October 14, 2023: The October 7th Hamas attack on Israel was an embarrassing failure of Israeli intelligence services. One reason for the surprise was that the planning did not involve a lot of foreign supporters. It was apparently just Iran, quietly increasing its supply of guided rockets, munitions and training personnel.

There was no material support by Russia, but there were compliments and cheerleading. Hamas leaders have had several meetings with Russian officials in the last few years. Some of these meetings took place in Russia while others took place in Iran. While Israel visibly refrained from any involvement with the Ukraine War, Russia is losing that war and needs a distraction that Hamas was eager to provide because it already had something under development with Hamas.

Iran, North Korea and Russia are unlikely, dysfunctional but often useful allies. It’s all these three have. To the rest of the world all three are outlaw states that are shunned, sanctioned and scorned, but feared because these three are considered capable of anything. All three have aided Hamas, but do not seek to emulate the death-wish strategy Hamas is currently employing. Nations have some responsibilities, but the Hamas failure to attain any semblance of nationhood led to its current atrocious behavior. This is why Hamas was not ready for nationhood.

Western nations have more balanced attitudes. They voiced support for Israel against Hamas but continued sending their military aid to Ukraine. Israel is not short on weapons or military capabilities. The Americans had a carrier task force in the area and ordered it to position itself off southern Lebanon as a warning to anyone in Lebanon that invading Israel was a very bad idea.

The Israeli military is one of the best in the world and not in need of the kind of aid sent to Ukraine. Israel needs more cooperation from its Arab neighbors and further Israeli economic cooperation depends on some Arab diplomatic and intelligence support. The Hamas attack was a major intelligence failure for Israel and the Arab neighbors realize that this was an Iranian intelligence victory. If Iran could do this again it would most likely be used against one of the Arab states that oppose expansion of Iranian influence in the region. Expending Hamas to accomplish this attack on Israel reminds Arab states that it could happen to them. Iran is a common enemy or threat to Israel, Arabs and Turks.

Now Russia has approached Iran about the purchase of Iranian Fateh 110 short range ballistic pasting missiles.