Blitz Bureau
THE only immediate victor of America’s war on Iraq was Iran because it released Iraq’s Shia majority from the subjugation of Sunni dynasts and dictators. When America left Iraq, it had to obey the laws of a rudimentary democracy, and handed over governance of Iraq to a civilian government in which the Shia would dominate because of their population percentage.
This did not make Iraq a co-ordinate of Iran, but it ended the age of hostility. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had gone to war for eight years to destroy the Ayatollah regime in Iran. Once the Americans left Baghdad, Iran could work towards a strategic Shia alliance in an arc that reached its Hezbollah surrogates in Lebanon, since Syria also had a Government controlled by a Shia sect, the Alawites, under the command of Hafez and then Bashar al-Assad.
From 1963 Syria had been ruled by the Ba’ath Party which was under the effective control of the elite, left-secular Shia Alawites, a minority community constituting some 15 per cent of the population. In 1970 Hafez al-Assad became the virtual dictator of the country, and was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad. In December 2024, Bashar was ousted by a force led by 42-year-old Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, supported by Turkey.
Creating a new order
He became President and told the world on December 8, from the precincts of the famous Umayyad Mosque, that Syria could no longer be a “playground for Iranian ambitions”. Israel immediately advanced from the Golan Heights in southwest Syria to establish a new border.
The fracture of the Shia crescent with the defenestration of Assad in Damascus was an important precondition for Israel’s attack on Iran.
Such are the acrobatics of time that Washington now supports a man who was their prisoner between 2006 and 2011 as an activist of Al Qaeda. Ahmed al-Sharaa then formed the Al Nusra Front to fight the Assad regime. He broke with Al Qaeda in 2016, merged Nusra into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and decided that power in Damascus was a far better option in this transient life than jihad against the Christian West.
In a sign of change, he has ordered all Syrian women to wear a burqini. There is little outrage in the Western chanceries. Bashar al-Assad, who did not confuse Islam with a veil, lives in exile in Moscow under the care of Putin.
So far, no Arab neighbour state is on Israel’s radar. Although the Hamas-led Palestinians are Arabs, Arab states do not see this conflict as their war. For them, Hamas and Hezbollah are in Iran’s camp.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are riskaverse; Jordan has protested against Iranian drones flying through its airspace; Syria is neutered. Arab public opinion has been kept under control.
Tempered bravado
Israel felt confident enough to attack Iran despite American doubts. At the moment of writing, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bravado has been tempered, and internal analysis entered the hazardous space between calculation and miscalculation. The accuracy and depth of Israel’s missiles are not a surprise; Iran’s ability to spread anxiety in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and a dozen other cities is a shock.
It must have hurt Netanyahu to ask America and Britain for military help against Iranian drones. The much-vaunted infallible Iron Dome over Israel was broken. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have publicly warned Israelis that pain is the price of war. We cannot predict the course of conflict, but every assumption is in flux. This war will be studied for a long while in the future.
Iran has not sought military assistance yet but will expect the support of Russia and China in the framework of a larger confrontation with the US. China has, for a change, taken a clear stand, condemning Israel in categorical terms. Perhaps only West Asia could take Ukraine off the front page, but the fire is still raging there.
Infectious geography
The geography from Ukraine to Aden is infectious because smaller fires can easily join the conflagration: Ukraine, Chechnya, Caucasus, Kurdistan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and down the Red Sea to Aden.
We can always mark the calendar to mark the beginning of a war. To find the end we can only check with God and the Almighty has so much else to do in an endless universe.
