So, the Iranian Ayatollah denied any involvement in the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel of Oct 7th. No one asked him to offer such a denial, no one suggested it, as he was under no obligation for doing so. We’ve rarely seen the Ayatollah offer free denials when it concerns the State of Israel, the supposedly ‘Younger Brother’ of the ‘Greater Satan’, and a nation that the Mullahs-led regime has vowed to literally wipe out from the face of the earth.
More interestingly, the Biden administration, through Secretary Blinken, refuted or simply dismissed any possible link between Iran and this coldly planned series of massacres. The evidence simply is not there, according to U.S. official sources. How fast did they gather such a self-serving, whitewashing data? The bodies and decapitated heads are still being counted in Israel, but Blinken knows that there absolutely are no fingerprints of his Teheran chums in the crime scene. In the meantime, the $6 bln deal in exchange for U.S. hostages remains unaffected and so is the pumping of more oil by Iran, giving this rogue regime much needed breathing space for months to come. Interestingly, Hezbollah is very quiet, despite the theatricals of some shelling from the South of Lebanon into the North of Israel. Nasrallah got more excited about a road accident followed by a shootout in the village of Kehaleh in Lebanon, than about the temporary takeover of Southern Israeli territories by Hamas.
What’s the real deal?
Iran -and its proxy Hezbollah- could well have trained Hamas to conduct the bloodiest attack on Israeli soil since 1973, but only to watch Hamas get slaughtered in the aftermath. Why not? Hamas is a Sunni group that is ideologically linked to ISIS on the account of shared fanatical interpretations of Holy Scriptures. Hamas is more tied to Qatar -as a State- than to anyone else, in terms of funding and for seeking shelter for its top political honchos. So, using Hamas in such a naked aggression does not cost Iran one soldier or one bullet, for that matter. For Iran, Hamas’ daring attack has punctured the image of ‘Invincible Israel’ in the eyes of both its citizens and enemies. Israel’s boisterous rhetoric about its top-rated intelligence capacity, the long arm reach of its military forces, and its battlefield superior technologies were put to rest (not just to the test) with few gliders, trucks and fishing boats crossing its land, sea, and air from Gaza, in a matter of minutes. That’s Strike 1 for Iran who has been calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and claiming it has serious vulnerabilities to be exploited.
On another level, by keeping itself out of this quagmire, Iran has effectively shielded its nuclear sites from any possible retaliation by Israel, as it would be difficult to justify such an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities given its unsolicited, official denial for any involvement in the oct 7th terrorist attack and more so, given the almost orchestrated, Iranian whitewashing by the U.S. offered on a silver platter by the administration’s top diplomat. That’s Strike 2 for Iran who is enriching uranium at a fast pace in its race to reach nuclear parity with Israel, whilst pre-empting any potential retaliation be it diplomatic or military.
Finally, ordering Hezbollah to conduct selective shelling of Israel from the Southern border of Lebanon (or allowing Palestinian factions to do so), is a means for Iran to face save Hezbollah’s anti-Israel posture whilst preserving its ‘equities’ in Lebanon. Namely, the total control by this Shia group of an entire nation and its resources, and not merely of an impoverished, unrecognized, locked-down, strip of land run by competing Sunni factions who rape women and kill babies. And that’s Strike 3 for Iran, both the cold-calculating regime and, the Shia-avenger theocracy.
Every time Iran is about to get a serious bashing by the U.S. it finds a Sunni ‘useful idiot’, call him Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam, ISIS or Hamas and redirects the attention of the world against such newly selected target, whilst it continues, unabetted, in dominating the regional agenda by controlling the narrative: “Sunnis are terrorists and Shias are freedom fighters”. From 9/11 to Charlie Hebdo and from the attacks on the subways of London to the blowing up of train stations in Spain, Sunnis are depicted, in the eyes of the rest of the world, as fanatic terrorists whilst, Iran-backed militias are portrayed as warriors fighting just wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and sometimes, Gaza.
Donald Patrick Conroy an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels including, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini which were made into films and nominated for Oscars once quipped: “The most powerful words in English are, “Tell me a story.”