Iran and its Hamas proxy have been emboldened by Western weakness: Hybrid warfare expert BOB SEELY explains how Tehran’s tentacles are spreading remorselessly through the Middle East

Violence in the Middle East is back with a vengeance.

The timing of the violent attacks by Hamas was sparked by an attempt to exploit bitter internal divisions in Israel, but at a deeper level, the attack was driven by Hamas’s overlord, Iran, a theocratic Shiite Muslim state embroiled in a struggle for power and influence throughout the Middle East.

Yesterday’s attack was clearly months, even years, in the planning.

The funds for its execution and the technology for the missiles almost certainly came from Iran, which has proxy forces throughout the region.

The chilling thing is that Tehran’s tentacles are relentlessly spreading as the regime supports other terrorist groups in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

Iran’s mullahs, reviled by many outside Iran but also by many Iranians fed up with despotism, want to destabilize relations between the Sunni Muslim world and Israel. Recently, these relations have improved.

It is in all of our interests for the Arab world and Israel to settle their differences, however difficult that may be, not only because that would bring peace, a good thing in itself, but also because we need to reach out to states across the people to encourage and support democracy.

Iran is an ally of Russia and Russia is an ally of China. All three are deeply hostile to the West and wish to undermine the international order: Iran by destroying peace between Israel and the Sunni world, Russia by destroying Ukraine and challenging the West through hybrid warfare, and China by threatening Western interests in Peaceful, especially destabilizing Taiwan.

Without a doubt, Iran’s military development is supported by Moscow, which, in turn, needs Iran’s drone technology and uses hundreds of Shahed drones to attack military and civilian targets in Ukraine.

As Russia is doing in Ukraine, Iran-backed Hamas is using medium-range missiles to make life hell for civilians in Israel. This technology is becoming cheaper and more readily available. Every few years, Hamas becomes more sophisticated in its targeting, while the payloads the missiles can carry grow.

The most troubling risk is that these capabilities will become a threat – not only to life but to Israel itself – especially if Iran develops its own nuclear bomb, which some believe is only a matter of time.

Against this dangerous background, in addition to military prowess, Iran and its proxy Hamas have been emboldened by the perception of Western weakness.

This is exemplified by the White House under President Joe Biden, a man whose political grasp and intellectual acuity do not inspire confidence.

The 80-year-old’s sense of decadence has been reflected in a series of events: America’s acrimonious withdrawal from Afghanistan; the one-sided agreement to release American hostages held by Iran in exchange for colossal payments, and the friction in US relations with Saudi Arabia.

Iran sees all this as evidence of Western vulnerability and is willing to test us.

We should not be tired.

Any retreat in the face of violence and intimidation would be fatal to our interests and bad for our alliances. Here is what we need to do. First, support Israel and ensure that Iran does not succeed in undermining the normalization of relations between Israel and other Middle Eastern nations.

Second, there needs to be more – and public – discussion about what will happen if or when Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

Given the vicious irresponsibility of Iran’s mullahs, such a moment in history would be massively destabilizing in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The Saudis would either demand nuclear guarantees or get their own bomb from Pakistan.

Would Europe side with the US or would Iran’s mullahs be allowed to blackmail the world?

Thirdly, we in Britain need to think about missile defense as a matter of urgency. What we have seen in Ukraine, and now in Israel, is the growing importance of missile defense and the growing threat of mass missile attacks, especially given the new role of drones in warfare.

Finally, we need a much stronger response to Iranian threats of violence in the UK, both against the Jewish people and against Iranian dissident groups threatened with intimidation or assassination by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Indeed, our government should ban the IRGC immediately.

Britain is far from the Middle East, but Cyprus, which hosts British military bases, is not. Neither do our allies in the Gulf.

The technology that Hamas uses comes from Iran – and Iran has many other counties in its sights like Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Make no mistake, what is happening in Israel and Ukraine is a serious warning to us.

BOB SEELY is the MP for the Isle of Wight.