Iran and Israel: Shadow war now out in the open

THE STRATEGIC AIMS FOR BOTH ISRAEL AND IRAN REMAIN CLOUDED. WHILE A SETBACK IS IMMINENT, THE STRIKES MAY NOT BE ENOUGH TO PUSH IRAN TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS

- Kabir Taneja

Israel has initiated a wave of military strikes against Iran targeting the country's nuclear programme in a bid to delay Tehran's march towards becoming a nuclear weapon State. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has justified his decision to initiate the kinetic option, terming the Iranian nuclear programme as an existential threat. Iran, in response, has called these actions a "declaration of war".

While the world has been consumed with a wide gamut of conflicts and geopolitical shocks, this latest round of castling between the Jewish State and the seat of power for Shia Islam is, in fact, a decades-old shadow war coming out into the open. Both Israel and Iran have been targeting each other's interests for a long time; however, a decision taken by the now deceased military chief of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, to conduct the terror attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, set in motion a dangerous domino effect across the region. Israel prepped for the current operations by dismantling the so-called Axis of Resistance, a potpourri of Iran-backed groups that played the role of frontline defence and offence for Tehran.