A wider conflagration in the Middle East has been staved off, at least for now.
The direct strikes and counter strikes over the last few days between Israel and Iran may have just done enough to signal political resolve and demonstrate the military capability to attack each other while carefully avoiding the escalation of the conflict — bilateral as well as regional across the Middle East. Both sides took enough precautions to avoid major civilian targets, and communication through various channels may have given enough early warning for effective defences against the strikes. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, might have liked to escalate the war with Iran and draw the US into the firefight against Tehran. But the Biden Administration’s refusal to support that plan and Washington’s pressure to avoid retaliation against Iran’s attack did not stop Tel Aviv but appear to have tempered the nature of the Israeli response. Iran, comfortable in its proxy war against Israel, has no desire to be drawn into a costly confrontation with the US with unpredictable political consequences. A wider conflagration in the Middle East has been staved off, at least for now.
The military duel between Israel and Iran has drawn attention to a dynamic in the region that the Indian public debate barely pays attention to — the intensity of the contradictions between Iran and the Sunni Arab states. The willingness of the moderate Arab leaders to help Israel defend itself against Iranian attack — explicitly by Jordan and less so by others — underlines the convergence of Israeli and Arab interests in countering Iran’s brazen destabilisation of the region through its various proxies like the Hamas. It was this shared regional interest that produced the Washington-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, which sought to promote reconciliation between Israel and the moderate Arab regimes. It is noteworthy that the Abraham Accords have survived the horrendous Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has taken at least 30,000 lives.
India, which has supported the Abraham Accords, does not want to be drawn into the conflict between Gulf Arabs and Iran. This is not surprising given the high stakes it has in the relations with both sides. After all, both Arabia and Persia matter for peace and prosperity in the Subcontinent. That does not mean India should remain a passive bystander in the Middle East. Instead, it should put its full diplomatic weight behind the Arab plans for a two-state solution in Palestine that could find a way between Tehran’s cynical hijacking of the issue and Tel Aviv’s equally cynical refusal to abide by the promises it has made on Palestinian statehood. The Arab initiative involves several elements — an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the insertion of an Arab peace force, an Israeli commitment to an irreversible roadmap for a Palestinian state, the mobilisation of Arab resources for the reconstruction of Gaza and the West Bank, and US security guarantees for the Gulf. To be sure, the Middle East is littered with failed initiatives, but the current crises in the region may have opened some wiggle room for thinking boldly about peace. For India, the stakes in the Arab-Israeli peace today are higher than ever before.
