An Optimistic View of the War in Iran
There is no shortage of doom and gloom circulating around the week-old war in Iran. A majority of Americans currently oppose the war according to the most recent reporting. Highly-regarded experts such as Karim Sadjadpour and Vali Nasr have expressed doubts about the prospects of the war. There are no shortage of examples how both US and Israeli interventions in their neighboring countries created significant blowback and contributed to the region’s overall instability over the past several decades. The failures from Libya to Afghanistan are many and the successes are nearly non-existent. However, history is a poor guide to the future and even the experts are wrong sometimes. While I’m personally skeptical of the current conflict as I laid out in my previous post, there is value in exploring a more optimistic view of the war.
The Settlers and the Ceasefire
Today there are more than half a million Israelis living in illegal settlements built on Palestinian land. Most of these Israelis were drawn to the settlements by cheap home prices, but a significant number are vocal ideologues motivated by the concept of “Eretz Israel” or Greater Israel. When using the term settler in this post, I’m referring to this latter group. The settlers advocate for the expansion of Israel’s borders including the annexation of the West Bank, which many Israeli Jews refer to as “Judea and Samaria”, and since 7 OCT 2023 the reoccupation of Gaza. Since the 1970s, the settlers have been an influential constituency in Israel and have consistently demonstrated their ability to influence Israeli elections and policy. Over the next six weeks, the settlers will likely seek to undermine the current ceasefire and any attempt to extend the agreement to phases two or three.