Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Opinions seem divided on whether ‘Israel’s’ recent attack on Iran did much damage and whether Iran will retaliate. On the first, the Zionist Government and its allies claim great success while Iran claimed most missiles shot down and minimal damage.

One takes it for granted that all sides in a war will have an eye to useful propaganda. During the attack, while Zionist and western mass media were claiming numerous ‘Israeli’ strikes on Iran, allegedly real time videos of a quiet Tehran were being posted on line.

It must be said that no satellite photos of any real damage to Iranian installations have been posted on the internet and one of a military facility seeming to show a huge crater appeared later intact on the Internet with a claim that the earlier photo had merely shown a shadow.¹

The Iranian authorities did admit to the deaths of four soldiers and a little minor damage, the latter quickly repaired, according to their updates. They also claimed to have shot down all but a few of the incoming missiles.

It seems that none of the manned Zionist aircraft entered Iranian airspace but a few approached the border from Iraq in order to launch their missiles from there, which raises another issue regarding the violation of Iraqi sovereignty by the US military.

According to Alastair Crooke, commentator on Middle East affairs, former British diplomat (then probably MI6 asset) on Judge Napolitano’s Youtube site,² the first of three planned ‘Israeli’ attack waves encountered something unexpected in the Iranian air defence and the rest of the attack was aborted.

Narratives from each side would be tailored to suit their own propaganda needs but even some of the ‘Israeli’ media and other commentators were critical of the effectiveness of the attack, some saying Iran was hardly damaged while others said economic targets should have been included.

It also does seem that the Zionist attack was unusually restrained in restricting its targeting to military installations.

The speculation has been that the reason for that restraint was the US being quite firm with Netanyahu that the oil etc. installations were not to be hit as Iran’s retaliation would have engulfed not only the Zionist colony but wider western interests in the region and the world economy.

Whichever side is correct in its damage estimation may be relevant or may not. Iran has reiterated its right to defend itself but seemed not to be saying that it would definitely retaliate.

But on Wednesday Admiral Ali Fadavi, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran was quoted in some media stating that his country’s military will retaliate, stating that such “is inevitable”, today backed by the Director of the Supreme Leader’s Office.

Michael Jansen, a correspondent on the Middle East in the Irish Times wrote that because Iran was allegedly hard hit in the ‘Israeli’ attack, it will not retaliate and claims that Iran’s previous retaliation was a flop. If that is Jansen’s main basis for her opinion, it is to my mind an unsafe foundation.

In the past I’ve had respect for Jansen’s analysis of the war in Syria and the positions of different factions but this time I think she is very wide of the mark. The previous Iranian retaliations swamped the Zionist air defence system³ with cheap drones but hit many targets with missiles.

It seems to me that Iran WILL retaliate and the only thing that might hold that off or at least moderate the strength of its attack would be if the ‘Israeli’ Government ties up a peace deal with the Palestinian Resistance, led by Hamas. And that looks extremely unlikely, for a number of reasons.

The Resistance is sticking to the terms that were announced by Biden back in May, which he claimed were the ‘Israeli’ Government’s and to which the Resistance agreed, only to see the talks sabotaged again and again by Netanyahu in proposing additions and deletions.

The basics of the Resistance position are:

• Immediate end to the ‘Israeli’ attacks now and in future
• Total withdrawal of the IOF from Gaza (including the Nezarim Corridor and Rafah)
• Total removal of all obstacles to arrival of humanitarian food, medicine etc. supplies
• Return of all displaced from parts of Gaza as they wish
• Exchange of prisoners (including bodies of dead Israelis and to include Palestinians nominated by the Resistance, without Israeli veto)
• Reconstruction of infrastructures and buildings: housing, medical, educational, social, commercial

None of those terms except the exchange of prisoners has been agreed and even there, Netanyahu wanted to exclude some Palestinian prisoners from the exchange. Most fundamentally, he insists on the IOF staying in Gaza, in particular in the “Nezarim corridor”.

It is frequently commented that Netanyahu cannot afford personally to end the attacks in defeat as a postponed court case for alleged fraud and bribery awaits him and, without a victory in his belt, his political fascist friends would abandon him to be savaged by his enemies in the Zionist entity.

However, the continuing Zionist massacres of civilians and wide-scale urban destruction is intended in large part to force the Resistance to accept terms with which the Zionist state agrees, to gain in negotiations what it has been unable to win on the battlefield against the Resistance fighters.

No doubt there are some who think that the Resistance should abandon its demand about total IOF Gaza withdrawal, just to end the massacres. That kind of thinking results in a partial peace to which the enemy will return again and again with violence.

The Palestinian Resistance has clearly decided that they will tough this out in the sacrifice of their people, fighters and leaders in order to get a more stable position for the Palestinian nation, from which to go forward to self-determination – and peace, should that be obtainable.⁴

The last time the Resistance caved in to Zionist and imperialist demands was with the Oslo Accords in 1993, signed for the Fatah leadership by Yasser Arafat. Since then not only did the Palestinians not make any advances but additional Zionist settlements have grown apace.

And every few years have seen new genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people.

The Axis of Resistance considers the Zionist State to be a constant threat to the Arab states and indigenous people of the Middle East, in addition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The history of the Zionist state’s wars with its neighbours and its backing by imperialism seems to bear that out.

Looked at soberly, the Palestinian Resistance has inflicted a huge defeat on the IOF and the Zionist military mystique on October 7^th and, notwithstanding daily genocidal massacres, the Resistance has gone on for a year to deny the IOF a victory in Gaza or on the West Bank.

Hezbollah’s bombardments have cleared much of north Palestine of settlers in addition to hitting targets in central ‘Israel’ and they’ve also fought the IOF to a standstill on Lebanon’s borders. Missiles and drones of the Iraqi Resistance and the Yemeni State have also hit the Zionist State.

The balance of battlefield supremacy is tilting against Israel, thanks to the adaptability, courage and sacrifice of in particular the Palestinian people but now also the Lebanese — and world popular opinion is against the Zionist European settler project as never before.

It is necessary to continue the process both to inflict an unmistakeable defeat on the Zionist State and to win substantial advances for the Palestinian people and, incidentally, for the people of the Middle East. These advances entail in addition setbacks for US and western imperialism.

It is important to hammer that nail home, lest it works itself loose before long. I think that at some point Iran will likely retaliate against the Zionist state for its own dignity and defence but also as part of the Axis of Resistance, striving to rid the area of an extremely dangerous infestation.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1The imperialists have Iran constantly under satellite surveillance and it beggars belief they would not have posted photos of significant damage were such to exist.

2Crooke claims that the first wave was to destroy the air defences but failed and encountered something which put all the rest of the attack in danger so they called the attack off and then claimed a victory. Crooke is speculating up to a point about the reasons but claims the facts about the attack are from ‘Israeli’ sources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkNk76E3SI

3Both ground-based, as with Iron Dome and David’s Sling but also airborne with US and European allied aircraft.

4A similar position was outlined with respect to Hezbollah by Sheikh Naim Qassem in his first speech on Wednesday since his election to the General Secretaryship of the organisation.