Iran’s sinister plan is in danger of succeeding Former British Defence minister's outlook

The former British Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, has written an op-ed for the Telegraph about who he believes is the real master puppeteer behind the violent attacks of the Hamas militant group onto Israeli sovereign soil: the leadership of Iran. Caliber.Az reprints this article.

"After Hamas’s appalling attack on Israel, there will no doubt be much soul-searching among the Israeli intelligence community. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. For a considerable time now, Iran has been planning and supplying Israel’s enemies. Even before the death of Qasem Soleimani, the highly capable and lethal leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime had been preparing to take pole position in the region as Israel’s nemesis. In the last decade Iran has turned away from reform and embraced the hardliners.

The IRGC’s Quds Force and the Ministry of Intelligence can be found fuelling division in Iraq. Iranian-backed militias were regularly behind the mortaring of Nato personnel deployed to help the Iraqi government. In Europe, on at least two occasions recently, we have seen Iranian assassination teams target dissidents and opposition media. Close to Israel, meanwhile, the supplying of Hizbollah with rockets and Hamas with all levels of weaponry has reached new heights. In Yemen, Houthi rebels are supplied across the Straits of Hormuz with long-range missiles to allow them to strike Saudi civilians and infrastructure.

Make no mistake: Iran will be willing Hamas’s attacks to spark a wider crisis in the Arab world and in Muslim populations in the West. It doesn’t want a negotiated peace. The regime doesn’t want a two-state solution in Israel. What the West too often fails to recognise is that such attacks are not one-offs or tit-for-tat, but part of a deliberate and determined plan to use terror to divide and weaken the region. Indeed, despite Iran’s constant rhetoric and actions, the destruction of Israel is not as important to the regime as establishing the country as the regional superpower. The Iranian leadership uses the Israel conflict to recruit proxies to spread division.
Iran hates to see the economic success of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. And it knows that greater prosperity and opportunities in those countries for men and, yes, nowadays women, weakens its offer of enlightenment through Islamic revolution.

In the mind of the Supreme Leader, the Islamic revolution is an ideological export to be imposed on its enemies and neighbours. Like the export of communism by the Soviet Union, Iran’s revolutionaries never stop. They believe they must move forward or else die. Iran knows, however, that its revolution isn’t that popular. Even among Shia Muslims in Iraq, Tehran is not welcome. It is viewed by so many in the region as an uncouth and unwelcome guest.

In desperation and for that reason, Iran plays the 'Arab street' card. Despite the fact that Iran and Israel have on occasion worked together, even under Ayatollah Khomeini – Iran bought arms from Israel in the 1980s – it now seeks to appeal to public opinion on the streets of Qatar, Riyadh and Cairo. The anti-Israel card is the cheapest one to play. And by playing it, Iran also dares the other leaders in the region to go against public opinion.

Hamas’s terrorist attacks are the latest acts, not of the moderates, who want a two-state solution, but of those who, like Iran, want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Iran has been for years cultivating the extreme end of Muslim opinion. In recent years, it has hosted senior members of Al Qaeda within its borders despite the fact Salafi Sunnis view Shias as heretics – such is the depths Iran will go to. It is no surprise that the voice of militant Salafism is at the vanguard of these protests against Israel. Their recruiting sergeants will be mingling among the pro-Palestinian protestors we recently saw in South Kensington. They will claim they speak for the Arab world.

They don’t and never have done.

This awful attack should remind us all what is at stake. Iran will want Israel to overreact. It will want Israel’s actions to stray beyond self-defence under international law. We should all remember that it is perfectly possible to call Hamas terrorists and not take sides between Palestine and Israel, just as it is possible to hold the Israeli army to account without questioning Israel’s right to exist. The BBC seem to think that to refer to Hamas as terrorists is to take sides. It is not. It is the methods that they use that predominantly define terrorists not the cause.
Hamas has never spoken or represented the moderate Palestinian. It does not speak for the majority. We must not let these awful events drive us to the extremes where human rights, international law and a two-state solution are abandoned. That way will lead only to a growth in Iranian regime power and instability in the Gulf. If the winner of these attacks is extremism, we all lose".