Beating Iran at its Terrorist-Enabling Game

"The Hamas battle is a relatively minor theatre in the larger war waged by Iran."

"Until you deal with the Iran question, Middle East peace and stability in the wider world will be increasingly disrupted by Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in the failed state of Lebanon, the Houthi war in Yemen and the ongoing mass murders carried out by the Assad regime in Syria."

"We already have a revolutionary movement in Iran that wants to topple the regime."

"What the west needs to do is help that revolutionary movement. What is needed is several lines of support to destabilize the situation inside the country. Funding, training, organizing the opposition so they can work together and topple the regime."

"If we're serious about solving all these problems, the answer is you need a change of regime in Tehran."

You have a population in the country that wants democracy and is open to the west and is open to Israel. Let's make use of this incredible resource that's at our disposal. The people in the streets of Iran are not equivocating. They want this regime gone."

Kave Shahrooz, Iranian-Canadian human rights jurist, democracy activist

Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel just within the six weeks since Hamas and Islamic Jihad invaded Israel. Only now that the Israel Defense Forces is destroying the capacity of the terrorist organization in Gaza, the rockets have diminished in number from the previous 100 daily to under 20 every day. But then, other rockets, far more sophisticated and powerful ones supplied by Iran to the Ansarullah Houthi regime in Sanaa, Yemen is sending its drones, rockets and missiles into Israel.

 

Yemen's Ansarullah group staged a military parade in late September to showcase several new types of Iranian cruise missiles and ballistic missiles recently acquired from the Islamic Republic of Iran to their protegees. Precision-guided liquid-propellant "Toufan" missiles with a range potential of up to 1,950 kilometres that brings the Red Sea port Israeli city of Eilat within striking range.

Israeli fighter jets and the country's Arrow air defence system intercepted several Ansurallah barrages of surface-to-surface missiles and drones; none of the attacks have yet managed to penetrate Israeli airspace. American warships in the Red Sea also have come under attack by drones launched from Yemen. Skirmishes with Iran's Hezbollah proxy terror group on Israel's northern border have been increasing. Airstrikes from Israel have responded to the Hezbollah rockets. 

Israel plans to maintain its focus on Gaza, but the prospect of a wider war initiated by Iran appears on the horizon. Hezbollah is in possession of a substantial arsenal, equal to that of a dozen UN member-states. In 2007 Hezbollah's weapons cache consisted of some 15,000 medium-range sophisticated missiles. At present, despite Israeli airstrikes on missile shipments going through from Syria to bases in Lebanon have allowed Hezbollah to stockpile 150,000 rockets and missiles; 400 long-range missiles.

Iran's Quds Force has been exerting influence in Syria in support of Bashar al Assad over the past three years, augmenting Iranian militias in Iraq, in a chain of command. Assad's military and security services now are supplemented by Shia militias faithful to Iran. Iran's armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, have recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan, numbering in total some 250,000 fighters.

A lot of manoeuvering and consolidation has taken place in the six weeks since Hamas invaded Israel with its barbaric terrorist slaughter of 1,200 civilians and abduction of some 239 Israeli children, women, the elderly and foreign agricultural workers into Gaza. Matters are proceeding precisely as the Islamic Republic has planned and there is obviously more, much more to come.

 

Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, an Iraqi militia trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards  Tasnim News Agency

 

Iran is recognized internationally as the world's foremost sponsor of terrorist groups, ever since power was seized by Khomeini in 1979. Partially enabled by the policy approach of the Obama administration, then reconstituted with Joe Biden's inauguration; a policy viewing the Khomeinist regime's presence as a "balance" to the major Arab states in the Middle East. A geopolitical arrangement Barack Obama attempted to secure through a nuclear-weapons agreement.

Rapprochement, he was certain, would become his foreign policy legacy, moving him to allow Bashar al Assad to cross the "red line" with chemical weapons use in the Syrian Arab Spring uprising of Sunni Syrians against the Alawite-Shia-Baathist dictatorship. 1,400 civilians were slaughtered in 2013 in Eastern Ghouta and Moudamiyat al-Cham, by sarin gas. Obama failed to act, under Iran's threat to leave the nuclear talks.

Conflict-resolution specialist Robert Malley was the architect of the Obama strategy and he was reinstated by President Biden, to revive the Obama plan. Until Malley's security clearance was revoked pending an FBI probe into classified intelligence that was shared with Tehran. Then the eruption of a scandal when Tehran's "Iran Experts Initiative" infiltrated senior policy-making circles in Washington.

Long story short, the United States would do well to abandon the intention to have a partnership with the Khomeinist regime in nuclear containment, or indeed any issue whatever. According to Kaveh Shahroz, Iranian-Canadian human rights and democracy activist, a fortuitous alliance of helpfulness with Iran's dissidents should enable Iranians themselves to target Tehran to dispose of the terrorist-enabling regime.

U.S. Institute of Peace, Woodrow Wilson Center

"Hamas is backed by Iran. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The Houthis are backed by Iran. All roads in this war lead back to Iran and the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend on these terror groups in the region to help them terrorize Israel and extend their hegemony throughout the region."

Iran's so-called supreme leader applauded Hamas for its horrifying October 7 attacks that targeted innocent Israeli civilians."

"Iran's shadow war with Israel is stepping into the sunlight, and Iran must be sanctioned. That starts with listing the IRGC as a terrorist entity and the total isolation of Iran within the international community."

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chairman, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs