Iran bombs Iraq, the expert: “Tension strategy is useful for both Tehran and Tel Aviv”

Both Iran and Israel, for reasons of “internal instability”, benefit from a “strategy of tension” in the Middle East which they try to “increase more and more”, but being careful to avoid a direct clash. Pejman Abdolmohammadi, professor of International Relations of the Middle East at the University of Trento, stated this in an interview with Adnkronos, commenting on the raid conducted during the night by the Guardians of the Revolution who claimed to have hit the “Mossad headquarters” in Erbil , in Iraqi Kurdistan. A raid which, according to the expert, is also “a response” to the attack in Kerman.

Abdolmohammadi highlights how the raid on Erbil is “simply in the wake of what we have been used to seeing for a few years, namely that the sovereignty of states, with the excuse of targeting terrorist cells, is no longer respected”. The Islamic Republic, he explains, violates the Iraqi one, and so does the Jewish state in Syria and Lebanon. For Tehran, the professor reasons, striking in Iraq has a “relatively low” cost, net of the public declarations of Baghdad, which also recalled its ambassador to Iran as a sign of protest. If Iraq were to respond in another way, “war would break out in the region”, continues Abdolmohammadi, noting that both the Raisi and Netanyahu governments “do well” that tension in the region continues to rise given their ” very unstable internal situations”.

For the Islamic Republic, which until now had remained “silent” in the face of the Kerman massacre, the raid in Kurdistan is “a signal to the faithful of global political Islam and, at the same time, an attempt to mobilize that small segment of internal supporters in view of the parliamentary elections in March”. Tehran, the expert specifies, “needs consensus” and, at the same time, to avoid a “classic war” with Israel. For this reason, at least until March, he will continue to use his proxies to “keep the Middle East unstable”.

According to Abdolmohammadi, the Islamic Republic – whose real “bogeyman” is the return of Donald Trump to the White House – also has another objective. The regional fibrillations, in fact, serve to “help China and help it obtain a geopolitical gain in the Middle East” since “the stability of the area paradoxically favors the Western front more”.