It was Iran’s first open reaction after three months of the Israeli incursion into Gaza. Between Monday night and yesterday morning, missiles launched by the Revolutionary Guard from three Iranian provinces destroyed targets in Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, and in the Syrian province of Idlib. In the first case, against the Israeli “Mossad espionage base”, in retaliation for the death of Revolutionary Guard commander Reza Moussavi on December 25 in an attack in Damascus. In the second, against alleged bases in Syria of the Islamic State (IS), responsible for the death of 84 people in a double attack in Kerman (Iran) on January 3. For Tehran, the two goals are inseparable, as it considers the Islamic State a tool of the US and Israel. The attack in Syria turns out to be, in any case, a bit confusing, since the missiles attacked centers of Tahrir al-Sham (former Jabhat al-Nusra) and the Islamic Party of Turkestan, both linked to Al-Qaeda, but apparently they would support the Islamic State-Khorassan, the core of IS in Afghanistan responsible for the Kerman massacre.
Iran already announced that it would respond in due course to the aggressions suffered. And this was timely, coinciding with the confrontation between the US army and Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea. The most obvious reading (although not necessarily the most correct) points out that Tehran believes that the time has come for the so-called “Axis of Resistance” – in front of Israel – to show itself forcefully. These are – apart from Hamas in Gaza – the Houthis, the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, such as the so-called Islamic Resistance – a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces and whose head was killed in Baghdad by a US drone on January 4–, which yesterday again launched drones, unsuccessfully, against Irbil airport.
Tehran has said and repeated that it does not want to get involved in a conflagration, in which, without a doubt, it would have everything to lose, especially if it tried the adventure of blocking the Strait of Hormuz, which is the capital for oil traffic. However, it has enough resources to carry out strikes that create a sense of instability for the United States and its allies, as the Houthi campaign in the Red Sea demonstrates.
The other battlefield is Iraq again. The protest, yesterday, from Baghdad to Tehran for the violation of its territory, with the call for consultations from its ambassador to Iran and the questioning of the Iranian charge d’affaires, showed true impotence.
Washington described the bombing in Irbil as “reckless and imprecise”. The nuance of “imprecise” should be noted: the Kurdish authorities categorically denied the presence of Israeli espionage in their territory after the death of four civilians in the attack, among them the millionaire Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayi and his 11 month old daughter. But the Iranian news agency Irna spread the word, saying that Dizayi “was actually the cover for the Mossad” and “responsible for its logistical support”, as well as the owner of a security company that works for the United States.
The Shia militias of Iraq have been punishing American bases in the country – including Irbil – but this bombing, in an urban area and directly from Iran, could not be more explicit. Israel’s good relations with Iraqi Kurdistan are well known. This territory was taken care of by the US since the first Gulf War, and with the emergence of the Islamic State it was the bridgehead for the defeat of the jihadists. Local Kurdish factions received weapons from the US, Israel and, for example, Germany when Ursula von der Leyen was Defense Minister. Of all that, something more remained than a German restaurant in Irbil: Israel openly supported the failed Kurdish attempt at independence through a referendum (journalists from Irbil went to Catalonia to observe on October 1, by the way ) as a means of containing the so-called growing Shia in the region, already too powerful in Iraq.
But Kurdistan does not constitute a unit. The great stateless people have elements in northern Iraq who are enemies of Irbil and loyal to the Turkish PKK, just as it is in Syria. Turkey – on the other hand, is a friend of Irbil – after several days of skirmishes has punished with 23 Kurdish air attacks from the north in Iraq and Syria, and has given even more complexity to a panorama that contains all the paradoxes of the Middle East.
