We must not underestimate the threat of Iran’s shadow war
3 min read
Over the past six months, Iran has launched two unprecedented direct attacks on Israel. This should not obscure the fact that Tehran has been actively seeking to destroy the Jewish state for more than four decades.
Through its support for a network of proxies – including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis – Iran’s ‘shadow’ war has claimed the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians.
We do not know Iran’s precise role in the Hamas attack on 7 October, but as the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested earlier this year: “Iran is complicit in this attack in a broad sense because they provided the lion’s share of the funding for the military arm of Hamas.”
Iran’s annual funding of $100m to Hamas and Palestinian terror groups doesn’t come out of the pockets of the regime’s wealthy elite, but from the Iranian people, who suffer under the weight of crushing inflation, poverty and shortages, and a vicious machinery of repression.
In addition to funding and arming Hamas, Iran applauded the attacks and unleashed Hezbollah, the Houthis and its proxies in Iraq and Syria. In so doing, it has spread the suffering and bloodshed which has afflicted Israel and Palestine to Lebanon and the wider region.
Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” has no interest in negotiated peace or a two-state solution. Their suicide bombing campaign sought to upend the Oslo peace process, while the 7 October atrocities were designed to slow the momentum towards normalisation with the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia, began by the Abraham Accords.
The terror troops of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seek to advance Iran’s ideological neo-colonial interests across the region.
But the Iranian terror threat spreads far beyond that. In recent years, Tehran has been linked to plots stretching from Denmark to the Netherlands and Albania to Belgium.
Iran has amassed the largest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East – some with a range that would allow them to reach Nato territory in Europe.
Meanwhile, Iran’s well-advanced nuclear programme continues apace. Its stock of enriched uranium – “without any credible civilian justification”, in the words of France, Germany and the UK last month – means its ‘breakout period’ (the time needed to make the fuel needed for nuclear weapons) has been reduced to around 7 to 14 days.
All the while, the Moscow-Tehran axis is deepening. Last month, it was confirmed that – in addition to the Shahed ‘suicide drones’ it has already supplied – Iran has shipped ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. Russia and Iran are also reportedly on the brink of signing a comprehensive partnership agreement: “A big new treaty,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov boasted barely two weeks after 7 October.
Here in Britain, the Iranian threat is multi-faceted. Earlier this year, the government said there had been “at least 15 credible threats and plots” to kill British or UK-based individuals by the Iranian regime. Journalists, dissidents and the Jewish community have all been menaced by the regime’s agents, while the IRGC is seeking to promote extremism and antisemitism by using a network of ideological centres operating under the cover of community centres, charities and mosques.
This domestic threat must be robustly countered. Last month, the government made an excellent start by unveiling a raft of new sanctions against the IRGC. There is much still to do: we need to proscribe the IRGC, ban entry permits to Iranian extremists, and identify and sanction Iranian regime oligarchs, elites and proxies in the UK.
The government has made clear that Britain will stand with Israel to repel further attacks by Iran. It is right to do so – not just to support our allies and interests in the region, but to defend national security and community cohesion here at home.
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