Israel and US Should be Wary of Threatening Iran and Russia Over Gaza Conflict

The sharp escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict on October 7 threatens to spark a regional war. International relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda and Beirut-based broadcaster and journalist Laith Marouf said Israel and the US should be wary of provoking their enemies.

Israel and the US are playing with fire by escalating their conflict with Hamas to a regional conflict, say two pundits.

Israel has still not begun its vowed groun operation of the besieged Gaza Strip three weeks after the Palestinian Hamas movement launched a guerrilla incursion and rocket attacks on Southern Israel on October 7, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receiving public backing from US President Joe Biden.

On Thursday, the US Department of Defense announced that 900 US military personnel would be sent to the Middle East to crew extra batteries of THAAD anti-ballistic missiles, Patriot surface-to-air missiles and Iron Dome systems for countering rocket artillery fire.

That comes on top of two US Navy aircraft carrier strike groups sent to the eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region, a US Marine amphibious assault force with 2,000 troops and extra squadrons of US Air Force jet fighters to Washington's air bases in the region — as a "deterrent" against Lebanon's Hezbollah, Syria or Iran intervene on the Palestinian side.

The Pentagon later announced that it had launched air raids against two facilities in Syria, which it claimed were used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). That was in retaliation for rocket and drone attacks on illegally-occupied US bases in north-east Syria by Iraqi militias trained by Iran to fight Daesh*, which injured 19 US troops.

Security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik that the huge military build-up indicates the US is expecting a major escalation in the conflict — aimed at its forces as well as Israel's.

"They are preparing for a large number of rocket missile cruise missile drone attacks, probably on US military bases throughout the region," Sleboda said. "The US preparing for what they see as a very likely broad scale escalation horizontally of the conflict to involve other actors like, say, Hezbollah, Iran, potentially Syria."

Syria's involvement would be particularly dangerous, he warned, as both Russia and the US have forces in the country — which has an ongoing territorial dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.

"That's the dangerous part, of course, because Russia, of course, does not want to become involved in this," Sleboda stressed. "Syria probably doesn't want to become involved in this at all, but Israel has already bombed Damascus airport multiple times. Israel is just allowed to bomb its neighbors — no one even bats an eye."

Russia's military assets in Syria included state-of-the-art S-300 and S-400 air defence systems, easily within rage of Israeli airspace, which Sleboda said they had refrained from using for many years despite repeated Israeli attacks.

"What Russia's concerned about, is US attacks on its military bases and assets in Syria," he continued. "If the US attacks Iran, who knows? I don't think Russia would militarily leap to Iran's defense, not in a direct way... But certainly Russia could provide military assets, intelligence, military aid, all these sorts of things short of directly participating in such a conflict."

Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that MiG-31 jets armed with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles would begin patrolling over international waters of the Black Sea — easily within range of the east Mediterranean — was seen as threat to US warships there. The security expert said US forces in the region were just as much a target as a threat to other nations.

Sleboda interpreted Putin's message as: "What are you doing with two aircraft carrier groups in the region? That is far more than a deterrent. And if you even so much as look at our military bases sidewise, then understand that your aircraft carriers become very big floating targets that cannot stop a hypersonic missile."

Lebanon-based broadcaster Laith Marouf told Sputnik that both Israel and its main Western backer the US fear a military defeat if the IDF invades Gaza.

"That continuous talk about delay, and making up excuses for it, is a clear indicator that the United States Special Forces and the Israeli special Forces will face a really big battle and they may not survive it," he said.

He pointed to reports that Israel was even considering using internationally-banned nerve gas agents to kill Hamas militants in their network of subterranean tunnels under Gaza — after using disproven claims of chemical weapons stockpiles as a pretext to attack Iraq, Libya and Syria.

"Now the West wants to use biological weapons and we're all supposed to watch and be approving of that, " Marouf said. "This indicates how desperate they are. They have already been defeated militarily, the Israelis and behind them the American might."

The journalist also focussed on the guerrilla attacks on US bases across the Middle East as an example of asymmetrical warfare against Israel's staunchest ally.

"Many of the analysts are thinking about what is the next surprise that the axis of resistance will deal on the battlefield against the imperial forces," Marouf said. "And while the whole world is watching on the border with Lebanon and Palestine or fearing that Hezbollah will invade North Palestine and liberate that land, maybe actually what we will see is an attack on American bases before anything like that happens."

While Iran has previously said it would not enter the conflict unless it was attacked first, the US strikes on alleged IRGC targets could be the provocation that leads to a regional war. Iran has ballistic and cruise missiles with the range to hit targets in Israel or any US military base in the Middle East.

"It is clear right now that the United States is the one that is directing this war. It is clear right now that the Israeli military is already defeated and is being controlled and commanded by American forces," Marouf argued. "It's also clear that in case of war for the liberation of Palestine, that the Israeli Air Force airfields will be out of commission. And therefore, the biggest threat to the resistance forces, the liberation forces in Western Asia, will be the American bases and the American Air Force stationed in those bases."

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* Islamic State or Daesh is a terrorist organisation banned by UN Security Council resolutions.