The Israeli attack on Iran is not only a war between two countries but also a confrontation between two influential forces in a strategic area, both because of its energy resources and its maritime paths essential to the global economy. It is also the culmination of almost half a century of complex tensions and geopolitics.
The enmity between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran dates back to the Islamic revolution of 1979, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, who had overthrown the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi. The latter had been an ally of the State of Israel and Western powers in the region.
One of the symbolic gestures of the new Iranian government had consisted in offering the Embassy of Israel, in Tehran, to the Organization of Liberation of Palestine (OLP), directed at the time by Yasser Arafat.
The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, and the former Iranian president Hachemi Rafsandjani in Tehran. (Archives photo)
Photo : Getty Images / AFP
From the first days, the Iranians made the Palestinian question a central axis of their foreign policy. In the preamble to the Iranian Constitution is inscribed the obligation to help the oppressed
All over the world.
In 2008, the Iranian parliament adopted a law which forced the government to provide all kinds of aid to the Palestinians.
Beyond theOlpIran then developed relations with other Palestinian organizations such as Hamas and Islamic jihad.
Unlike many Arab countries, Iran does not recognize the State of Israel and judges its existence illegitimate. For its part, Israel accuses Iran of wanting to destroy it using nuclear weapons.
The current Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been carrying out a campaign for ending the Iranian nuclear program with Western governments and international bodies since the late 1990s.
The long history of the Iranian nuclear program
It was at the time of the Shah Reza Pahlavi that Iran began, in the 1950s, its nuclear program with the collaboration of the United States first, then with that of Germany.
After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, in 1979, the Islamic Republic suspended its program and only took it back after the end of the war between Iran and Iraq, in 1988.
The Iranian government has always said that its nuclear program is civil, but Westerners and Israel suspect Iran to want to secretly produce nuclear weapons.
Western suspicions have resulted in the application of economic sanctions against Iran through theHim.
The Iranian army when making missile fire during military exercises on October 28, 2023 in Ispahan.
Photo : Reuters
In 2005, the supreme guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pronounced a fatwa, that is to say a religious decree, which prohibits the production, storage and use of nuclear weapons, considered illicit under Islamic law. This decree specifies that Iran will never acquire weapons of this type.
It was not until 2013, with the arrival of reformers to the presidency of Iran, that negotiations were started between the Western powers, Russia, China and Iran.
Two years later, the parties signed a commonly called agreement JCPOAwhich supervises the Iranian nuclear program through the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA). L’Aieea Regularly conducted inspections in Iranian nuclear installations, noting that Iran was conforming to the terms of the agreement.
However, in 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and reinstated sanctions against Iran, making the agreement laid out.
As a response, the Iranians have gradually started to disengage from the agreement. Iran has exceeded the enrichment rate of uranium of 3.67 % stipulated in the agreement, reaching 60 %. The number of inspections of theAieea has also been reduced.
During the presidency of Joe Biden, discussions were started between the two parties, but they did not succeed in any results.
Since last April, indirect negotiations have started after sending Donald Trump from a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei. After five sessions, the impasse has become obvious.
The demand of the Americans, similar to that of the Israelis, to put an end to the enrichment of uranium has been vigorously rejected by the Iranians.
The day before the sixth session of negotiations in Oman between Washington and Tehran, Israel attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran, starting, for the first time in history, an open war between these two countries.
From the Iraq war to the hypersonic missile
Israel and Western countries also want to end the Iranian ballistic program. After the Iraq-Iran war, which the Iranians call Sacred Defense
which lasted almost eight years, Iran has started carrying out a missile program.
Iranian fighters during the Iran-Iraq war in 1986.
Photo : Getty Images / AFP
The country being isolated, the authorities have opted for the production of their own weapons. Western intelligence services, including the CIAsay that Iran has benefited from the help of Russia and North Korea.
From the 2000s, the Iranians began to develop a series of missiles from several categories. The country notably has short and medium -range ballistic missiles ranging from 300 kilometers to 1000 kilometers. It also develops missiles which can reach targets located 2,500 kilometers.
Iranian authorities also claim that they have designed hypersonic ballistic missiles, the speed of which would reach five times that of sound.
In this unprecedented war between two countries which are not bordering, Iranian missiles are an asset in the face of the power of Israeli aviation.
In retaliation for the Israeli attack which targeted nuclear installations and killed several commanders, Iran retaliated using different types of missiles that have reached cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa, causing heavy material damage.
One of the brains of this program was the general of the revolution guards Amirali Hadjizadeh, killed in the Israeli attack on June 13.
A network of non -state organizations
From the 1980s, Iranians favored non-state groups in the Middle East. The first of them was Hezbollah in Lebanon. Funded and armed by Iran, this Shiite movement has become over the years a major player in the region.
Lebanese Hezbollah members during a military exercise. (Archives photo)
Photo: Reuters / Aziz Taher
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Islamic jihad are publicly supported by Iran, both financially and militarily. During the funeral of General Qassem Soleïmani, murdered by an American drone in Baghdad in 2020, Ismaïl Haniyeh, the chief of Palestinian Hamas, said that General Soleïmani was The martyr of al-Quds [“Jérusalem” en arabe]
emphasizing the commitment of the Iranians to the Palestinians.
An Iraq, Husband Al-ChaabhairI (popular mobilization), born from a fatwa from Ayatollah Sistani to face the armed Islamic State group in Iraq, was supported and armed by Iran. Other less important Iraqi groups, such as Kataeb Hezbollah or Badr, are also part of the Iranian sphere of influence.
In Yemen, Iran supported the Ansar Allah movement, commonly called the Houthis, in his war against the coalition led by Saudi Arabia in support of the government overthrown by the Houthis.
Ansar Allah controls most of the country, including the capital Sanaa, while the overturned government is confined to Aden, in the south of the country.
All these organizations around Iran constitute what is called The resistance axis
which aspires to counterbalance the American and Israeli influence in the region.
In negotiations on the Iranian nuclear file, Washington and the Europeans wanted to include the question of missiles and the role of Iran in the region, which Tehran rejected.
