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West Asia: Is a major escalation unlikely?

While the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh aims, on the one hand, to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities, on the other hand, it also tries, from inside to undermine the Iranian regime. In the ranks of Iranian security and intelligence, the technique points to the enemy inside and sows mistrust and discord.

West Asia: Is a major escalation unlikely?T

he year began in West Asia with a high-profile assassination, and it seems to be ending in a similar way. On November 27, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by what is now understood to be a remote-controlled device, considered the ‘father of Iran’s nuclear bomb.’ Iran accused Israel of assassination and threatened retaliation, one of which was to attack Haifa, the Israeli port city.

Israel has both experience and courage to carry out such assassinations and has vowed to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran at all costs. To that extent, it lobbied the administration of Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, which Israel claimed was giving Iran a lot of money. Officials in Israel have also said that the world should thank Israel for having killed Fakhrizadeh.

Despite the angry rhetoric, however, going by past patterns, a full-scale war, particularly at this juncture, seems unlikely. First on January 3, when Qassem Soleimani, the chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was assassinated, the same angry war of words was witnessed, a Ukrainian jet was shot down, but there was no full blown war.

Similarly, no military action was taken against Tehran during the crisis of 2019. Instead it has witnessed more sanctions, targeting top Iranian leaders and cyber-attacks.

Iran, too, did not close, as it had threatened, the Hormuz Strait. Instead, through its proxies in Yemen, it has been targeting US bases in Iraq and oil installations in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Even after the assassination of Soleimani, Iranian attacks on US bases in Iraq took place in a way that did not result in any serious harm.

Israel, for its part, has also threatened Iranian interests in Lebanon and Syria, even after the assassination of Fakhrizadeh, but voices within Israel have always warned against a major military attack.

Thus, to see that no action escalates into a conflict, both parties have taken care.

Even if the assassination was intended to provoke Iran to intensify the conflict this time around, Tehran would want to escape such traps even more, waiting for the Joe Biden administration to take over the White House in the hope that it will return to the 2015 nuclear deal entered into by its Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, and lift the sanctions.

The UAE (as well as Jordan and Bahrain), Iran’s other regional adversary, denounced the assassination, claiming it undermined West Asian stability, fragile as it is.

Every rumour that the USS Nimitz and other warships were stationed in the Persian Gulf in preparation for a confrontation has also been softened by the US.

So what could be expected could be some more attacks by its proxies on the interests of Iran’s opponents. The Houthis, for example, claimed another vicious assault upon a Saudi base after the assassination. There are also unconfirmed claims that the UAE declaration condemning Fakhrizadeh’s assassination was made under a direct Iranian threat.

But Iran now also has to deal with Israel’s pandemic and peace accords with the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan. The pandemic has wreaked havoc within Iran and the Iranian economy has been crippled by the ongoing sanctions. More recently, the US has proposed new sanctions against China and Russian firms that have been described as helping Iran’s missile programme. After the Beirut blasts, its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, was also considerably weakened. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has gone into hiding after the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.

Most of all, while attempting to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability on the one hand, such an assassination also aims to disrupt the Iranian regime from within. Inside the ranks of Iranian security and intelligence, the approach points to the enemy inside and sows mistrust and discord, representing both its vulnerability and its invincibility. It also seeks the gradual fall of the system, combined with economic duress, whereas hardliners may be reinforced.

Therefore, it may not be inaccurate at least not before the Biden administration takes charge, to rule out any significant retaliation by Iran.

So for India, what are the implications? It is unlikely that India will be affected in any significant way unless tensions escalate into a war. However as regional realignments consolidate, there could be long-term consequences, complicating the delicate balancing act India has been doing in West Asia. But India should take care to see that there are no incidents, such as the 2012 attack on an Israeli diplomat in Delhi.

India, too is waiting for the White House to take over the new administration and its approach to Iran. For if the US were to return to Iran’s nuclear deal in 2015, it would make it easier for India to pursue its plans to expand the Chabahar Port and connectivity infrastructure to Afghanistan, Central Asia, and beyond.

From some news agency

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