Israel’s extremely careful response to Iran’s missile attack and the US Congress’s approval of a $60.8 billion aid package for Ukraine changed the gloomy landscape on the two major geopolitical fronts within 36 hours.
For almost a year, the package of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine had been blocked in the US Congress, and only last Saturday the head of the Republican caucus, Mike Johnson, managed to pass it through the House of Representatives with the help of all the Democratic congressmen and even though a majority of Republicans voted against it. It took a series of secret Johnson meetings and briefings by CIA director William Burns to convince the Republican speaker of the House that Ukraine was on the brink and that further blocking of US military aid would inevitably lead to the collapse of the front. and massive advance of Russian forces.
Along with trying to convince the Republican leadership, the White House and Joe Biden personally have been making strenuous efforts to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership not to retaliate strongly against the massive Iranian missile attack of April 13.
According to Israeli officials who spoke to the New York Times, Israel had prepared a massive retaliation against Iran, targeting major military installations near Tehran. But the diplomatic pressure exerted on Israel by the United States in particular, but also by Britain and France, led Netanyahu and Israel’s war council to finally launch a completely symbolic missile attack, targeting only an anti-aircraft array at a military base in Isfahan , from which no Iranian losses resulted. The Israeli strike was so small-scale that Iran’s leadership dismissed it as a “non-event” and declared that there would be no Iranian retaliation.
These two very important geopolitical and military developments came at a time when the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East were at a particularly critical stage.
On the Ukrainian front Russian troops have clearly gained the advantage on the battlefields, mainly due to the huge imbalance in firepower. Ukrainian troops have practically run out of ammunition, mainly artillery shells and anti-aircraft batteries and missiles. The result is that Russian forces are advancing day by day, and combined with the significant lack of reserves in the Ukrainian army, there is a clear risk that a new mass offensive by Russia will cause the front to collapse.
But the reinforcements that will come from the US aid package, the European aid in artillery shells, the new law on conscription promoted by Volodymyr Zelensky and the imminent inclusion in the Ukrainian air force of F-16 fighters donated by the Netherlands, Denmark and other European countries are expected to be sufficient to prevent a catastrophic defeat of Ukrainian forces. Tellingly, the congressional approval irked Moscow, which responded with the classic pattern of invoking the nuclear threat.
In the field of the Middle East, the even temporary avoidance of a massive conflict between Israel and Iran gives diplomacy the opportunity to bring back to the table the need for a substantial resolution of the conflict, which necessarily goes through the final settlement of the Palestinian issue.
According to an Israeli diplomat I spoke with recently, who asked to remain anonymous, there is a plan in the Israeli Foreign Ministry for the status of Gaza, which provides for the establishment of a Palestinian interim administration, without the participation of Hamas and Palestinian Authority, and with guarantor forces Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The plan is stumbling over stiff opposition from Netanyahu’s far-right allies in Israel’s government and the Israeli opposition’s refusal to provide a political lifeline to the Israeli prime minister ahead of early elections.
No one, obviously, can claim that the gloomy situation on the two major geopolitical fronts can suddenly be so easily replaced by a spirit of optimism. It seems that the worst is simply being avoided for now. It will still take a lot of serious diplomatic, political and military efforts to bring things to some stability. But it is evident that, at least for now, the step towards the abyss has been avoided.
