Israel and US Plot to Reshape Middle East as ‘Compensation Package’ Offered to Stop Strikes on key Iranian Targets

Following the first anniversary of Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel the death and destruction in Gaza and Lebanon is continuing to escalate with Israel in talks with the US about which targets to strike in Iran as both Washington and the Jewish state see a window of opportunity to reshape the Middle East by degrading Hezbollah’s military capabilities, analysts suggest.

As Israel marked the anniversary on Monday, Hamas shot rockets at Tel Aviv, Hezbollah fired missiles at Haifa and Israel carried out some of its most intensive bombing campaigns on southern Lebanon and Beirut since it started its ground operation last week and its aerial campaign weeks ago, with both resistance groups defiantly stating that Israel’s military blitz would not deter them.

Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attack on 1 October when 180 missiles were launched with 20 of them failing to be intercepted and some hitting Israeli military bases.

Iran’s missile barrage was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of top Hezbollah and Hamas leaders in the region and the Jewish state’s continuous aerial bombardment of Lebanon.

Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Lebanon that Israel would turn it into another Gaza but the Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are at loggerheads over the scale and extent of the attack on Iran, with the latter less hawkish than the premier. 

The Israeli premier banned Gallant from travelling to the US to discuss the planned attack before the Israeli cabinet had approved targets and the scale of the attack.

The US has put pressure on Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities but the targets Israel is looking at hitting include significant economic systems such as oil or gas facilities, the presidential compound, the spiritual leader’s compound and the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, according to Israeli media reports.

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin warned his Israeli counterpart, Gallant, that any such attack supported by the US would be seen as a declaration of war by the US on Iran so permission would be required from Congress before this could be approved.

Michael Korilla, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), spent a few days in Israel this week discussing the situation in Lebanon, an attack on Iran and the US’s position.

According to Israel’s Kan 11 media outlet the US reportedly proposed a “compensation package” for Israel if it refrained from striking specific targets in Iran.

US officials presented the compensation deal during ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tel Aviv regarding Israel’s response to the missile attack, Quds News reported. The proposed package was said to include comprehensive diplomatic protection and a weapons deal.

Any Israeli attack on Iran is expected to have major consequences for Israel and the region with Tehran vowing it would respond in turn far more harshly than its earlier retaliation.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned Israel “not to test” Tehran’s resolve. Araghchi, was scheduled to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday as part of a diplomatic tour aimed at preventing further escalation in the region’s wars, the New York Times reported.

Iran has also warned the Gulf States that any cooperation with Israel will make them complicit and they will bear the consequences.

When Israel began its military assault on Lebanon it said it was conducting “limited military operations”, a move that the US said it supported, while simultaneously calling for a ceasefire.

However, both Washington and Tel Aviv appear to have evolved into wanting to reshape the Middle East and both see the opportunity to significantly degrade Hezbollah despite the Lebanese resistance organisation agreeing to a 21-day-ceasefire days before Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Netanyahu’s war goals have moved from forcing Hezbollah back from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, thereby allowing the approximately 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in the north to return home, to driving Hezbollah north of the Litani River in accordance with UN Resolution 1701, and also destroying Hezbollah’s capabilities to the point it’s unable to fire on Israel at all.

The US now openly says it is no longer pushing for a ceasefire with Hezbollah. This is despite Lebanon’s caretaker Government under Najib Mikati stating it was prepared to implement UN Resolution 1701. 

“We affirm our agreement and pledge to implement the cease-fire immediately with Israel,” Mikati is quoted as saying following a meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut on 30 September.

However, according to Politico, the US was quietly supporting Israel’s military assault on Lebanon only days after it began, despite its double-speak about wanting a ceasefire.

Analysts believe this is part of the US and its close ally’s desire to weaken the Axis of Resistance led by Iran which challenges the US’ geopolitical hegemony in the region.

Moun Rabbani, a Dutch-Palestinian Middle East analyst, told Mondoweiss “there’s a growing belief in Israel, which is supported by the US, that this represents a real opportunity to redraw the political map of the Middle East, to change the strategic equation of the Middle East and dismantle the Axis of Resistance, which is held together by a common agenda of seeking to confront and reduce Israeli influence in the region”.

This would not be the first time the US has attempted to reshape the Middle East and although this reshaping did previously occur it was to the detriment of the area and the countries involved.

America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, which decimated the country very possibly because it posed a military threat to Israel, was based on trumped-up fake evidence that former president Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The threat of dangerous weapons was asserted by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which was a neo-conservative think tank staffed by Israeli supporters, whose raison d’etre was realigning the Middle East in favour of Washington.

Following the destruction of Iraq the country became lawless and out of this vacuum came Al Qaeda.

In the 1980s, the US also provided military support to Islamist rebels in Afghanistan to help them bring down the former communist government of Mohammed Najibullah, a Soviet ally. These rebels later morphed into the Taliban which now governs Afghanistan.

Syria also used to be a military threat to Israel, which occupies the Syrian Golan Heights. However, the US helped to weaken the regime of Bashar Assad by providing support to selected rebel commanders.

Meanwhile, as the region lurches towards a comprehensive war, Israeli troops have reinvaded northern Gaza stating that Hamas is rebuilding its infrastructure there. 

Netanyahu is implementing the “General’s Plan” driving Palestinians from northern Gaza once again so that Israel can establish a buffer zone in the north while imposing a blockade on humanitarian aid entering. They are also once again targeting hospitals.

Despite Israel’s confidence in being able to defeat both Hamas and Hezbollah, former Israeli National Security Council Head Giora Eiland has warned that Hamas and Hezbollah can’t be defeated and that continuing war on two fronts was not in Israel’s interests.

Violence in the West Bank also continues. On Monday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem while an elderly Palestinian man was beaten to death by Israeli soldiers in Hebron.