The entire Middle East is now a powder keg: after Gaza, Lebanon and the Red Sea, the perimeter of the turbulence continues to extend. In the space of 24 hours, Iran first launched attacks in Syria and Iraq and then went as far as Pakistan, hunting for “terrorists” and “Mossad spies”. Provoking protests from neighboring countries and the threat of retaliation.
Tehran’s initiative is another fuse triggered by the so-called Axis of Resistancewhich since 7 October has multiplied hotbeds of crisis, challenging the Sunni “apostates” friends of the West, the Jewish State and the United States, and increasingly putting pax Americana itself into crisis.
In this seething Shiite front, Europe is looking with particular concern at the Houthis in Yemen, for the damage caused to maritime commerce by their raids on merchant ships. The looming response is a new military mission of the 27, dedicated to the protection of civilian ships.
The Iranian raid in Pakistan was conducted on Tuesday against a “terrorist group” that had “tried to infiltrate our territory to carry out sabotage”, the Tehran government said. The blitz, with drones and missiles, targeted the headquarters of Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni separatist movement from Baluchistan which is said to be hosting Iranian militiamen. Tensions immediately skyrocketed as Islamabad reported the deaths of two children and summoned the diplomatic representative of the Islamic Republic to protest against “an unjustified violation of its airspace”. Then announcing that he “reserved the right” to respond. The two governments have often accused each other of allowing rebel fighters to operate from each other’s territory to launch attacks, but some analysts say a cross-border operation of this scale by Iran is unprecedented.
The escalation between Iran and Pakistan has created alarm in Beijing, who launched an appeal to the two allied countries for “moderation”. Yet Tehran at this stage seems intent on wanting to give a signal of strength to put itself back at the center of the regional scene, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and the eternal conflict with the USA and Israel. As demonstrated by the raids in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan that preceded the attack in Pakistan. Until now the ayatollah regime had limited itself to blessing the attacks against the Jewish state by its allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Iraqi and Syrian Shiite militias.
The Houthis themselves have returned to challenge the allies of the Jewish state, stating that they will continue to strike merchant ships in the Red Sea, while the US has once again placed them on the terrorist list. And in the evening the British authority that monitors traffic in the area announced that a drone hit a vessel south-east of the Yemeni port of Aden, causing a fire which was later put out.
The security of this area will be among the priority themes of the G7 under the Italian presidency, and Rome itself is engaged with European partners to create a new naval mission to be deployed to protect cargoes. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani explained that “together with Paris and Berlin we are formalizing a proposal to present” to the other member states, and the objective is a “political green light” as early as next Monday, at the Foreign Affairs Council scheduled for Brussels. “To make the mission operational as soon as possible”, underlined the head of the Farnesina. The scheme being worked on is an expansion of the mandate of the mission already active in the Strait of Hormuz, Agenor, leaving Atalanta with the anti-piracy tasks for which it was created.
The anti-Houthi operation would have defensive tasks (unlike the Anglo-American coalition, which went so far as to attack on Yemeni soil), and the participation of non-EU allies, such as Norway, is not excluded, while the Arab countries have been invited to the Foreign Affairs Council on 22 January. Before the formal approval arrives (perhaps at the EWC on 19 February), the question of command and headquarters will have to be addressed. The desired operational and strategic continuity with the Agenor operation would allow the use of the Force Headquarters based in Abu Dhabi, while the operational Headquarters should be in Europe: Italy could be asked to host it, but nothing has yet been decided . The European procedure has its times but in the meantime there are other operational missions and above all, it is underlined, Rome has the ships of its Navy that operate autonomously in a national capacity in an arm of the sea which is so strategic also for the Italian economy .
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