Will Israel Iran crisis escalate out of control?
As simmering tensions between Israel and Iran explode in a barrage of missiles and drones, Krishnan Guru-Murthy talks to journalist Jonathan Rugman and RUSI's Middle East Security expert, Burcu Ozcelik about whether the conflict might escalate.
After a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and military leaders including the head of the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed, Iran has retaliated with 100 drones fired into Israel with more promised.
So what will Israel's next move be with Prime Minister Netanyahu saying strikes could continue 'for as many days as it takes?'
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Scotsman
36 minutes ago
- Scotsman
I've experienced nightly attacks by Iranian drones and their despotic regime deserves no sympathy
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... They say never to judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. You might also want to hold off on judgment from what I'm about to say until you've lived under bombing yourself: Israel and the United States were right to bomb Iran, it's only a shame they didn't achieve more substantial results. I'm saying this as someone who's endured night after night of attacks by Iranian Shahed drones in Ukraine. Before the pearl-clutching becomes too constricting, let me reassure you that this is no revenge fantasy, or an expression of hatred for the Iranian people. They have languished under the regime of the mullahs for too long. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The regime itself, however, is as cartoonishly evil as it gets and deserves no legitimacy, or sympathy. Its malign influence extends far from Tehran to Kyiv and even Edinburgh. Iran has supplied Shahed type 131 and 136 drones to Russia since the autumn of 2022 with the full knowledge that these weapons would be used to target civilians. They have limited battlefield use and are weapons of pure terror, much like the German V1 and V2 rockets during the Second World War. The aftermath of a drone strike in Kharkiv on May 30 (Picture: Sergey Bobok) | AFP via Getty Images Dreading the late-night lawnmower Regimes like Iran's and Russia's should be fought, and any action towards their overthrowing should be welcomed, even if it comes from quarters unpalatable to the Scottish body politic, like Israel. Justification for the regime's overthrow for its actions against its own people and in the countries of the Middle East abound; its actions in Ukraine are reason enough too. Since 2022, Moscow has launched 28,743 Shahed-type drones against Ukraine — with 2,736, or roughly 9.5 per cent, fired in June this year alone. Though many are now manufactured in Russia under the name Geran 1/Geran 2, Iranian design, manufacturing and maintenance expertise remain vitally important to their operation . Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Imagine lying in your bed late at night, you've heard the air-raid siren go off but you're shattered, sleep-deprived from previous air raids or hot nights without electricity. You drift back to sleep, until the loud cracks of anti-aircraft fire wake you up again. Then you hear the growl, a buzzing noise overhead that sounds like a lawnmower on its last legs. That's the Shahed, and if you can hear it, it's very close, maybe even over your apartment building. As awful the sound is, in that moment you pray you continue to hear it, because if it suddenly cuts out that growl might have been the last thing you ever hear as it drops on top of you. That is the reality of living under Shahed drone attacks, a reality that most Ukrainians have had to face for three years now. Thousands have lost their homes, their loved ones and their lives as a result of this terror bombing. Airstrikes or any other form of military campaign that halt Iran's support for Russia, even incrementally or momentarily, or result in the regime's eventual downfall, should be welcomed. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shahed-136 'Kamikaze' drones like this one have been used extensively to attack Ukrainian cities in a way reminiscent of the Nazis' use of V2 rockets to attack London during the Second World War (Picture: Anonymous / Middle East Images) | Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Iran's interference in Scottish politics Don't feel any sympathy for its wretched government; you are an enemy or a target for manipulation as much as any Ukrainian. The fact that a number of pro-independence X accounts mysteriously went dark after an Israeli airstrike on June 13, which caused an internet blackout that affected 95 per cent of national connectivity, should not come as a surprise. Iran sees us as a target whether we're nationalists or unionists, their aim is to merely stoke division. With that being said, and while I wouldn't be surprised if some fringe pro-UK accounts are also run by the regime's security forces, Iranian interference in Scottish constitutional matters would be welcomed by some on the pro-independence lunatic left, the types for whom Scottish identity is merely a means to an end, an extension of class warfare. Believers in mere 'whataboutism', where any cause, any regime and any atrocity can be justified so long as it is ostensibly opposed to American imperialism or the dreaded 'Zionists', this leftist fringe is no stranger to supporting Iran. One of its darlings, former British diplomat and Israel-obsessed grievance-grifter Craig Murray, is well known to the regime's state media . This is the same Murray who has backed Putin's invasion of Ukraine, claimed the Ukrainian state tolerates a 'current strain of Nazism in Ukrainian nationalism', and regurgitated the baseless lie that Russian language speakers in the country's east were being subjected to genocide. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Such views are a calumny, demonstrably false and ridiculous as anyone who has actually been to Ukraine can attest. Murray also believes that despotic regimes like Iran are entitled to defend themselves, while countries like Ukraine are apparently not. Such views are those of a fringe, granted, and are demonstrably false and usually motivated by either ill-placed grievance or attention-seeking behaviour, but nonetheless, they are there. They represent the very worst of Scottish politics, a hateful cancer on the independence movement that distorts truth to suit their own aims. That Iran facilitates the terror bombing of one country, Ukraine, while supporting malcontents in ours who condemn the victims of that terror as Nazis, highlights the unscrupulousness of both. Do not give Iran, nor its stooges, any of your sympathy, wherever they may be. The country's leaders are happy to weaponise social media manipulation and bad-faith actors in our body politic, and any time they receive a bloody nose should be welcomed. Wait until you've lived under a Shahed's growl before you think otherwise.
NBC News
12 hours ago
- NBC News
As dust settles on Iran, Israel focuses on diplomacy with Mideast neighbors
TEL AVIV — As the dust settles on Iran after unprecedented Israeli and American attack s, the U.S. and Israel have shifted their focus toward an ambitious diplomatic push they hope will translate into the kind of enduring political stability that has evaded the region for decades. Despite apparent Iranian unwillingness, President Donald Trump is pushing for more talks with Tehran about its nuclear program. But Israel appears more interested in formalizing diplomatic relations with some of its long-standing adversaries, as well as ending the 18-month conflict in Gaza — which Trump has repeatedly pleaded for. 'This victory presents an opportunity for a dramatic widening of peace agreements,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Thursday. 'We are working on this with enthusiasm.' The previous Trump administration brokered what it called the Abraham Accords, in which Israel established diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and later normalized its relations with Morocco in 2024 and Sudan, though that deal has yet to be ratified. Having devastated the powerful, Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, its northern neighbor, and seen a Tehran-friendly regime toppled in Syria to the east, Israel is now interested in establishing formal diplomatic relations with both countries, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday The shift represents a broader change in Israeli policy toward its neighbors. Until around two weeks ago, Israel's modus operandi was to assert military dominance as a political strategy, according to Michael Oren, who served as the country's ambassador to the U.S. from 2009 to 2013. 'Now it's the first time that I've seen in history when we have the opportunity to make the strategy the strategy. It's not a tactic,' Oren, a former member of Israel's Knesset, or parliament, who served as deputy minister in the prime minister's office, told NBC News in a phone call on Friday. Before the Hamas-led terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel relied on a method known in Hebrew as 'mowing the grass.' The term was used by strategists to describe the country's periodic attacks against Palestinian militants and their supply of weapons in Gaza, attacks that faced widespread criticism from rights groups often because of the disproportionate number of deaths caused by Israeli forces. The phrase could also apply to Israel's behavior toward Iran and its proxies in taking out military commanders, nuclear scientists and senior advisers to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while attacking nuclear and military sites. In Lebanon, it has wiped out large swaths of Hezbollah's leadership. Today, Netanyahu's most formidable challenge will be finding a resolution to end the conflict in Gaza, where, despite nearly 20 months of war, Hamas remains nominally in control. Under pressure from Trump, who on Truth Social on Sunday again called for a 'deal in Gaza' and to 'get the hostages back,' the negotiations are also still captive to the same disagreements that have long delayed a deal. Hamas has refused to release its remaining hostages and surrender — key demands of far-right members of Netanyahu's government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, his national security minister, both of whom have threatened to quit and bring down the fragile coalition if he does otherwise. Along with other lawmakers they have also called for the complete destruction of Hamas. Hamas, meanwhile, has demanded a permanent truce, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and guarantees about humanitarian aid. The decline of power in Iran, Hamas' primary patron, will likely sap the group's confidence and influence, according to Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research center. 'From an Israeli standpoint, this is a dramatic shift in the acceptance for the Jewish state in the region,' added Plesner, a former member of the Israeli parliament. But he cautioned that as long as Hamas is the governing body in Gaza, a deal to end the war there 'will be something that is possible but it will be very difficult for the Israeli government to swallow.' For now, Israel is in the ascendancy: Iran's nuclear program has been badly damaged, its 46-year-old Islamic regime is weakened and its proxy groups and allies throughout the region have been extensively damaged. Perhaps most important is that while the Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran were publicly criticized, they were also quietly welcomed by its Arab neighbors, many of whom were quicker to condemn Iran's reprisal attack on the U.S. military base in Qatar than the American attack on Iran. For decades Iran has fostered allied regimes and proxy militia throughout the Middle East in order to fight Israel, its major ally in the region, the United States, and Shiite-majority Iran's adversaries among the Sunni-led Gulf kingdoms. Israel will now need those states to blaze a path toward an enduring peace, analysts said, or risk inflaming regional conflict even more. 'I think we see imperial Iran is in retreat,' Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an associate professor of political science at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, said in a phone interview last week. 'It probably means a more stable Middle East, a more stable region.' Israel and the United States would do better to cultivate what Abdullah described as an 'Axis of Moderation' of monied Gulf Arab kingdoms, many of whom have normalized relations with Israel — a play on the 'Axis of Resistance' used to describe Iran and its regional proxy groups that Israel has largely defeated. Israel has nonetheless made clear its intention to continue attacking Iran's nuclear program should a perceived need arise. And in Gaza and Lebanon, it has continued to launch regular strikes against what it says are militant targets long after ceasefires were put in place. But Trump, whose angry outburst appeared to rein in an Israeli strike on Iran after he declared a ceasefire in the region, has shown he is capable of halting Israel's responses. Oren said this could help pave the way toward lasting stability by restraining Israel's more militant instincts. 'The difference between tactics and strategy is in the hands of Donald Trump,' Oren said. 'To the greatest extent in Israel's history, our fate is in the hands of one person, and it's not the prime minister.'
Metro
15 hours ago
- Metro
IDF kills women and children in Gaza beachfront café bombing
Israel unleashed one of its largest bombardments in weeks, killing at least 58 people, including a cafe filled with 20 people. Women, children and one journalist were killed while in a beachfront cafe in Gaza City, according to medics on the ground. Israel has claimed they were striking militant targets in northern Gaza in their latest attack. Airstrikes continued in northern Gaza, targeting at least four schools after previous orders were issued to Palestinians who had been sheltering inside. 60-year-old Salah, a father of five from Gaza City, told Reuters: 'Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like an earthquake. More Trending 'In the news, we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground, we see death, and we hear explosions.' Earlier today, the IDF killed at least 22 people and wounded 20 others who were trying to get food aid in southern Gaza. Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received the bodies of 11 people who were shot while returning from an aid site associated with the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund in southern Gaza on Monday. It's part of a deadly pattern that has killed more than 500 Palestinians in the chaotic and controversial aid distribution programme over the past month. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: 'Death to America' chants ring out at funerals for Iranian military commanders MORE: Streeting tells Israel to 'get your own house in order' over Glastonbury criticism MORE: I'll be watching Kneecap's prime time Glastonbury set – they deserve to be there
