One year after the October 7 massacre in Israel, the face of the Middle East has now changed. Jerusalem has “expanded” into Palestine and Lebanon, while the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been beheaded. All this, while waiting for the “big shot” that not only Bibi Netanyahu has dreamed of pinning to his chest for some time: the elimination of the Iranian ayatollahs to make Iran a secular country, guided by any alternative that is not composed of religious fanatics whose main foreign policy is to pursue the destruction of Israel. And, to be honest, many analysts believe that moment is close to materialising. Is it really like that?
Of course, we have known this since Times of Israelthe last meeting of the Israeli defense leaders on the Iranian issue was “decisive” and the Netanyahu government apparently decided to attack Iranian military structures. But not nuclear power plants, for the obvious reason that not only were the latter built underground precisely to avoid being bombed, but also because there would be a real risk of offering the Kremlin an excuse to do the same in Ukraine. For this reason, Washington would never give the green light.
That said, the question is legitimate: are we at a turning point in the Middle East? Instinctively one would say yes, considering that the so-called “Axis of Resistance” made up of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, but also the Houthis in Yemen, the Syrian regime and Shiite Iraq is today “marginalized”, as the French political scientist and Arabist Gilles Kepel.
The leadership of this Axis, although missing some military leaders, is resisting for the moment but is very weakened. Also because, Kepel says it better than others, «Russia, their ally, proves to be a much less strong power than Putin wanted us to believe, totally absorbed in the war in Ukraine and incapable of making its voice heard on other levels».
In short, while Lebanon burns and Iran is under the threat of Israeli fire, Moscow looks the other way, engaged as it is in a very expensive and inconclusive war of attrition, which does not allow it the luxury of investing elsewhere its military resources, not even when it comes to sending mercenaries. Thus China, which reproaches the ayatollahs for the fact that wars are never good for trade: when the Houthis directed by Tehran attacked merchant ships, damaging the entire maritime traffic towards Suez, it was the Road of Silk from the Chinese mercantile regime. Which, in fact, in retaliation not only blocked the import of crude oil from Tehran, but even recognized the sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates over three islands disputed by Iran in the Gulf. All this to make the ayatollahs understand that international support, even when it depends on politics, never ignores business.
Thus, Tehran is currently experiencing a moment of solitude and uncertainty such that, not being able to count on its Russian ally or even its Chinese one, it must “walk on its own two feet”. Which means, in practical terms, that a redde rationem has begun in the halls of power that will lead one elite to prevail over the other.
On the one hand there are the politicized clerics led by their Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s loyalist and direct heir of the Islamic Revolution which in 1979 plunged Persia into the Middle Ages; on the other, there is the military caste of the Pasdaran, the Guardians of that same Islamic Revolution who, however, have always maintained a critical spirit, if not even a secularism behind which today a submerged anticlericalism could even be hidden. Or at least an intolerance for a Shiite leadership that has damaged the country and their own businesses, given that the Pasdaran are the true holders of Iranian economic power, and many of them directly have shares and investments in many of the most profitable sectors, not only in that of defense.
Since then, on 3 January 2020, General Qassem Soleimani was killed at American hands in one of the many military campaigns between Syria and Iraq, it is as if the Pasdaran had lost not only their leader and point of reference, but the inspiration itself to continue maintaining the duopoly in Iran.
The same “gentle” missile attack against Israel, which occurred on the night between Saturday and Sunday 14 April 2024 in retaliation for the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, is ample demonstration of this: the Pasdaran, perhaps in opposition to the Supreme Leader’s own will , they did not intend to carry out a deadly offensive against Israel, but chose de-escalation and collaboration with the United States.
The same thing was repeated in the aftermath of the killing of the thirty-year-old Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, pulverized by an Israeli missile attack that found him in one of the bunkers he considered the safest. Even on that occasion, the Iranian retaliation showed more defects than advantages in flaunting the regime’s offensive capacity.
Probably, the new generation Pasdaran prefer to normalize international relations, to bring the Middle East into the contemporary world and give their country the prosperity that has been missing for too long. A condition that clashes with those who – see Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – abdicating their claims to eradicate Israel and fight America, have successfully thrown themselves into the arms of capitalism, enriching themselves and their country.
Furthermore, the Revolutionary Guards fear the unstoppable wave of secular protests against the restrictions and harassment that the ayatollahs impose on the people. Which harms the process of consolidating their caste as the sole referent of absolute power in Iran. Also because, with their obscurantism, the ayatollahs have turned the new generations of Iranian men and women against their own institutions.
Perhaps some “strange” events that occurred in the region should be read in this light: was President Ebrahim Raisi – intimately linked to the Supreme Leader – really the victim of an accident? And, if not, is it more plausible that it was the Israelis who crashed his helicopter or rather some internal opponents of the regime? And then, was the Jerusalem intelligence network really capable of finding the more than prudent Nasrallah in Beirut on its own? Again: behind the killings of all the other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah taken out in an impressive sequence, is there only Israel? Or did someone lend them a hand?
If that someone exists, following Occam’s razor – all things being equal, the simplest explanation is to be preferred – one should conclude that the most probable thing is that those who helped Jerusalem in this cleanup of the Middle East were precisely those who were most have to gain from the end of the Axis of Resistance: the Pasdaran, aware that Iran has now lost all protection and “buffer state”, and finds itself alone on the front line against Israel.
We will soon find out if this is really the case. Certainly, the ayatollahs are starting to represent an obstacle to their idea of government. But they are also an obstacle for other actors in the region. And especially for the American and Chinese superpowers, who would have everything to gain from a strong, prosperous Iran open to foreign investment.
In conclusion, as Kepel again recalled, the Iranian military today finds itself in a position similar to that of the Soviets after the withdrawal from Kabul in 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The General Staff thinks Khamenei’s religious fanaticism has been catastrophic, and many among them wish for an “Iranian Gorbachev.”
Neither Israel nor Iran can win a direct confrontation. However, they can diplomatically agree to bring the Middle East where it belongs: into the 21st century.
