Middle East: high stakes

By Richard North - October 2, 2024

If ever there was an example of the “one war at a time” syndrome, this is it. Despite the fall of Vuhledar and its profound implications, the Ukraine conflict has all but disappeared from the legacy media.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I recall remarking that even on the 7 June 1944 when news of the Normandy landings broke, the “quality” newspapers found room – even on their front pages – for news of other events. But such is the way if the modern media that we get massive overkill on high-profile events, to the exclusion of all else.

I’ve written on this subject before, so I don’t need to labour the point, but I do find myself both confused and irritated by this style of on-off coverage. When the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, we got wall-to-wall media coverage. The scale and intensity were such that we were left no doubt that the subject was important.

Now, if we are to take the absence of reporting by the same measure, the media is effectively telling us that Ukraine is no longer important. It is just another story competing with the many and must wait its turn for attention. We will be told what is happening when the media gatekeepers get round to it – if at all.

But, to a very great extent, the media are actually writing out their own suicide note. More and more it is becoming apparent that the place for news is social media, despite its faults and weaknesses. Certainly, if you need continuity of information, then social media is the place to be and, after a while, much of what the legacy media has to say seems redundant.

Yet, for all that, what is going on in the Middle East is important and, quite obviously demands extensive coverage – even if there is much duplication and overlap in the multiple stories that each of the media organs are producing. Better writing and more skilled editing could probably halve the space allocation and provide more information.

Furthermore, as so often, the media are concentrating on the easy meat, the Iranian missile attacks on Israel, accompanied by extensive speculation on the political implications and the prospects for a regional conflagration.

The Guardian, for instance has their world affairs editor, Julian Borger, talking of the “forces of restraint” having weakened, with Israeli officials declaring that the Iranian missile attack amounts to a “declaration of war”.

That line does, of course, highlight the fact that, for the second time in six months, Iran has entered the fray with a direct assault on Israel, without relying on its proxies to do the dirty work. And that puts Iran directly in line for Israeli reprisals which, it is thought, have already been planned.

But Borger also suggests that this development “threatens to have a significant impact on US politics”. With only five weeks before what is being called “a knife-edge presidential election”, it is noted that Trump has been seeking to paint the Biden administration as hopelessly out of its depth.

That much has been a common refrain, which comments – mainly from the US press – accusing the US of being “impotent” when it comes to restraining Israeli responses, assuming that there is any desire to do so.

The Washington Post has been pretty scathing about the US government’s approach to Iran, arguing that it has been following the Trump stratagem of “maximum pressure”, with minimum engagement, relying on so many sanctions that it has become the most sanctioned country on the planet.

The paper thus asserts that Iran has responded to the pressure by forging closer ties with an array of substate groups in the region – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

Together, the paper says, this “axis of resistance” has plunged Israel into its longest and most perilous war in decades, diverted about 70 percent of vessel traffic out of the Red Sea, and turned Iraq and Syria into reliable client states. By virtually any measure, it concludes, Washington’s policy toward Iran has failed.

Currently, though, the word “impotent” comes up quite frequently in relation to a number of actors, including the United Nations. Biden is not taking all the flak. Latterly, it has been applied to Iran itself, the Telegraph, amongst others, arguing that the failure of the missile attack demonstrates its inability to strike an effective blow against Israel.

This actually comes from another of the Telegraph’s resident pundits, this one Lewis Page who argues that the strike “is little more than a gesture”. The mullahs, he says, are lashing out but they are showing impotence, not strength; incompetence, not skill.

One wonders, though, whether Tehran is playing a canny game, of greater depth than is allowed. The Times is reporting, along with others, that Israel is publicly vowing “revenge”, and there is always the possibility that the missile attack was a deliberate attempt to provoke such a response.

Israel’s former prime minister, according to the Telegraph is urging Netanyahu to strike Iran’s energy facilities, which is translated (by the Telegraph) as an attack on its nuclear programme.

It is known, however, that Iran’s nuclear facilities are (or have been) transferred to a subterranean site so deep and well protected as to make them impervious to the “bunker buster” weapons that the Israelis could deploy.

There is no information in the public domain as to whether the new site is fully operation, and there are recent suggestions that the US may have developed a new munition – the GBU-72 – capable of doing the job.

But then, it is also suggested that the Iranians have developed potent air defence measures which could neutralise an Israeli threat.

All of this makes a strike a risky and uncertain business, and a failure – especially if losses were sustained – could have an adverse effect on Israel’s standing and morale, going some way toward restoring Tehran’s tarnished image.

And, on the assumption that Iran has already completed its own nuclear weapon, an Israeli strike could legitimise, in the eyes of the mullahs, a nuclear response by way of their own retaliation – this being the object of the exercise.

Then there is the ground war. This is less visible and therefore is getting less media commentary. But this is also a means by which Tehran can strike back at Israel, through its proxy, Hezbollah. And although this terrorist organisation has undoubtably been weakened by Israeli actions, it has in the past proved a formidable foe during Israeli incursions into Lebanon.

I’ve actually walked some of the ground, and the terrain is not good tank country. In past conflicts, the IDF has taken a beating and even the Times of Israel acknowledges that the operation won’t be easy.

As many Israeli combat veterans know from previous conflicts, the paper says, Lebanon is an unforgiving terrain. It’s mountainous, and, even leaderless, Hezbollah has long been entrenched there.

It cites a foreign policy analysis, which explains that: “Hezbollah today is far more formidable [than in 2000], and even if it suffered more losses than it felt it could handle, the bulk of its forces could retreat away from the border region and simply return when Israel left or conduct regular guerrilla attacks at a time of its choosing should Israeli forces stay”.

Small wonder that the IDF says it is conducting limited, localised, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These targets, it says, are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.

Although this should reduce the risks, the situation for Israel is far from certain. There are high stakes at play where – as in the early days of the Ukraine conflict – the use of nuclear weapons cannot be entirely ruled out.

Crucial though this conflict zone is, though, this does not reduce the impact of the Ukrainian conflict. The media should not let the concern for the one permit the neglect of the other.