One was to activate its regional assets – the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Iraqi militias, and the Yemeni Houthis – to join the fight in aid of Hamas, which Tehran had supported as an Islamist force and part of the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. [...] Alignment of Interests with the Arab World and the UN Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi was provided a unique occasion to participate in the joint extraordinary summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Riyadh on 11 November to present his government’s anti-Israel and anti-US case. [...] The summit’s condemnation of Israel, demand for an immediate ceasefire and disapproval of the US and allied support for Israel amounted for the first time in years to an alignment of Tehran’s interests with those of the Arab states and, indeed, the United Nations. [...] As the fighting has dragged on – already for much longer than the Israel-Hezbollah war – America has deemed it expedient to call for pauses to help secure the release of more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas, provide more humanitarian assistance to the desperate people of Gaza, and limit damage to the regional and international standing of the US. [...] For Tehran, it is not just a question of what Israel can achieve through war, but also what is likely to transpire when the conflict ends? It watches how Israel and the US – the main financial and arms supplier to Israel and also at the same time to Ukraine – will manage the exorbitant costs of the war and handle the Gazans and their kindred in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israel itself, whos.
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