Nature might abhor a vacuum, but empires love them. The busy empire-builders in Tehran have spent the last two decades extending their reach into power vacuums in Iraq and Syria as part of their attempt to recreate at least part of the old Persian Empire that once covered almost the entire Middle East.
Funding the Houthi rebels in Yemen keeps the Saudis conveniently distracted, too, as well as giving Tehran a way to attack the shipping that Western economies rely upon.
Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon respectively are Iran's imperial outposts even further west — and the Arab nations have reportedly had enough.
According to an Open Source Intelligence Monitor (OSINT) translation Sunday night, the Arab-language newspaper Al-Hurra believes that "several Arab Counties have recently sent Back-Channel Messages to Israel expressing Support for their Retaliatory Strike against Iran."
The unnamed Arab nations stressed that Israel's military action "should be 'Strict and Clear,'" but also requested "that they receive an Advanced Notice, so that they may be able to take Precautions in case of a Counterattack."
Those same nations "are also said to have shown Support for Israel’s Strikes against both Lebanon and Syria, including the Strike which Eliminated the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah."
(Excuse the odd capitalizations, but I'm almost certain that English isn't OSINT's first language. Also, compare the Arab reaction with Biden officials apparently leaking Israel's attack plans to Tehran. Those bastards.)
Over at Instapundit, this is where my friend Sarah Hoyt would pretend to put on her shocked face.
This is also where things get weird.
Empires got a bad rap in the 20th century for legitimate and some not-so-legitimate reasons — particularly on the Left. This makes it odd that presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden have done so much to help Iran pursue its imperial ambitions.
I won't bore you by rehashing the whole history, so the best way to sum up Obama's Iran nuclear deal was that the U.S. would release billions in frozen funds to the mullahs in exchange for them doing a better job of pretending to hide their nuclear weapons program. Trump was right (if late) to kill it, but of course, Biden tried to resurrect its corpse with even more cash infusions.
Both administrations attempted to ostracize and delegitimize the Netanyahu government because Bibi stood in their way. Iran was happy to use its Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist proxies to fill in the power vacuum between Washington and Jerusalem that Biden and Obama created.
Well-founded Arab and Israeli concerns about Iran's growing imperial strength and Democrats' acquiescence and encouragement of it helped create the opening that Donald Trump turned into the Abraham Accords, but that's a story I've already told.
As Israel destroys Iran's Hamas and Hezbollah proxies, the resulting power vacuum is filling up with renewed Arab-Israeli cooperation, even if it is mostly under the table — but that isn't enough.
Iran wanted a regional war and used Hamas to light the fuze. If Trump is reelected, what it'll get is a united American-Israeli-Arab front to thwart its imperial ambitions.
UPDATE:
Steve, the OSINT Defender guy is native English speaker, he just likes how it looks to capitalize the way he does
— Dan Difino (@DifinoDan) October 21, 2024
I learn the coolest stuff on X.
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