|
Iran’s Retaliation Delay Keeps Pressure On U.S. And Israel
Earlier today the navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp boarded and seized the container ship MSC Aries near the Strait of Hormuz. The ship is operated by Zodiac Maritime, a company owned by the Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer.
The seizure of the ship can be understood as a warning to the U.S. and its Gulf allies to not get any funny ideas and to attack Iran. A closure of the Strait of Hormuz would increase global oil prices and jeopardize Biden's re-election.
Iran has announced to revenge the Israeli attack on its embassy building in Damascus, Syria.
But it did not announce when, where or how it will retaliate.
By holding back on any hints it increases the anxiety in Israel and Washington DC.
“The pressure is now on Israel and the US rather than Iran. And yes, there are a lot of threatening remarks directed at Iran in the hope that the Iranians don’t act. But the die was first cast by Israel,” said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs at John Hopkins University.
“And now people are trying to avoid what might be consequences.”
Biden does not want the US to be pulled into a war with Iran, particularly as he seeks reelection in November. But Washington’s default policy has long been to support Israel, Nasr added.
Would a real superpower ever do this (archived)?
The US has asked China and other countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to urge Tehran not to launch a retaliatory attack on Israel for its air strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Neither of the countries asked has any reason to be helpful to the U.S. and certainly not to Israel.
The costs of keeping the watch up and the weapons manned will over time become unbearable for Israel as well as for the U.S.
It is thus better for Iran to wait with any bigger retaliation it may plan to carry out.
Posted by: Ralph Conner | Apr 13 2024 14:18 utc | 12
I tend to agree with this, as indicating a broad strategy of the resistance. I’m not confident it has anything to do with the issue of Iran responding to Israel’s provocations, however. This ‘Houthi strategy’ is obviously well coordinated among resistance actors, and was put in play shortly after Oct 7. Like Russia’s strikes on power plants in Ukraine, Iran appears to be doing what it was going to do anyway and saying that it’s retaliation.
The consensus of the bar that building anticipation has some merit, but this is a two-edged sword. If, in fact, US/Israel is prey to fear and anxiety in its decision-making clique, they become more likely to over-respond to perceived threats, or attempt to pre-empt them. In a strategic sense, this yields the initiative to the west- but so does immediate tit-for-tat reaction. I’m of the opinion that there will be no retaliation per se, but there will be some demonstration of capability that will widen the split between Israel and its sponsors and supporters.
The economic battlefield is being shaped by Houthi/Iranian demonstrations that they can completely disrupt ME trade, which, as you say, makes doing business with Israel untenable- however, it seems to me that just as the US is the main beneficiary of the SMO in Ukraine so far (has seized complete control of Europe, eliminated an economic rival (Germany), created a captive market for over-priced energy), the US is the prime beneficiary of the troubles spreading from Gaza.
Not only does the Israel vs the world conflict strangle trade, especially energy trade, with Europe, the US has shown that by firing a missile into a hillside in Yemen, IT can shut down trade through the Gulf and the Red Sea. This must be taken into the calculus of China-Europe trade.
As I have indicated elsewhere, I think that the core actors of the Americentric financial class are devouring their ‘friends and allies,’ who recently thought that they were members of the club, with equal stature, because they can’t devour Russia, China or Iran, and they need to eat something. Europe is low-hanging fruit, and very ripe. Whatever the original intentions, the fact that Israel was allowed to proceed with its Final Solution is striking a serious blow not only to Israel as a state, but also Zionism, and, Zionist or not, powerful Jewish financial interests.
Domestically in the US, there is definitely a top-level house-cleaning going on, which is acting against a host of Zionist/Jewish elements that have had disproportionate power and influence during America’s ‘globalist’ phase. That phase is, for the foreseeable future, over. The phase we are entering is the Fortress America phase, and a major aspect of this is going to be ejecting people with divided loyalties from the power system. This already well under way.
Posted by: Hans K Haneveer | Apr 13 2024 15:04 utc | 26
|
