South Front

The Israeli military needs over $1 billion to fund its widely promoted strike on Iran, which Tel Aviv has threatened to carry out if the US should rejoin the nuclear deal. According to Israeli sources, the military would need these additional funds to deal with the challenges that it faces including ‘threats’ from the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance.

The interesting fact is that even the IDF Chief of Staff admits that Israel is the initiator of the escalation. However, the Israeli leadership continues to insist that the Iranian threat is growing.

“In general, none of [our enemies] want to initiate anything against us. All of their actions — almost without exception — are retaliatory to our actions, not actions that they’ve initiated. And when they decide to carry out [an attack], they experience difficulties and decide to abandon their ways of acting,” IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said adding that military spending must be increased, despite the coronavirus crisis.

“The missiles don’t get sick, but they can be fired the moment the other side decides that’s what it wants to do,” Kohavi stated referring to the missile arsenal of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

It is interesting to know: Would the new US administration fund Israeli preparations for a strike against Iran beforehand or it would prefer to compensate it after the event. The second option seems to be more practical as there might be no Israel left to receive additional funding.

In any case, as of now there are no conditions to test Israeli readiness to really attack Tehran. Whether the Biden administration will rejoin the nuclear deal is still in question. Iran argues that it would reject any preconditions and the deal could only be considered to be restored after the lifting of all the imposed sanctions.

Meanwhile, the main side suffering are the Gulf allies of the Israeli-US bloc. The new Iranian-backed group, which claimed responsibility for the recent attack on the Saudi capital, issued a threat to the United Arab Emirates. On January 27, the Righteous Promise Brigades released a poster showing a drone attacking Burj Khalifa in the Emirate of Dubai. Rising to 829.8 meters in height, Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest structure and building.

“The second blow will be on the dens of evil in Dubai, with the help of the Almighty, if the crimes of Bin Salman and Bin Zayed are repeated,” the statement reads. The RPB said its attack on Riyadh was a response to the January 21 bombings in the Iraqi capital. ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. However, the Righteous Promise Brigades blamed Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The threat to the UAE indicates that the attack on Riyadh was not an isolated incident and the group is likely planning more attacks on Gulf monarchies that are in conflict with Iran.