Iran’s Military Muscle, Iran is flexing its military muscle issuing threats to Israel and warning the Western powers that Israel may be trying to trap them. Israel has been figuring out its diplomatic pressure as the divided war cabinet cancels a meeting for the second time in two days. The economic experts are issuing dire projections of what an Iran-Israel war would mean for the global economy.
Site the clock is ticking for West Asia all eyes are on Benin Netanyahu. Iran held a military parade in which all sorts of Iranian weapons were on display, long-range ballistic missiles, drones, and rockets the idea of this parade was quite simple to flex Iran`s military muscles to show deterrence to Israel and warn Israel not to think about attacking us.
Iran’s Military Muscle
Iranian president in his speech threatened a severe response if Israel “attacked if the Zionist régime make the slightest move to violate our territory and harm the national interest of the Islamic Republic of Iran they must keep in mind that they will face a severe and heavy response”.
In the meantime Iran’s top diplomat Seyed Mehdi HOSSEINI Matin is in London to build pressure on the West to restrain Israel “This is a good opportunity for Western countries to demonstrate that they are rational actors, and they are not going to be entrapped by Benin Netanyahu and his goals”.
This is no doubt a viable strategy the west has the best chance of changing Netanyahu’s mind because they have leverage. The foreign ministers in the meantime are visiting Israel, Britain`s foreign secretary David Cameron is in the country, similarly, the German foreign ministers met their Israeli counterparts.
Israel on the other hand is building pressure on the West to sanction Iran`s Nuclear program and to designate the Iranian Guards as terrorists. Israel displayed an Iranian Ballistic missile shot down by Israel and it was retrieved from the Dead Sea.
Israel has been able to build strategic Global opinion to build support for a counter-strike. The Iran economy is already crippled by Western sanctions and now the West is preparing more of it, both Europe and US are promising more sanctions meaning more economic pain for Iran.
Israel’s war cabinet is divided some hardliners in the cabinet want a tough response while some moderates urge restraint and a new poll reported that 75 percent of Israelis oppose counterstrike on Iran if it harms the security alliance, so the prevailing Public Opinion is against military action.
Today the Israeli forces are fighting on three fronts, there is an ongoing battle with Hamas in Gaza, in the north Israel is clashing with Hezbollah and now there is an emerging front with Iran.
In the event of a wider war in West Asia, the conflict`s biggest casualty will be the oil supplies to the region and the IMF is highlighting the risk here, the shortage of oil may make inflation worse and economies weaker.
Countries like South Korea are preparing for the worst-case scenario and South Korea is not alone in this scenario countries like India also rely on Oil imports, India imports more than 85 percent of the oil it uses almost half of it comes from West Asia which travels by the strait of Hormuz.
All the major oil importers want this Strait trade to remain open. The Strait of Hormuz has very important Geopolitical significance as its most important coke point for the oil trade however the Strait of Hormuz lies between Iran and Oman. The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf of the Indian Ocean and if Israel goes to war with Iran this route could be badly compromised.
The second fallout will be seen in the global stock market. In the past week, investors have sold over 15 billion dollars worth of American stocks and these were the shares of the biggest US companies. The conflict could impact industries like automobiles, transport, Aviation, etc.
Since 2020 , the World has endured three big shocks the Wuhan Virus Pandemic and two major wars Russia-Ukraine war and the Gaza-Israel war, the last thing we need is another setback but if Israel refuses to reserve course it may be inevitable.
