Iran vs Israel covert war is now officially 'Out of the Shadows'
That's the title of a documentary I made about this long running conflict
Saturday’s missile attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran on Israel confirmed many of the warnings heard in my documentary for the BBC. The documentary is more relevant now than ever and is all about the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel’s covert war.
We are now seeing what US General Frank McKenzie warned me of when I interviewed him in the fall of 2022. He was part of the Trump administration’s decision to assassinate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Qasem Soleimani.
I was particularly interested in former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo’s ‘admission’ when I asked him about his role as the architect of Israel’s targeted assassination program.
When I first moved to Dubai in the summer of 2022 to begin working on this documentary, Israel had new international friends in the UAE and some other Muslim nations.
At the MBS/Biden Summit in Jeddah, the press corps was abuzz with talk of normalization negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia - something I asked the Saudi Foreign Minister about at a press conference, which of course was met with a public denial.
The region felt like a tinderbox.
A conversation with an Iranian regime source that summer stuck with me: he was concerned about a ‘miscalculation’ in the conflict with Israel leading to an all out war.
Arguably, the women of Iran rising up after the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police for ‘improper' hijab’ or hair covering, may have delayed the inevitable clash we’re seeing now.
Two things are new about this war between Iran and Israel/US that’s been fought since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
One is that Iran has for the first time hit the Israeli homeland directly. The other is that we finally got a view of what the Iranian regime’s non nuclear programme actually looks like.
So long as Israel’s neighbors come to its aid as they did over the weekend, an Iranian assault on Israel will be relatively inconsequential.
Everyone in this conflict finds themselves with low approval at home - from the Ayatollah to Bibi to Biden. Therefore while no one wants a war, each leader is thinking about how coordinated conflict shifts public opinion in all three countries.
In Iran, the woman life revolution calling for an end to a theocratic regime continues as the currency tanks.
In Israel, Netanyahu is struggling to avoid prison amidst a war against Hamas in Gaza.
In the United States, it’s dejavu as Trump and Biden face a presidential election rematch, with the incumbent being too close for comfort in the polls against the embattled former President.
Iran, Israel and the US are all revolutionary states and a revolutionary state needs something or someone to fight.
This has been a managed conflict for over 40 years that is now flying too close to the sun - one miscalculation can completely blow out in the open.
And it appears Iran’s miscalculation just did. This is by definition how a covert war that’s fought by spies and lies in the shadows, turns openly kinetic.
The world just got way more dangerous. This is a Cuba missile crisis moment.
Up until now, the Islamic Republic was winning the PR war via its proxies like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Khtaib Hezbollah in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.
The world had increasingly turned against Israel, forgetting the hostages taken during the Hamas attack on October 7th.
Yet in one fell swoop, the Iranian attack on the Israeli homeland unified the Arab world as many regional leaders came to the Jewish state’s defense and intercepted the missiles.
What also came ‘Out of the Shadows’ ? The extent of the Israel-Saudi Arabia security cooperation and showing what official normalization and the Kingdom’s joining of the Abraham Accords would look like.
Thank you to the Association of International Broadcasters for recognizing the importance of us tackling this topic when we did, and shortlisting it for an award along with Women Building Peace under the Presenter of the Year category.
