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Analysis

Iran’s encirclement of Israel is aimed at destroying it

Israel needs to expand its power projection with the aim of destabilising the Iranian regime and preventing it from hiding behind its proxies

July 25, 2024 08:17
iron dome march 11 2012_GettyImages-141132948
An Israeli missile is launched from the Iron Dome missile system iin response to a rocket launch from the Gaza Strip (JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
3 min read

One of the most notable aspects of the relative abilities of Iran and Israel’s ability to project power across the Middle East is that Iran is more flexible and strategic in its approach. It has developed a “Unification of the Arenas” strategy which coordinates all its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Iraqi Shia militias and the Houthis in Yemen.

As such, Iran is encircling Israel in order to be able to create a multifront war against it. The intention is to enable Iran to provide a nuclear umbrella to its proxies, threatening the survival of the Jewish state. Just as Russia wields its nuclear weapons to deter the West from greater involvement in Ukraine, imagine if Iran had a nuclear weapon and was able to provide Hamas and Hezbollah with a nuclear umbrella. Iran would be able to restrain Israel from entering Gaza to eliminate Hamas.

In contrast, Israel can only allocate its resources to a single arena at any one time - such as Gaza now to dismantle Hamas - or conduct individual strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It cannot realistically contend with a full-blown conflict against Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran simultaneously.

Israel and Iran’s strategic competition sits against the backdrop of the US lacking a coherent Iran strategy. At the start of his administration, President Biden said his priority was, “how we move forward and what is needed to allow us to move back into the JCPOA.” By November 2022, however, President Biden admitted that the JCPOA was “dead”. Since then the US has failed to formulate a replacement strategy for Iran.