a series from the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, looking back at the situation in the Middle East over the past year.
Iran decided to retaliate against Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Beirut: some 200 missiles were fired in the direction of Israeli territory. The United States has denied having been warned, as it was last April when Iran launched missiles and drones towards Israel in response to the death of one of its generals in the bombing of its consulate in Damascus. But U.S. leaders were clearly aware of the attack, as they warned their Israeli counterparts.
Although some Israeli military sites appear to have been hit, most Iranian missiles were once again intercepted by the air defenses of the Israeli army, aided by the United States and perhaps, as last April, by Jordan and France. Iran’s leaders were obviously well aware of this. It was therefore a “graduated response” on Iran’s part, by which we mean a compulsory response as well as a message that it wanted to leave it at that.
Biden said on behalf of the G7 leaders: “All seven of us agree that the Israelis have the right to retaliate, but that they must respond proportionately,” later clarifying that there was no question of targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
As for Netanyahu, he threatened Iran with reprisals. Logic would dictate that his response to the response should be “measured,” as it was after the attack last April. But it’s hard to be sure of anything with Israel’s extreme right, confident as it is of the unconditional support of the Western imperialist powers.
Nobody wants a general conflagration in the Middle East, neither the Western powers nor the governments of the countries in the region. That’s why Netanyahu, strengthened by this situation and by his impunity for the genocidal massacre of the people of Gaza, is pursuing an implacable policy towards all those he has designated as Israel’s enemies in his declared policy of expansion from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. At the risk of triggering a conflagration that nobody wants.
However, the goals of the U.S. and other imperialist powers may change. After all, they have set an example by bloodying Iraq for almost ten years and Afghanistan for twenty. Always at the expense of the people.
