For four days, forces from the United States, the United Kingdom and eight of their allies, including Australia, Canada and Bahrain, have been carrying out air strikes against Houthi militias who have occupied much of Yemen since 2015 on behalf of Tehran. The objectives of the allied forces were the fixed and mobile missile launch ramps, the drone bases, in short everything that allowed the militiamen to attack, as they have been doing for several weeks, civilian maritime traffic transiting in the area to reach the Canal of Suez, whether or not it is directly or indirectly of interest to Israel and the Western states that support its cause.
Italy did not participate in the operation. The facts aggravate the tension in the geographical quadrant and add to everything that is happening in the world from Ukraine to the Gaza Strip. This “slice” of conflict falls within the scope of the long-standing controversy in which radical Islam fights an endless war against Israel with the declared aim of eliminating the Jewish state from the face of the earth, and it is clear that the West it cannot inertly watch the Houthi militias’ systematic attack on commercial traffic coming from the Far East.
We must be aware that the adoption of the safe route that passes through the Cape of Good Hope entails an increase in the cost of transport, i.e. an increase in the prices of the various utilities that the European economy absolutely needs. A new inflationary surge is therefore possible.
For this obvious reason, an intervention similar to that of the United States and the United Kingdom is being planned by a European mission, which would include Italy which already has two warships in the Red Sea.
For things to make the sense they have, we want to remember the following in passing: Iraq was a nation with a Shiite majority and a Sunni government under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator, both through a direct war against Iran and with ferocious internal repression, has kept the Shiites in the area at bay for decades, preventing them from exercising the religious and military pressure for which they were and are devoted. With the two Gulf Wars, the West swept Sunni power out of Iraq, leaving the Shiites to spread and become the explosive mixture of the Middle East.
This is not to place blame on the two Bushes, but to establish the reasons for the current weight of the Shiite world.
Today the fire that was started by Hamas on behalf of Tehran can spread or it can be contained. Obviously the United States and the entire West (even lazy Europe) have an interest in containing the conflict.
It is therefore completely false and deviant to argue – as Rai is stating in all its news programmes, tainted by creeping anti-Americanism (and anti-Judaism) – that the reaction of the United States and the United Kingdom accentuates the risk of the conflict widening. And it needs to be understood or clarified whether this toxic subliminal propaganda reflects and to what extent the positions of this government or is the work of an intolerable creeping antagonism.
The widening of the conflict is underway today at the hands of the Houthis, as well as Hezbollah. It is a precise policy of constant pressure in various countries of the Middle East, in search of a point of failure, of a gap through which to force the West to get bogged down. And Joe Biden is right to respond in a measured and proportional way. So as not to leave the attacks unanswered, but containing the response within the limits of the so-called military and political “adequacy”.
For some time – a few or many weeks – the operational capabilities of the Houthis have been reduced, so much so that in recent days they have managed to carry out only one daily launch. This does not eliminate the risk for merchant shipping. However, there is no doubt that it is the “rogue state” par excellence, Iran, which arms the Houthis (who conquered the capital of Yemen, Saana), Hamas, Hezbollah (who have an impressive arsenal of missiles various types as well as drones), the criminal dictator of Syria, the Alawite Bashar Hafiz al-Assad, who continues (with the active participation of Russians and Pasdaran) to slaughter his Sunni people, in short the entire Shiite faction. ISIS is a tactical ally as it has announced imminent actions against Western civilians and religious figures and has called on lone wolves hiding in Europe to come out of their hiding places and strike.
Now it is useless and harmful to go around the heart of the problem. Somewhere, notably in Tehran, a campaign has been launched aimed at preventing any rapprochement of the 2-state hypothesis and starting the liquidation of Israel. In the founding documents of all Iranian observance movements there is the same opening proposition: the priority of priorities is the removal of the Iranian state from the face of the earth.
Furthermore, the drama of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip comes from afar, since the Western world, blind and deaf, did not prevent Hamas from taking over the territory and subjecting the people to a harsh and ferocious dictatorship.
The calls for reasonableness and a ceasefire clash in an insurmountable way with reality.
Compared to the prevailing communication in Europe, according to which the IDF (the Israeli armed forces) is intent on massacring the Palestinians of the Strip, I take up the news coming from there: «… Palestinian militias have claimed responsibility for several attacks in the northern Gaza Strip January 11th. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) military wing, the Quds Brigades, said it fired tandem-charged anti-tank rockets at an Israeli tank in the town of Jabalia… on January 9, Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters clashed clashed in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, on the border with the city of Jabalia, while Israeli forces “repositioned” themselves in the city of Gaza. Palestinian militias conducted almost daily attacks against Israeli forces throughout December in the town of Jabalia, the Jabalia refugee camp and Sheikh Radwan…».
This information, taken from the Institute for Studies of War, tells us that the conflict is ongoing and that Israeli troops are confronted with militarily efficient militias. With pain and human suffering, we must admit that the hypothesis of the two states advanced by many does not exist and will not exist until the Islamic party, definitively defeated, has renounced the peremptory precept which requires the destruction of the state of Israel and the killing all existing Jews. Other solutions, at this point in a now existential conflict, are neither realistic nor available.
Of course, a third world war is underway in segments: surrender (substantially hoped for by the Roman Pontiff) however would not prevent the explosion, on the contrary it would prove the attackers right.
For the moment and as regards the Red Sea, we Italians, with respect to the Houthi attacks, will soon be called upon to assume the relevant responsibilities: the European context, in which we will operate, must be the nucleus around which a unitary political defense, the only one that can give us some guarantees, while awaiting the American presidential elections, on the result of which depends whether or not the “American umbrella” will remain.
This article is originally published on italiaoggi.it
