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3. The Crumbling Geopolitics of Iranian Expansionism

The mutating objectives of the Israeli counteroffensive have evolved from border sanctuarization to the deliberate changing of the strategic and political dynamics in the Middle East and the questioning of the political and military hegemony of Iranian imperialism. The strategy has moved from defensive goals to an overt offensive strategy to upend the strategic foreclosures set by the Iranian proxies and their panhandles. The destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah operational theaters in Gaza and Lebanon and their auxiliaries in Iraq and Yemen are no peripheral objectives; they are altogether part of the overall confrontation with Iran, whose aim is to sever its tentacles as a prelude to the annihilation of its overarching dominance strategy.

The pogrom of October 7, 2023, is not a coincidence; it’s part of a grotesque strategic miscalculation regarding Israel’s readiness and ability to retaliate. The existential threat posed by the attacks and the savagery displayed in these attacks have plainly showcased their genocidal nature and the total war intonations that are readily associated with the unfolding massacres. The human shield strategy and its correlated urban and civilian militarization are part of the warfare protocols conventionally instrumented by Iran and the Islamist radical movements. The intentional victimization script owes to a long-standing tradition of leftist civil war strategies modulated and adapted to conform to the strategic goals of an overstretching totalitarian middle power trying to outmaneuver its limitations and position itself on a global scale.

The Western political complacency and overreliance on diplomatic mediations were undermined by the pitfalls of an imploded Arab world, the sobering aftermath of the failed American interventions after the 9/11 events, the proliferation of political and ethnic fractiousness throughout the Middle East, the inter-Sunnite power rivalries, the combusted Shiite-Sunnite animosities, the unraveling of statehood, and the absence of civility and civic loyalties all along the Middle Eastern geopolitical spectrum. The Israeli counteroffensive demonstrates a full understanding of the geopolitical plots and seems to operate on their very basis. Why should it concede to a purely manufactured subversion strategy and restrain itself to the hazards of a defensive strategy and its cyclical bouts of violence? Why should it not consider a counteroffensive strategy and change the rules of a vicious and highly risky game and its circonvolutions? 

The magnitude of this undertaking seemed unlikely, especially after the disastrous results of the 2023 pogrom. The world was taken aback by the Israeli determination, outstanding military abilities, and full grasp of the strategic issues at stake. The criminal recklessness of Hamas and Hezbollah and their immorality were quite explicit when they activated their human shield strategy, instrumentalized the civil realms, overlooked the humanitarian costs of egregious strategic miscalculations, and refused to recant their suicidal engagements at a juncture when their whole military strategies have proven irrelevant and immeasurably lethal and detrimental to civilians.

If it were not for the Israeli hostages drama, the Israeli defense forces would have finished their undertaking in the early stages of the Gaza war. The meteoric destruction of the Hezbollah logistics, the systematic assassination of its leaders and cadres, the progressive eradication of its military platforms, and their disastrous civilian and urban fallouts were not enough to sway them and make them stop the bloodshed. Both terrorist formations were unwavering in their resolution to pursue the criminal wars while ignoring their catastrophic consequences. There are no chances for the cascading wars to end unless their unintended consequences conclude.

The downfall of the Iranian regime and its rippling effects in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Palestinian territories were not initially part of the defense scenarios impelled by the Gaza war and its Lebanese collateral. The limited scope of the Gaza war turned out to be the trigger of monumental geostrategic and geopolitical mutations that dispute the fortunes of the faltering Middle East and its rickety equilibria, the misguided apathy of the European Union, the ill-fated withdrawal of the US, and the wrong-headed complacency towards the aggressive totalitarian drive of Iran. The Mullah regime is on a destructive course, and the whole of Middle Eastern geopolitics is under the sweeping power of a revolutionary Israeli counter-offensive. The Iranians are paying the heavy price of their strategic overstretching, the malevolence of their totalitarian ideology, and their strategic blunders.