Iran is a Greater Danger than Russia

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Why is the United States so intent on picking a fight with Russia, while placating Iran, a much greater threat to world peace and the rules-based international order?

Russia is at the most an irredentist power, having lost much of what used to be the Soviet Union. It is trying to gain leverage over Ukraine on behalf of the ethnic Russian majority living in Luhansk and Donetsk in the east of the country. It’s the reason that Moscow annexed Russian-majority Crimea, until 1954 not even part of Ukraine, in 2014.

On the other hand, Iran is an expansionist state, striving for hegemony over the Middle East. Tehran has succeeded in establishing itself firmly inside Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and has proxies there fighting on its behalf, while it also threatens Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states.

The Islamic Republic’s intent has never wavered: the overthrow of the regional regimes and the destruction of Israel. It makes no secret of this and has said so countless times, and it may yet follow through should it acquire the nuclear capability to do so. And then what?

Even without nuclear weapons, Iran is wreaking havoc across the Middle East. It is already one of the world’s top missile producers, and its arsenal is the largest and most diverse in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic has thousands of ballistic missiles, according to U.S. intelligence assessments. They can reach as far as 2,100 kilometres in any direction. Tehran has shown no willingness to barter over its missiles as it has with its nuclear program.

“Iran created a network of regional proxies from scratch --its own alliance system,” Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes. “It’s the most cohesive alliance system in the region.”

There is currently an array of ever-evolving front groups in Iraq and Syria as the Islamic revolution cobbles together military umbrella movements, depending on its needs.

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces has allowed Tehran to control much of Iraq, while Syria has always been the hub and the arm of the Islamic Revolution, which is why Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can not allow Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime to collapse.

Tehran has been deploying its military resources as close to Israel and in as dispersed a fashion as possible. This has meant ensuring each front in the region possesses massive arsenals of Iranian missiles, drones, and other armaments.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah, an arm of Iran, has a stranglehold on the country. Its entire leadership, including its current secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, are Iranian allies.

It controls more weaponry than the government does, with at least 130,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel. In a Dec. 27 interview, Nasrallah announced the group now has twice as many precision-guided missiles as it had a year earlier.

The Houthi Ansar Allah front in Yemen will likely become the new tool to attempt to overthrow the Persian Gulf states. It is already responsible for attacks on Saudi Arabia. Using drones and missiles, the Houthis have launched attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and military sites.

The United Arab Emirates, which last year normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords, recently came under fire. It intercepted two ballistic missiles over Abu Dhabi that were fired by the Houthis Jan. 24. This came a week after another Houthi drone-and-missile attack on Abu Dhabi.

In another Gulf state, Shi’a-majority Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty, Tehran has supported the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain. In 2019 a Bahraini court convicted 139 people of forming a terrorist cell inside Bahrain with help from Iran.

Iran is also attacking Americans in the region. Last summer, shortly after Ebrahim Raisi was elected Iran’s new president, pro-Iranian militias launched drones at U.S. bases. In January, four rockets slammed into the Green Zone in Baghdad, the site of the U.S. embassy. Five rockets also landed near the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq, while eight struck a U.S. base in northeastern Syria.

All this is happening while our attention remains focused on Russia. The Biden administration needs a more robust policy towards Iran.