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sinwar
After Israel's response to Iran, what's next?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. No, not US elections, that'll be next week. This week. Want to talk about the Middle East and the fact that the Israelis almost a month after Iran launched 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, though most of them didn't get through and no Israeli deaths on the ground, nonetheless, the Israelis expected to respond. And respond they finally have.
Military targets that they focused on. They did some damage, caused more damage to Iran than the Iranians did to Israel during their attack. That's clearly a message that the Israelis intended to send in terms of their ability to have dominance over both escalation and deterrence between the two. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei, on the back of that, said not to exaggerate or downplay the strikes, that the Iranians will respond, but also the Iranians said that they fully intercepted the Israeli attack. In other words, nothing big to see here. Crude oil down about 6% today. In other words, this is the end of this escalation cycle between Iran and Israel.
Now, I have been critical of the Biden administration's inability to have much of any impact on Israeli decision-making over the course of this war. This time is a little different, they did have some impact here. And in the early days after the Israelis were hit by Iran, and keep in mind the Iranians got that information that the strike was coming to the United States, the US, of course, immediately shared it with Israel and did everything they could to coordinate with allies in the region to defend Israel effectively, which helped to ensure that the Israelis didn't take casualties, significant casualties.
But also the Biden administration saying they really didn't want Israel to engage in strikes against nuclear targets in Iran, against oil targets in Iran. And they did a couple of things for Israel. First, they sent an additional THAAD missile defense system, which they got to Israel and set up within two weeks on the ground, which is incredible fast-tracking to help further defend Israel.
Secondly, they actually took sanctions, put sanctions on additional tankers that were shutting down their transponders and shipping oil illegally for Iranian export. Not everything. The Iranians have over a million barrels a day that they get out, but probably took about 200,000 barrels a day off the market. In other words, that's money that the Iranians no longer have access to that they were able to use for whatever they wanted, including paying for Iranian proxies that target Israel.
In response for that and American diplomacy, the Israelis ended up, I would argue, with a slightly more restrained strike against Iran. They did engage in hits against Iranian missile production facilities, as well as defense against their ... that helps to defend their nuclear, their research program and weapons program, such as it is, which means that Israel has made it very clear to Iran that if they want to do this again, that Iran is not going to be able to defend itself effectively. So the message has been very, very clearly sent.
Of course, it was also helpful for Israel that they were able to kill Sinwar, the Palestinian Hamas leader, in Rafah, in Gaza, over the past couple of weeks. I mean, the Israeli war cabinet is flying high from a military perspective right now. They didn't need to show great capacity against Iran, nor have they, given their recent successes against Hezbollah.
I think it's interesting how Iran is responding to all of this, that we're seeing Iranian leaders, not just on the president and foreign affairs side, who are more reformist in orientation, but also recently Ali Velayati, who's an advisor to the Supreme Leader, saying that the Iranians are very interested in engaging more with the West, specifically with Europe. In other words, with the Iranians seeing that they are clearly on the back foot vis-a-vis Israel, is there any way that they can more effectively engage with the West, normalized relations, maybe end up with more money for their economy that way?
Certainly, I expect that they are also thinking heavily about what else they can do in their nuclear program, either illicitly or maybe with Russian support. But for now, it looks like Israel's policies vis-a-vis Iran have played out successfully, in part because they are the strongest military game without question in town.
That's where we are right now. Those are the latest headlines, and for the next week we're going to be talking a lot about US elections. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Now, I have been critical of the Biden administration's inability to have much of any impact on Israeli decision-making over the course of this war. This time is a little different, they did have some impact here. And in the early days after the Israelis were hit by Iran, and keep in mind the Iranians got that information that the strike was coming to the United States, the US, of course, immediately shared it with Israel and did everything they could to coordinate with allies in the region to defend Israel effectively, which helped to ensure that the Israelis didn't take casualties, significant casualties.
But also the Biden administration saying they really didn't want Israel to engage in strikes against nuclear targets in Iran, against oil targets in Iran. And they did a couple of things for Israel. First, they sent an additional THAAD missile defense system, which they got to Israel and set up within two weeks on the ground, which is incredible fast-tracking to help further defend Israel.
Secondly, they actually took sanctions, put sanctions on additional tankers that were shutting down their transponders and shipping oil illegally for Iranian export. Not everything. The Iranians have over a million barrels a day that they get out, but probably took about 200,000 barrels a day off the market. In other words, that's money that the Iranians no longer have access to that they were able to use for whatever they wanted, including paying for Iranian proxies that target Israel.
In response for that and American diplomacy, the Israelis ended up, I would argue, with a slightly more restrained strike against Iran. They did engage in hits against Iranian missile production facilities, as well as defense against their ... that helps to defend their nuclear, their research program and weapons program, such as it is, which means that Israel has made it very clear to Iran that if they want to do this again, that Iran is not going to be able to defend itself effectively. So the message has been very, very clearly sent.
Of course, it was also helpful for Israel that they were able to kill Sinwar, the Palestinian Hamas leader, in Rafah, in Gaza, over the past couple of weeks. I mean, the Israeli war cabinet is flying high from a military perspective right now. They didn't need to show great capacity against Iran, nor have they, given their recent successes against Hezbollah.
I think it's interesting how Iran is responding to all of this, that we're seeing Iranian leaders, not just on the president and foreign affairs side, who are more reformist in orientation, but also recently Ali Velayati, who's an advisor to the Supreme Leader, saying that the Iranians are very interested in engaging more with the West, specifically with Europe. In other words, with the Iranians seeing that they are clearly on the back foot vis-a-vis Israel, is there any way that they can more effectively engage with the West, normalized relations, maybe end up with more money for their economy that way?
Certainly, I expect that they are also thinking heavily about what else they can do in their nuclear program, either illicitly or maybe with Russian support. But for now, it looks like Israel's policies vis-a-vis Iran have played out successfully, in part because they are the strongest military game without question in town.
That's where we are right now. Those are the latest headlines, and for the next week we're going to be talking a lot about US elections. I'll talk to you all real soon.
FILE PHOTO: Yahya Sinwar, Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, waves to Palestinians during a rally to mark the annual al-Quds Day (Jerusalem Day), in Gaza, April 14, 2023.
Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza
Ever since 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, the Jewish state has been on the hunt for the mastermind of the attack — the terrorist group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar.On Thursday,Israel confirmed that it had killed Sinwar in Gaza, reportedly with Israeli tank fire on a building where soldiers had picked up suspicious movement. His dental and fingerprint impressions match Israeli records.
Sinwar, one of Israel’s top targets, was previously believed to be deep underground surrounded by hostage human shields, so it came as a surprise that he had been killed practically in the open.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Sinwar’s death but stopped short of declaring total victory, saying, “Today, evil took a heavy blow — the mission ahead of us is still unfinished.”
He and US President Joe Biden spoke Thursday, and Biden urged Netanyahu to use the moment to bring hostages home and “bring the war to a close." Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both praised the successful killing of Sinwar, as did leaders from France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.
Will the war in Gaza wind down? Unlikely, though Netanyahu did offer to allow the terrorists holding the remaining Israeli hostages from Oct. 7 to leave if they laid down their arms and returned the prisoners. Netanyahu on Thursday told Israelis, "The war, my dear ones, is not yet over." Meanwhile, Israel’s operation in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which Netanyahu has promised to continue until Israeli civilians can safely return to areas near the northern border, remains ongoing.
Who will replace Sinwar? Hamas’ succession plans are opaque, but a few key figures stand out. Khaled Mashaal was Hamas’ political leader between 1996 and 2017 and remains influential, but his opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stressed his relationship with sponsors in Tehran. Probably the best option from Washington’s perspective is Khalil al-Hayya, who has led cease-fire negotiations for Hamas and is seen as more pliable than Sinwar. On the other hand, if Sinwar’s brother Mohammed Sinwar wins the power struggle, his hardline tendencies would likely undermine progress at the negotiating table.
FILE PHOTO: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv , Israel , 28 October 2023.
Bibi and Biden speak after Israeli defense chief postpones US visit
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallantcanceled a much-anticipated trip to Washington on Wednesday, reportedly at the behest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who then held a call with US President Joe Biden himself instead. The visit had been expected to be an important opportunity to discuss Israel’s planned retaliation against Iran for its Oct. 1 rocket barrage, as well as the expanding campaign in Lebanon.
Netanyahu reportedly didn’t want Gallant to preempt his message before the Israeli cabinet votes on a response plan. Biden emphasized on his phone call with Netanyahu — the first time they had spoken in almost two months — that any response must be proportional. Speaking to reporters in Israel, Gallant said its strike on Iran “will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
Meanwhile, in the ruins of Gaza, Hamas’ new leader Yahya Sinwar reportedly issued a directive to revive the practice of suicide bombings shortly after taking over total control this summer. One attempt on Tel Aviv was botched in August when the explosives went off early, killing only the attempted bomber.
Suicide tactics were commonplace for Hamas 20 years ago during the Second Intifade, but the group renounced them to gain more political legitimacy. But with Hamas’ conventional military in shambles, these desperate acts of violence may be the last tool Sinwar has at hand.
ICC war crimes charge strengthens Netanyahu's position in Israel
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week.
Plenty of breaking news right now. And what I want to focus on is the International Criminal Court, the ICC, which is now seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leadership and Israel's leadership, putting both on a level with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been friends with both Hamas leadership and Netanyahu over the years.
So it's kind of an interesting club. But this is certainly a challenging headline. And if you're watching this around the world and you're seeing that the International Criminal Court is making these cases against Sinwar who runs Hamas and other senior deputies, and the Israeli prime minister and the minister of defense.
What you are seeing, what you feel, the takeaway you would have is moral equivalence, culpability. Well, both of these must be, you know, sort of engaged in crimes against humanity, acting against international law. These are bad people. These are criminals. And I mean, I want to just take a step back for a second. Seven months after the worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust, you are seeing that democratically elected leaders of Israel, the only strong, albeit far from perfect democracy in the Middle East, is being put on the same plane as the terrorists that raped and tortured and killed Israeli citizens, still, seven months later, holding them hostage and want to destroy Israel as a country. That is an extraordinary headline for people to see and people around the world who are on very different sides of this conflict will respond to that very differently, radically differently.
But it's important to recognize what exactly we're seeing and just how far, if you will, the world has moved in what it thinks about this conflict, over the course of the seven months since October 7th. It's clearly bad for the United States and the Biden administration, in particular that President Biden is supporting the Israeli government, is the strongest ally of Israel of any country in the world. It continues, to send weapons, to share intelligence, and to broadly support the war against Hamas. Its continuation though certainly with significant disagreements in the way that the war has been conducted. It's also important to recognize that the United States has itself put out a report that said that war crimes, it believed, were likely to have been committed by the Israeli Defense Forces on the ground in Gaza, says it doesn't have sufficient evidence, to make those claims definitively because the Israelis have not provided the evidence requested by the United States.
But it is worth mentioning that a lot of what the Biden administration, including the secretary of state, the national security adviser, the director of the CIA, all of those have been making trips to Israel over the past months. A lot of what they've been saying privately to Israel, the opposition to using starvation as a tool of war, the demands that humanitarian aid in much greater amount be allowed in, the targeting of civilians with far less restraint than the Americans would want to see.
A lot of that is indeed reflected, though with much sharper language and publicly, in the ICC report. But of course, the United States and Israel, like Russia, do not recognize the ICC as a legitimate body. Most countries around the world do, the vast majority. But the Americans and the Israelis, do not. The response here is going to be stronger support for the Israeli government inside Israel, stronger support for the Israeli prime minister and defense minister inside Israel. The idea for any Israeli civilian, any Israeli civilian that their country, that their leadership could be somehow put in equivalence to the terrorist organization that attacked them on October 7th is utterly unthinkable. And so they're going to support their leadership in response to that claim makes it harder to remove the Israeli prime minister and government, something that certainly the United States and many around the world would like to see. It also puts the hard right in Israel in a stronger position, because that's what the PM needs to maintain his leadership.
And of course, this is a group that is much more equivalent to Hamas. Yes they were also democratically elected. There are many, many parties in Israel, and some of them are very extreme. And they managed to be the critical support to allow for a coalition to be established. But they have leaders who regularly, including members of cabinet in Israel, the minister of finance, the minister of national security, though not critically, any members of the War Cabinet, but they have been arguing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They have been arguing for the full and permanent Israeli occupation of that territory, essentially ideologically very similar to Hamas and the axis of resistance. I mean, what you hear them say is from the river to the sea. And if you're Hamas, that means for you, territory should only be for the Palestinians. If you're Israeli on the far right, that means the territory, should belong to the Jews. But neither of which are going to lead to any possible resolution other than greater fighting and war. But it is, of course, one of the true tragedies of the last seven months that these are the two organizations that have become, in a sense, stronger and with veto power over what the rest of the entire world is trying to bring to an end, is trying to create stability and eventually opportunity for these two people to live side by side without fighting each other.
We are farther from that, I'm afraid, today than we were yesterday, and certainly much farther from that today than we were on October 6th. That is it for me. And we'll be watching this, I'm sure, very closely. Thanks.
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