Calls for de-escalation mount amid attacks

Israel has claimed Saturday's airstrikes on Iran have crippled facilities producing long-range ballistic missiles and defence batteries protecting them. This has been seen by Israel's uncritical ally the US as a restrained response to Iran's launch of 180 missiles and drones at Israel on October 1st in a tit-for-tat exchange which began in April. Tehran has played down the results of the strikes, suggesting an end for now of the attacks and counterattacks which have escalated regional tensions.

If Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had been struck, Tehran would have had to respond with ballistic missiles and drones even though the majority would have been shot down before hitting Israel. It must be recalled that the April 1st, Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus which slew eight IRGC officers initiated this cycle. For Tehran, the IRGC is sacrosanct as it is a main pillar of the clerical government. Iran responded with missile strikes targeting Israel (after Tehran issued a warning of its intention). Israel replied with a token strike which was followed by Iran’s massive October 1st missile launch.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had hoped that this attack would precipitate all-out war with Iran which would drag in the US on Israel's side. However, even the supine Israeli-captive Biden administration was not prepared to go along with Netanyahu's oft declared dream.

Instead, the US secured his agreement to confine his targets to military sites rather than oil or nuclear facilities or civilian economic infrastructure. Netanyahu stands to be rewarded with an infusion of weapons by the US for conceding while Iran is threatened with US-Israeli punishment if it retaliates.

A US official stated, “Should Iran choose to respond we are fully prepared to defend Israel and support Israel and there will be consequences should Iran make that unfortunate decision…as far as we're concerned, this direct exchange, this should be the end of it.” By contrast with bellicose Netanyahu and his chums in Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has visited 20 countries in the past 20 days calling for de-escalation and no further strikes.

The question must be asked, “Why does Iran risk attack by taking a stand against Israel? In 1947, Iran was among 13 countries to vote against the UN plan to partition Palestine. In 1949, Iran also voted against Israel’s UN admission. In 1950, Israel established a de facto diplomatic presence in Tehran which did not extend formal recognition until the late 1970s. Until 1979, Iran was dominated by a monarch, a shah, who shared power with prime ministers appointed by the country's elected parliament. The last shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi had the support of Britain and the US which overthrew Iran's popular, democratic Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian oil company. Mossadegh's ouster ended Iran’s democracy and has fuelled resentment and rankled with Iranians ever since.

In response to popular discontent, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel's external intelligence agency Mossad recruited and trained the core of an intelligence organisation which by 1957 became SAVAK, the shah's widely hated weapon for censorship and crushing dissent through arrest, torture, and assassination of leftists, republicans, nationalists, and clerics. The shah depended on US military missions and funding for the army and gendarmerie and welcomed US firms to operate in Iran and play a large role in the economy.

These connections ended with his ouster by the Islamic Republic founded by Ayatollah Khomeini on February 1st, 1979. It was significant that the first foreign visitor to Tehran was Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat who arrived on the 17th and two days later took over the ransacked Israeli embassy and converted it into the PLO's mission. This was hardly surprising as the PLO had developed longstanding relations with Iranian opposition movements.

After 1979, Iran also engaged with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and provided them with training and weaponry. While relations with the PLO soured during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and after Arafat adopted the 1993 Oslo Accord, Iran's ties with Hamas and Islamic Jihad prospered. Despite dramatic reverses on the Palestinian front, Iran has not reduced its com-mitment to the Palestinian cause which all its presidents – whether hardline or reformist – have regarded as the root of tension and warfare in the region.

Iran's estrangement and break with the US and the West began with the November 4th, 1979, Iranian takeover of the US embassy in Tehran which trapped 50 US diplomats for 444 days.

Once they were released, Tehran attempted to re-engage with Washington and its allies. Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) was the first to try but was rebuffed. He was followed by reformist Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005) who was elected by 79 per cent of the 80 per cent of the electorate that voted. He promoted democracy, eased restrictions on freedom of speech, and pressed for an open economy on the domestic level. On the global level, he launched a "dialogue among civilisations" and convinced the UN to proclaim 2001 as the “Year of Dialogue Among Civilisations." Khatami met with Pope John Paul II, French President Jacques Chirac, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad, and others and a symposium bringing together Iranian and Western scholars was held on this topic in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Dialogue failed due to US indifference and Iran elected hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who preached against the West, reverting to the policy of alienation and negation. He was succeeded by reformist Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) under whose auspices the 2015 agreement with the US, UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany to limit Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions was negotiated and implemented in January 2016.

The deal was proceeding well until Donald Trump withdrew the US in May 2018. A year later Iran began to breach the terms of the deal. Although Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden pledged to return to the agreement if elected, he prevaricated and procrastinated for so long that Iran elected another hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as president in June 2021. After his death in a helicopter crash, Iran elected another reformist Masoud Pezeshkian who calls for a return to the deal and for regional reconciliation, He has been welcomed in the region and the global south but Washington remains unmoved.