Tit for Tat for Tit

Last week, Friday morning we took in the world news that Israel had sent a bomb into Iran. There does not seem to be any significant damage or death, although it was in a region with a nuclear power plant. Some analysts say that Iran has downplayed the attack to avoid a wider conflict. In this line of thinking one analyst believes Iran will go back underground using its proxy groups of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi rebels (I call them the 3-H) to continue the on-going Mid-East conflict. So far, this has been a tit for tat, for tit situation.

Israel's bombing of that Friday morning (Apr 19), was a tit in response to a tat and for Iran's attack on Israel, in which it is said 90% of the Iran's 300 hundred drones were intercepted by Israeli, US, Jordanian and some European nations systems in the region. Iran claimed this was a tat, for the tit for they say Israel (Israel has not confirmed this) struck a Iranian embassy in Syria which killed some Iranian generals on Apr 1. This means, as of that Friday morning, April 19 there have been the original strike (a tit), the Iranian response (a tat), and now another tit by Israel to Iran. 

It seems that child's play is alive and well in the world of geo-politics. On Friday morning, Reuters reports that Iran has signaled no retaliation. It was, however, just the prior day that the Iranian Foreign Minister told CNN “In case the Israeli regime embarks on adventurism again and takes action against the interests of Iran, the next response from us will be immediate and at a maximum level,” Maybe the Israeli strike, while in Iran, did not damage or have a negative effect on their interests. Iran may well respond in due course, but perhaps more from a proxy, one or more of their 3-H groups. The problem with all of this is that regardless of how much care is taken war is intractable and something can easily go wrong and blow up (pun intended). 

CNN, after I started writing this, reported: "The tit-for-tat strikes have brought a decades long shadow war between Israel and Iran out in the open and sent fear coursing through the Middle East." Reuters reported on 23 April that Hezbollah had sent its deepest attack the prior day into Israel since the start of the conflict. Hezbollah claimed it was in response to an attack on one of its persons by Israel.

This proxy war has been going for over 40 years. Hezbollah was formed and funded by Iran starting in 1982, Hamas followed in 1987, and the Houthis were formed in the 1990's, although Iranian funding was thought for the Houthis is reported to have started in 2007. A 40 year proxy war has had disastrous consequences for not just Israel, but also for the United States. I am well aware of the negative consequences of this proxy war. Let me use the one example that affected our family. 

Operation Southern Watch was started in August 1992 to assure Iraqi compliance with a United Nations resolution (#688). As part of that US air force representatives took up housing in Khobar Towers, in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah and a Saudi Shia terrorist group Hejaz, (why do so many Muslim terrorist groups have their name begin with the letter H?) undertook placement of a large truck bomb just outside part of the Khobar Towers complex on 25 Jun 1996. The bomb killed 19 US air force personnel and injured hundreds more. 

My wife's brother, Captain Steven Goff, MD was among the injured, and although he had a serious injury himself, for which they wanted him to be evacuated to Ramstein Air Base in Germany for treatment, he chose to stay and treat hundreds of US personnel. For a long time, we did not know his status, although my dad reported seeing him on a news telecast. He was later hospitalized in Saudi Arabia for his chest wound. He carried shards of glass from that bombing in his body until the day of his death. You can read about his role here. 

Khobar Towers
Photo from Capt Steve Goff, MD.
Family archives

Writing in 2021 for the Brookings Institute, Bruce Riedel, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Near East, under Clinton Administration defense secretary William Perry, was in Jerusalem at the time and was travelling with secretary of state Warren Christophers, stated that: 

The plot was hatched two years earlier at the Sayyihdah Zaynab Mosque in Damascus, Syria, by three parties: Iranian intelligence, Lebanese Hezbollah, and a collection of Saudi Shia terrorist groups under various names including Hezbollah in the Hejaz....We learned later that the Saudis had considerable information on the bombers that they were not sharing. The Saudis knew of the existence of a Iranian-backed Saudi Shia terrorist organization which had been smuggling explosives into the Dhahran area. Lebanese Hezbollah was the key to the bombing. It provided the bomb maker who put the explosives together in the truck. He has never been identified.

Riedel traveled with Warren Christopher to the Dharan Air Base to meet with US personnel. I am not sure if he met my brother-in-law, although I doubt it since he had probably taken to the Saudi Hospital by the time the Christopher continent arrived. 

The Middle East has been explosive for a long time, with Iranian proxy groups doing the bidding for over forty years. No end seems to be in sight, which is unfortunate for the residents of the region, and the world. The tit for tat for tit, does not end, it continues and continues. 

Sources:

"Remembering the Khobar Towers bombing" Bruce Riedel June 21, 2021 at: 
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/remembering-the-khobar-towers-bombing/