West Asia is now at a moment of real danger of something escalating into a regional war, according to author and political commentator Fareed Zakaria amid rising tensions between Iran and Israel. Zakaria said what has happened now is that the conflict has shifted from the Israel-Gaza issue as Tel Aviv has decided to take on Iran by hitting its proxies.
The tension between Israel and Iran spiked after a precision strike by Israel on September 27 killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Days later, Iran, which backs Hezbollah, fired hundreds of rockets on Israel. Following this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Iran would pay for its missile attack. Tehran, however, said any retaliation would be met with "vast destruction", raising the spectre of a wider war.
"What we now have is Israel trying to take on a very thorny problem it has been facing for many years now. What Iran has been doing for the last 10 years is using an array of proxies - Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the militias in Iraq and Syria - to put pressure on Israel and occasionally on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to keep them off guard," Zakaria said in an exclusive conversation with India Today's Rajdeep Sardesai.
"And finally Israel has decided to take the battle to the enemy. And so you have to view the attacks on Lebanon as a wholly different issue. What Israel is trying to do is to end this dynamic of constant rocket fire coming from Hezbollah into Northern Israel, the Houthi fire coming from Yemen into Israel."
Zakaria said Israel is pushing back against Iran, which is putting pressure by using Hezbollah in the North. "What you're seeing now is an effort by Israel to say enough of this dynamic where we are constantly being bombarded...rained on by these rockets. Yes, they don't get through because we have this iron defense, but we are going to re-establish deterrence in the North."
"Now, will Iran be willing to accept this changed dynamic or will it respond? and that's why I say it's the moment of maximum danger," the author said, adding that there is now a real possibility of direct escalation between Israel and Iran. "Iran is not a very powerful country but it's not a militia like Hezbollah. This is 80 million people and one of the world's largest petroleum exporters."
When asked whether there will be a direct Israel-Iran conflict, Zakaria said it's inevitable there will be some trading of attacks between Tel Aviv and Tehran. The Biden administration is trying to convince Israel to strike Iran but in a way that is not dangerously escalatory, he said. "That means don't hit the nuclear sites (which to this point is still civilian sites), don't hit the oil refineries, which is Iran's lifeblood - hit military sites intelligence sites, and such." "What they (the US) are then hoping is that the Iranians will view that as not escalatory and might do something modest or moderate in response. Then the Israelis can maybe do something even more moderate. They (the US) are trying to engineer a kind of de-escalation cycle, where each strike then becomes lower in magnitude," he said.
But Zakaria warned the situation could spiral out of control, as the Israeli government might not fully heed US advice, and Iran could interpret any strikes differently than intended. "The danger is - a, the Israelis won't listen; and b, the Iranians might not perceive it that way. So, there's a lot that could go wrong here. But the administration is hoping that the Israeli strike will be viewed by the Iranians as not the worst thing they could do. Therefore, the Iranians will do something lesser."
Asked about America's role, the commentator said the Biden administration is caught in a situation where already the pressure it has put on Israel is costing it very dearly in the US political system. There are lots of people in America who believe that the Biden administration is being too tough on Israel and there are lots of people who think it's being too soft on Israel."
"So it's trying to walk a very narrow path. There's only a month left. And by the way, add to all this Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most shrewd players in the world. So, he knows, he has a window in the next 30 days where he can act with greater freedom than he would perhaps once the election is done."