Sir Richard Dearlove’s neocon bastion at London’s Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is gung-ho for the U.S. and Israel to take out Iran. The HJS chief ideologue churning out calls for this policy is Barak Seener, an early founder of the HJS, now its Senior Research Fellow, whose career included stints as Middle East expert for Dope, Inc.’s HSBC and the Crown’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Seener penned a piece published July 25 in the Jewish Chronicle arguing that rapid, pre-emptive military action is required against Iran itself. In his perverted view, responding only against Iran’s proxies will encourage those proxies to “encircle” Israel, preparatory for a multifront war against it for which Iran might provide “a nuclear umbrella.”
Seener writes that he had laid out what has to be done in his May 30, 2024 HJS report on “Restoring Deterrence: Destabilizing the Iranian Regime.” He sums up its message: “Making the de-escalation of tensions a priority and overlooking Iranian aggression only contributes to Iran escalating tensions. Given the association of Iranian proxies with the regime itself, the U.S. and Israel need to be willing to target nuclear facilities, drone factories and IRGC bases on Iranian soil. As such, Israel should expand its power projection with the aim of destabilizing the Iranian regime and preventing it from hiding behind its proxies.”
That “Restoring Deterrence” study, in turn, picks up from a longer study published by the HJS on Feb. 22, 2024, arguing for “Unfreezing the Abraham Accords: A New Transatlantic Strategy for Greater Peace, Stability and Integration in the Middle East.” Seener authored that screed, too.
