{"id":91753,"date":"2024-01-20T05:58:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T05:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/sean-bell-the-west-is-now-embroiled-in-widening-middle-east-conflict-but-is-it-winnable-world-news\/"},"modified":"2024-01-20T05:58:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T05:58:03","slug":"sean-bell-the-west-is-now-embroiled-in-widening-middle-east-conflict-but-is-it-winnable-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/sean-bell-the-west-is-now-embroiled-in-widening-middle-east-conflict-but-is-it-winnable-world-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News<\/h2>\n

Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News<\/p>\n

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Warfare is a brutal and unforgiving undertaking.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

However, the primary responsibility of any government is the protection of its people and its national interests, so military capability is a cornerstone of national capability.<\/p>\n

But, military forces provide options and are a means to an end – not an end in itself – and when all other diplomatic and political options have been exhausted, the military create the security conditions in which political objectives can be realised.<\/p>\n

Middle East crisis latest: <\/strong>US destroys Houthi anti-ship missiles<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, without clear political direction, the carnage and devastation that military forces incur lacks purpose. The consequences, as are flowing from Israel’s continued ground assault of Gaza, are profound.<\/p>\n

On that fateful day – 7 October 2023 – when Hamas forces killed over 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages, the US and UK resolutely supported Israel’s right to self-defence.<\/p>\n

The resulting Israeli military response was immediate and intensive, starting with aerial bombardments followed by a continuing ground offensive.<\/p>\n

With Palestinian deaths now exceeding 24,000 and over 60,000 injuries, according to Gaza’s health ministry – two-thirds of those believed to be children – the Israel Defence Forces claims that its military response seeks to defeat Hamas and ensure the long-term security of Israel.<\/p>\n

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US and UK strikes on Yemen explained<\/span>
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However, despite most of the international community believing that the only long-term solution for regional stability is a two-state solution<\/strong>, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong> has now made clear that “Israel must have security control over all the territory west of the Jordan”. In essence, a one-state solution with Israel in control.<\/p>\n

It remains unclear how such an arrangement would work in practice without subjugation of the Palestinian people. And that does not appear to be the foundations of a lasting peace.<\/p>\n

Israel expects its military action to continue for months to come, but where is the political strategy to underpin it?<\/p>\n

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Netanyahu on ‘any future arrangement’<\/span>
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Political ambiguity is not unique to Israel. The UK and US governments are also struggling to maintain a coherent response to the crisis in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Hamas is no match militarily for the IDF, and, although the “Gaza Metro” – the labyrinth of Hamas tunnels underneath Gaza – will slow IDF progress, given time the IDF will prevail.<\/p>\n

This is why the US vetoed the recent UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate end to hostilities, ostensibly to allow time for Israel to achieve its objectives.<\/p>\n

Read more:
The deep roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Could Hezbollah-Israel clashes lead to a wider war?
How did this war happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But in the same way the US and the UK support Israel, so Iran<\/strong> supports Hamas. By supporting the Houthi<\/strong> attacks on the Red Sea merchant shipping, Iran is increasing pressure on the US to stop the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

This is an inconvenient truth for the US and UK governments.<\/p>\n

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Yemenis vow ‘earth-shattering’ retaliation<\/span>
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Indeed, the UK prime minister said the US\/UK strikes on Houthi military capability were “completely unrelated” to the Israel-Gaza conflict, rather “a direct response to the Houthis’ attacks on international shipping” and that “we shouldn’t fall for their malign narrative”.<\/p>\n

Yet hours later Lord Cameron<\/strong> met Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum where the Iranian position was made clear: stop the war in Gaza and the Houthi attacks will cease.<\/p>\n

Directing UK military forces to attack Houthi targets is a serious escalation – the use of military force to achieve a political objective.<\/p>\n

The stated UK political “end-state” is to ensure freedom of passage for maritime vessels in the Red Sea, but the only way to achieve that objective is to tackle the cause, not the symptom.<\/p>\n

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Biden: Yemen airstrikes ‘not stopping Houthis’<\/span>
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Although some form of military action against the Houthis was probably inevitable, it was also unlikely to “solve the problem”.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the continued Houthi assaults bear testament to the fact that military action is unlikely to stop the attacks.<\/p>\n

It seems very unlikely that the West could countenance a one-state, Israel-led, solution to the Gaza war, yet by providing unequivocal political support to Israel, and its intended political ambitions, the West has found itself embroiled in military action and a widening regional conflict.<\/p>\n

And one that, in the case of the Houthis, most military experts predict is unwinnable.<\/p>\n

Where is the grand-strategic political leadership? A solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will not be achievable by the main protagonists – the scars run too deep for compromise.<\/p>\n

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Analysis of Houthi attack on US-owned ship<\/span>
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However, unless international political leadership engages to create the foundations for a lasting two-state solution, the West risks being an enabler for Israel to impose its own ambitions, which will almost certainly prove untenable in the long term.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the West is now part of a wider regional confrontation without clear political objectives beyond deterring the Houthis, which appears at best a naive ambition.<\/p>\n

Where is the international diplomacy and political gravitas for which the UK was once famous? The instrument of last resort has now been unleashed, but to what end?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News Sean Bell: The West is now embroiled in widening Middle East conflict – but is it winnable? | World News Warfare is a brutal and unforgiving undertaking.\u00a0 However, the primary responsibility of any government is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7711],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7711"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}