Sovereignty Support Movement Sovereignty for West Asia
Dear Friends,
If the war in southwest Asia, AKA the Middle East, is not as hot as earlier, it is because Iran has fought the US and Israel to a standstill. The US is running low on munitions and in any case has learned that further use of those munitions will only affect Iran’s civilian population, not its military capability. The civilian population has defiantly promised to congregate on bridges and around power plants, but it would be a war crime for the US to hit them in any case.
Iran, on the other hand, has made most of the US bases and other targets largely unusable around the Persian Gulf, and even beyond. The damage is in the trillions of dollars. Israel also has had a taste of what Iran can do, and is refraining from striking, leaving it to the US. Israeli military action is now mainly in Palestine and Lebanon.
That may not be enough to avoid Iranian attack. In the MOU with the US, Iran made plain that an Israeli attack on Lebanon would elicit an Iranian attack equivalent to one on Iran itself. They recently declared the same with regard to escalation in Palestine. This puts Israel in general – and Netanyahu in particular – in a tight spot. Killing Arabs and Iranians is a measure of effectiveness for candidates in the October elections, and Netanyahu cannot afford to look ineffective. We may therefore expect further Israel attempts to eliminate the population of South Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, in preparation for annexation of these territories into “greater Israel.” Hezbollah will of course strike back, with the support of Iran, and Iran may participate with missiles and drones directly on Israeli territory.
There is also much more happening in the region. The US and Saudi Arabia have jointly conducted air attacks on the Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq, and Saudi Arabia has restarted its war with Ansarallah in Yemen, resulting in Ansarallah retaliation against Saudi Arabia by blocking the passage of Saudi oil in the Red Sea, as well as direct combat between Saudi and Ansarallah forces. Very recently, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye signed a mutual defense pact, which could potentially affect the actions of the Kurds (enemies of both Turkiye and Iran), Yemen (Ansarallah, enemies of Saudi Arabia) and Israel (Pakistan providing a nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia and Turkiye). Then there are the Kurdish Pesh Merga in semi-autonomous northern Iraq, who are enemies of both Iran and Turkiye, but relatively quiet for the moment.
Click here to donate.
SSM works to provide aid to the civilian victims in these conflicts and to facilitate respect for the independence and sovereignty of all countries in the region. At the present time, the principal violators of national sovereignty are Israel and the US, followed by the NATO countries. We appreciate your tax-deductible donations, which are currently being used to provide mainly for the more than one million refugees from the Israeli invasion in Lebanon. Please be generous.
The Sovereignty Support Movement Team
