On June 28, 1914, as Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie passed through a street in Sarajevo, a small group of Serbian nationalists threw a bomb at their car. The couple narrowly escaped death when the bomb bounced off their car and exploded under the vehicle next to their carriage.
But this wasn’t the end of what was to come on the fateful day. As the royal couple drove to the hospital to visit an officer wounded in the bomb attack, Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old nationalist whose group had earlier targeted the couple, managed to fire two shots that killed Ferdinand and his wife.
That assassination has reverberated through history and is generally considered to have started World War I, including that funny line from Blackadder’s Private Baldrick who said to Captain Blackadder that he (Baldrick) had “heard that it [the war] started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ‘cause he was hungry.”
The fact is that Ferdinand’s assassination only lit the fuse. Europe was already a powder keg ready to explode.
Ironically, the sympathetic detonation was caused by a system of entangled alliances meant to prevent a war. How and why those alliances came into being is a detail too complicated (there are a number of great books on the subject). For present purpose it’s enough to say that because of rising nationalisms, colonial pursuits by European states for resource accumulation and traditional rivalries and territorial ambitions, Europe’s great powers had ended up creating two competing alliances on the eve of WWI — the Triple Alliance (central powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, Russia and France).
This Bismarckian system purported to create a balance, but as Glenn Snyder wrote in his book, Alliance Politics, “Alliances… do not override or modify anarchy; rather, they are instruments for prosecuting conflict-in-anarchy, for meeting an external threat more effectively than could be done by their members individually.”
In other words, create a balance of forces and capabilities. Yet, as noted above, an incident in a fraught situation, as happened in Sarajevo, can cause a donor explosion which can start a chain reaction through other receptors.
Let’s fast forward to July 31, 2024.
As Hamas’ Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh entered his room in a guesthouse in Tehran, an explosion killed him and his bodyguard. The guesthouse is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Part of a large compound called Neshat, it is located in an upscale neighbourhood of northern Tehran and is protected by the IRGC.
Netanyahu has also made plain, as he did during his speech to the United States Congress, that Iran sits at the apex of the Axis of Resistance and must be neutralised (that speech is a good insight into his approach). He has been spoiling for a war with Iran since long, a war in which Israel could drag the US (as Israel did in Iraq) and destroy and weaken Iran’s capabilities.
A day before, on July 30, Hezbollah’s top military commander Fuad Shukr was assassinated by a missile fired from a drone. Israel claimed that hit even as it has remained quiet on Haniyeh’s assassination.
The same day Haniyeh was killed, Israel’s Occupation Forces claimed that a strike in the al-Mawasi area of Gaza three weeks ago had taken out Hamas’ top military commander Mohamed Deif. Hamas and the Al Qassam Brigades have not accepted or denied the claim.
These targeted strikes have pushed the Middle East closer to the brink of a wider and escalatory war. Consider.
From the very beginning of Israel’s savage war on Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s right wing prime minister, has shown no inclination to seek peace. This is a matter of record. He has consistently spoken of two war objectives: complete destruction of Hamas and safe return of captured Israelis.
In reality, as daily demonstrations in Israel show, his primary objective is to destroy Hamas and prolong the war. If that means more hostages dying, so be it. Over the past four to five months, Netanyahu has also increasingly relied on finding and neutralising specific targets. This is where the interagency coordination between Mossad and Shin Bet has delivered some solid results.
Future information will likely corroborate this but it appears that the campaign to find and target specific Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian leaders and commanders is being run on a parallel track and directly through Netanyahu’s office to avoid organisational stovepiping, increase decision speed and ensure secrecy. These tactical successes seem to have helped Netanyahu politically too. However, they also threaten a strategic conflict — we saw that on April 13 when Iran attacked Israel following the latter’s illegal air strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
What are Netanyahu’s objectives? On the domestic front, he has to survive and also strive to outcompete his political competitors. The success of these find, fix and finish missions could help him politically and force his detractors to fall in line with his policy. In Gaza, his objective is to continue to apply genocidal pressure on the population to break Hamas’ will to fight.
In the north, he is applying pressure on Hezbollah by taking out senior Hezbollah commanders and leaders. It’s a delicate balance. He knows that Hezbollah can inflict more pain on Israel than Hamas could. Equally, however, that Hezbollah will have to factor in a major Israeli retaliation, possibly worse than in 2006. Netanyahu seems to believe that that threat is a potent deterrent.
Netanyahu has also made plain, as he did during his speech to the United States Congress, that Iran sits at the apex of the Axis of Resistance and must be neutralised (that speech is a good insight into his approach). He has been spoiling for a war with Iran since long, a war in which Israel could drag the US (as Israel did in Iraq) and destroy and weaken Iran’s capabilities. The Israelis also estimate that the window for savagery will close once Iran acquires a nuclear weapons capability.
Haniyeh’ assassination is a deliberate act to signal to Hamas that there will be no peace deal and the only way to stop the war is for Hamas to surrender. In his speech to the US Congress, Netanyahu also lay down his post-war map and subsequent developments indicate the US is pursuing that day-after map. In the face of US pressure Netanyahu has shown that he is not a pliant customer and believes that he can mould the US policy by staying firm.
Haniyeh’s assassination is also a signal to Iran — you (Iran) cannot deter Israel. Israel can neutralise targets on Iran’s soil at will. Put another way, Israel has thrown the gauntlet to Iran by humiliating Tehran and the IRGC in their own backyard.
So what are Iran’s options? The Supreme Leader has already vowed revenge; he has also asked Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel and not necessarily only military targets. That means Iran and its affiliated groups are poised to take action or take a series of actions.
It is important to flag that no matter how one slices the assassination operation (whether an IED that was activated remotely or a short-range surface-to-surface projectile as the IRGC claims — highly unlikely), it points to Israel’s penetration of IRGC and Quds, and the ability of the executors to receive real-time, dead-on information on Ismail Haniyeh’s movements.
Iran knows this. Having earlier attacked Israel following the latter’s illegal strike on Iran’s consulate that killed seven IRGC officers, Iran is now in a commitment trap. If it doesn’t retaliate, it loses even more face; if it retaliates on a big scale, it will be blamed for initiating a wider and escalatory war.
So what are Iran’s options? The supreme leader has already vowed revenge; he has also asked Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel and not necessarily only military targets. That means Iran and its affiliated groups are poised to take action or take a series of actions. The question is, what kind of actions: specific targeting of top Israeli officials, targeting of infrastructure or a broader attack.
Specific targeting will be the best option because it is precise, shows penetration of the enemy’s inner sanctum and boasts intelligence fidelity. But precisely for these reasons it also requires top shelf human intelligence wedded to technical means of execution in real-time. Whether Iran or its affiliated groups have that capability is a moot point. In other words, that’s the best option but we don’t know if Iran can pull it off.
The other is targeting infrastructure or a bigger attack. Israel would rely on its three-tier air defence system to prevent damage. But that system can be overwhelmed. If the missiles and drones cause much damage on the ground, Israel will have no option but to respond. And the US, willingly or unwillingly, will be dragged into the conflict. That would be a big win for Netanyahu.
One other option could be striking Israeli interests on a third party soil. That option would be the worst for obvious reasons.
Beyond lies the unknown. But Netanyahu appears to accept the risk and has already played his hand.