Iran and Israel are involved in a seasonal exchange of shelling, rather than an all-out war. Iran does not shell Israel except in response to an Israeli shelling, as happened last April after the shelling of the Iranian consulate in Damascus and the killing of Revolutionary Guard officers. A few months ago, Iran attacked Israel in response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. To date, nor has Israel sent shells into Iran except in response to an Iranian shelling.

It is a proxy war between Iran and Israel, not a direct war, yet anyway. The Islamic Republic has not abandoned its large and costly investment in establishing, arming and financing factions, such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. The resistance factions' main role is to resist Israel and act as the first line of defence and a wall of resistance against Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who recently visited Beirut to support Hezbollah, said: "The axis of resistance represents the most important component of the strength of the Islamic Republic," adding that Tehran would not have been able to play a major regional role without these factions. Israel's war with the factions is the only alternative to striking the Iranian regime directly. Without them, Iran would be a country that does not suit what the "Khomeini Revolution" was established for. Israel's war with the factions is only the alternative to striking the Iranian regime directly.

As usual, Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu always likes to declare that "what Israel is doing will change the face of the region and its echoes will reverberate in the Middle East for generations to come". Netanyahu is not the only one who talks about reshaping the Middle East. Before him, Shimon Peres wrote about the "New Middle East," and during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke about the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." Khamenei was quick to announce his vision of a "New Middle East, Islamic, not American," led by Iran, but that did not happen.

What former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during the 2006 war was that "the real goal of the war was to confirm the power of deterrence and not to destroy Hezbollah." In other words, the Middle East could not have been reshaped even if Israel had won the war, so Hezbollah was unable to declare "divine victory."

Reshaping the Middle East does not begin with Lebanon and the war there, nor with Gaza and the war there, but rather ends in Gaza and Lebanon. It does not begin with Netanyahu's war to "strike the power of Hezbollah" after striking the power of Hamas in Gaza, but rather with a change in Iran, Israel and Turkey.

The important factor in the new Middle East is the return of the Arab role. There is a lot of regional conflict and competition between Iran, Israel and Turkey for influence in the Arab world. Beyond the regional conflict is competition between Russia, China and America to lead the new world order, that is to have a multilateral international system in place of the American unilateral system.

The Director of the American Central Intelligence Agency, the veteran diplomat William Burns saw that "the post-Cold War era ended the moment Russia invaded Ukraine." The outcome of the NATO-backed war in Ukraine is what determines the image of the new world order, and this is reflected in the regional order in the Middle East.

The mistake is the Israeli belief that major and pivotal goals can be achieved through war with Iran. In Iran's case, there is the belief that the establishment of a Persian empire under an Islamic title is possible by arming ideological factions.

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