Opinion | Why Ukraine and Gaza Are Even Bigger Than You Think

Nadim Koteich, a Lebanese-Emirati political analyst and general manager of Sky News Arabia, who helped me see the contrast between these two networks struggling to shape the Middle East, explained that the Resistance Network “is orchestrated by Iran, Islamists, and jihadists,” in a process they refer to as the “unity of battlefields.” This network, he noted, “seeks to bridge militias, rejectionists, religious sects and sectarian leaders,” creating an anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Western axis that can simultaneously pressure Israel in Gaza, in the West Bank and on the Lebanon border — as well as America in the Red Sea, in Syria and in Iraq and Saudi Arabia from all directions.

In stark contrast, Koteich said, stands the Inclusion Network, one that’s focused on “weaving together” global and regional markets instead of battlefronts, business conferences, news organizations, elites, hedge funds, tech incubators, and major trade routes. This inclusion network, he added, “transcends traditional boundaries, creating a web of economic and technological interdependence that has the potential to redefine power structures and create new paradigms of regional stability.”

So today, while the U.S. is indirectly degrading Russia’s capabilities, through its proxy Ukraine, things are different in the Middle East. There, it is Iran that is sitting back comfortably — indirectly at war with Israel and America, and sometimes Saudi Arabia, by fighting through Tehran’s proxies: Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and Shiite militias in Iraq.

Iran is reaping all the benefits and paying virtually no cost for the work of its proxies and the U.S., Israel and their tacit Arab allies have not yet manifested the will or the way to pressure Iran back — without getting into a hot war, which they all want to avoid.