October 4, 2024
A case could be
made that Iran’s Ballistic Retaliation Night, a measured response to Israel’s
serial provocations, is less consequential when it comes to the efficacy of the
Axis of Resistance than the decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership.
Still, the
message was enough to send the Talmudic psychopathologicals into a frenzy; for
all their hysterical denials and massive spin, Iron Toilet Paper and the Arrow
system were de facto rendered useless.
The IRGC made it
known that the volley of missiles was inaugurated by a single hypersonic Fatteh
2 which took out the Arrow 3 air defense system’s radar – capable of
intercepting missiles in the atmosphere.
And
well-informed Iranian military sources stated that hackers went on heavy
cyberattack mode to disrupt the Iron Dome system just before the start of the
operation.
The IRGC finally
confirmed that just about 90% of the intended targets were hit; the implication
was that each target was supposed to be visited by several missiles, with some
getting intercepted.
It’s open to
wide speculation how many F-35s and F-15s were ultimately destroyed or damaged
on two air bases, one of which, Nevatim, in the Negev, becoming literally
inoperable.
The Iran-Russia
military entente – part of their soon to be signed comprehensive strategic
partnership – was in effect. The IRGC used the recently supplied Russian
electromagnetic jammer to blind Israel-NATO GPS systems – including those of
U.S. aircrafts. That explains the Iron Dome far off hitting the empty night
skies.
Framing Iran’s
retaliation as a casus belli
None of that
substantially changed the deterrence equation. Israel continues to bomb
southern Beirut. The pattern remains the same: whenever they’re hit, the
genocidals cry out in pain or whine like annoying babies even as their killing
machine keeps going – with unarmed civilians as privileged targets.
The bombing
never stops – and it won’t, from Palestine to Lebanon and Syria, across West
Asia, and leading to the “response” to Iran’s Ballistic Night.
Iran is in an
extremely tough geopolitical and military position – not to mention
geoeconomic, still under a tsunami of sanctions. Obviously the leadership in
Tehran is fully aware of the trap being set by the Talmudic-American Zionist
combo – which want to lure Iran into a major war.
Jake Sullivan,
one of the stalwarts of the Biden combo which is really dictating U.S. policy
(on behalf of their sponsors), considering the pathetic condition of the zombie
in the White House, all but spelled it out:
“We have made
clear that there will be consequences – severe consequences – for this attack,
and we will work with Israel to make sure that’s the case.”
Translation:
Retaliation Night is being spun as a casus belli. U.S.-Israel are already
blaming Iran for the possibly incoming Mega-War in West Asia.
This war is the
Holy of the Holies since at least the Cheney regime days – two decades ago. And
yet Tehran, if it so decided, already has what it takes to raze Israel to the
ground. They won’t do it because the price to pay would be unbearable.
Even if the
Talmudic psychos and the Zio-cons finally got their wish, a remote possibility,
this war, after a devastating bombing campaign, could only be won with massive
U.S. boots on the ground. Whatever the spin rolling on Zio-con controlled Think
Tankland/ media swamp, that won’t happen.
And still the
March of Folly proceeds uninterrupted: the Zionist Project, a U.S./Israel
deadly embrace, against Iran. But with a potent diferential: the back up of
Russia and, further behind, China. These three are the key BRICS triad. They
are at the vanguard of trying to build a new, fair multinodal world. And not by
accident they happen to be the top three existential “threats” to the Empire of
Chaos, Lies and Plunder.
With Project
Ukraine going down the drain of History, as well as burying for good the
“rules-based international order” in the black soil of Novorossiya, the real
major front of the One War, the new incarnation of Forever Wars, is Iran.
In parallel,
Moscow and Beijing fully realize that the more Exceptionalistan gets bogged
down in West Asia, the more room of maneuver they have to accelerate the
draining of the wobbly Leviathan.
Gaza-on-the-Litani
Hezbollah has a
seriously though spell ahead. Resources – especially supply of weapons and
military equipment, through Syria and by air from Iran to Lebanon – will become
increasingly scarce. Compare it to Israel’s unlimited supply chain from
Exceptionalistan – not to mention tons of money.
Israel intel is
far from shabby – as commandos went deep, in secret, into Hezbollah territory
collecting info on the fortification network. When – in fact if – they reach
populated areas in Southern Lebanon, then it will be bombing dementia plus
heavy artillery against residential areas.
That operation
might well be called Gaza-on-the Litani. It will happen only if Hezbollah’s
complex network in southern Lebanon is cracked – a major “if”.
Jeffrey Sachs,
for all his good intentions, went as far as he could to characterize Israelis as judeo supremacist
extremist terrorists. Virtually the whole Global Majority is now aware of it.
What comes next
in Talmudic-Zio-con planning may include a ghastly false flag, possibly after
the U.S. presidential election, for instance on a NATO vessel or on U.S. troops
in the Persian Gulf, to lock up the new administration into the long-planned
U.S. war on Iran. Dick Cheney will have an orgasm – and croak.
The BRICS summit
in Kazan under the Russian presidency is less than three weeks away. In sharp
contrast to genocide and serial wars in West Asia, Putin and Xi will be
standing by the – open – door on behalf of BRICS+, welcoming scores of nations
that are fleeing the collective West like the plague.
Russia is now
fully behind Iran – and as much as in floundering Ukraine, that means Russia at
war with the U.S./Israel; after all the Pentagon is directly shooting down
Iranian missiles, while Israel is the U.S.’s de facto pre-eminent state, fully,
fiscally supported by U.S. taxpayers.
It gets trickier
by the minute. Immediately after a very important meeting between Alexander
Lavrentiev, Putin’s special envoy to Syria, and Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the
secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Tel Aviv went Full
Dementia – what else – and targeted warehouses of Russian forces in Syria.
There was a
joint Russia-Syria air defense response. What that shows is the Talmudic
psychos not only obsessed on breathing fire against the Axis of Resistance but
now also going after Russian national interests. This can get very ugly for
them in a flash – and is yet one more illustration that the name of the (new,
deadly) game is U.S./Israel vs. Russia/Iran.
Javed Ali
(The Conversation) – Iran fired at
least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, amplifying tensions in
the Middle East that are increasingly marked by “escalation after escalation,”
as United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it.
Iran’s attacks – which Israel
largely deterred with its Iron Dome missile defense system, along with help
from nearby U.S. naval destroyers – followed Israel’s killing of Hassan
Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Tehran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah,
on Sept. 27.
Hezbollah has been sending rockets
into northern Israel since the start of the Gaza war, which began after Hamas
and other militants invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed nearly 1,200
people. Hezbollah’s rocket attacks have displaced around 70,000 people from
their homes in northern Israel.
Amy Lieberman, a politics and
society editor at the Conversation U.S., spoke with counterterrorism expert
Javed Ali to better understand the complex history and dynamics that are
fueling the intensifying conflict in the Middle East.
How much more dangerous has the
Middle East become in recent weeks?
The Middle East is in much more
volatile situation than it was even a year ago. This conflict has expanded far
outside of fighting primarily between Israel and Hamas.
Now, Israel and Hezbollah have a
conflict that has developed over the past year that appears more dangerous than
the Israel-Hamas one. This involves the use of Israeli special operations
units, which have operated clandestinely in Lebanon in small groups since
November 2023. In addition, Israel has been accused by Hezbollah of conducting
unconventional warfare operations – like the exploding walkie-talkies and
pagers – and launched hundreds of air and missile strikes in Lebanon over the
past few weeks. The combination of these operations has destroyed Hezbollah’s
weapons caches and military infrastructure and killed several senior leaders in
the group, including Hassan Nasrallah.
The human costs of these attacks is
significant, as more than 1,000 people in Lebanon have died. Among this total,
it is unclear how many of the dead or wounded are actually Hezbollah fighters.
Israel and Hezbollah last had a
direct war in 2006, which lasted 34 days and killed over 1,500 people between
Lebanese civilians and Hezbollah fighters. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah
have been in a shadow war – but not with the same kind of intensity and daily
pattern that we have seen in the post-Oct. 7 landscape.
Now, the conflict has the potential
to widen well outside the region, and even globally.
What does Iran have to do with the
conflict between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah?
Iran has said it fired the missiles
into Israel as retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian
military.
A coalition of groups and
organizations has now been labeled as Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” Iran’s
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, and senior military commanders in the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or the IRGC, have issued unifying guidance
to all the different elements, whether it is Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the
Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon or Shia militias in Iraq and
Syria.
Before Oct. 7, 2023, all of these
groups were ideologically opposed to Israel, to a degree. But they were also
fighting their own conflicts and were not rallying around supporting Hamas.
Now, they have all become more active around a common goal of destroying
Israel.
Iran and Hezbollah, in particular,
have a deep relationship, dating back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the
creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In 1982, Israel invaded southern
Lebanon in order to thwart cross-border attacks the Palestinian Liberation
Organization and other Palestinian groups were launching into Israel. The newly
formed Iranian IRGC sent advisers and trainers to southern Lebanon to work with
like-minded Lebanese Shiite militants who were already fighting in Lebanon’s
civil war. They wanted to fight against the Israeli military and elements of
the multinational force comprised of U.S., French and other Western troops that
were originally sent as peacekeepers to put an end to the fighting.
How does Hezbollah’s history help
explain its operations today?
The relationships between these
Iranian experts and Lebanese militants during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war led
to the formation of Hezbollah as a small, clandestine group in 1982.
During the following few years,
Hezbollah launched a brutal campaign of terrorist attacks against U.S., French
and other Western interests in Lebanon. The group, then known as Islamic Jihad,
first attacked the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983. That attack killed
52 Lebanese and American embassy employees. However, at the time, U.S.
intelligence personnel and other security experts were not clear who was
responsible for the embassy bombing. And given this lack of understanding and
insight on Hezbollah as an emerging terrorist threat, the group aimed even
higher later in 1983.
Following the embassy attack,
Hezbollah carried out the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing that killed 241
U.S. service personnel. Before the 9/11 attacks, this was the biggest single
act of international terrorism against the U.S.
Hezbollah was also responsible for
the kidnapping and murder of American citizens, including William Buckley, the
CIA station chief for Beirut. And it carried out airplane hijackings, including
the infamous TWA 847 incident in 1985, in which a U.S. Navy diver was murdered.
So, Hezbollah has a long history of
regional and global terrorism.
Within Lebanon, Hezbollah is a kind
of parallel government to Lebanon. The Lebanese government has allowed
Hezbollah to be this state within a state, but they don’t collaborate on
military operations. Currently, the Lebanese military is not responding to
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. This shows how dominant of a force Hezbollah has
become.
How damaging are Israel’s attacks on
Hezbollah?
Hezbollah has clearly taken losses
in fighters, but Hezbollah is a far bigger group than Hamas and operates on a
much bigger physical territory across Lebanon.
It has far more inventory of
advanced weapons than Hamas ever did, and a large fighting force that includes
40,000 to 50,000 regular forces organized into a conventional military
structure. It also has 150,000 to 200,000 rockets, drones and missiles of varying
range. It operates a dangerous global terrorist unit known as the External
Security Organization that has attacked Israeli and Jewish interests in the
1990s in Argentina and Jewish tourists in 2012 in Bulgaria.
The Israeli military assesses they
have destroyed at least half of Hezbollah’s existing weapons stockpile, based
on the volume and intensity of their operations over the past few weeks. If
true, this, would present a serious challenge to Hezbollah’s long-term
operational capability that took decades to acquire.
What security risks does this
evolving conflict present for the U.S.?
Looking at how Hezbollah
demonstrated these capabilities over a 40-year stretch of time, and based now
on how Israel has hit the militant group, it would not be a stretch to
speculate that Hezbollah has ordered or is considering some kind of terrorist
attack far outside the region – similar to what the group did in Argentina in
1992 and 1994. What that plot would like look, how many people would be
involved and the possible target of any such attack are not clear.
Hezbollah’s leaders have said that
they blame Israel for the attacks on it. About a week before Nasrallah’s death,
he said that Israel’s exploding pager and walkie-talkie operations in Lebanon
were a “declaration of war” and the “the enemy had crossed all red lines.”
Since then, Hezbollah has remained
defiant, in spite of the significant losses the group has sustained by Israel
these past few weeks. Questions also remain about how Hezbollah’s leadership
will likewise hold the U.S. responsible for Israel’s actions. And if so, would
that mean a return to the type of terrorism that Hezbollah inflicted on U.S.
interests in the region in the 1980s? As recent events have shown, the world is
facing a dangerous and volatile security environment in the Middle East.
John Feffer
Israel has assassinated the leader
of Hezbollah and killed many of its members by way of booby-trapped pagers and
walky-talkies. After a blitzkrieg bombing campaign, Israel once again invaded
Lebanon this week to escalate its campaign against the paramilitary-cum-political
party. Meanwhile, it continues to wage war against Hamas in Gaza. It has bombed
various locations in Syria. And it has even attacked the Houthis in distant
Yemen.
The Israeli government has never
tried to hide its larger objective: weaken the sponsor of Hamas, Hezbollah, and
the Houthis. Israel is really fighting against Iran.
At the United Nations last week,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displayed a map of the region
labelled “The Curse.” It showed a swath of the Middle East in black that
encompassed Iran, Syria, and Iraq, with outposts in Lebanon and Yemen.
“It’s a map of an arc of terror that
Iran has created and imposed from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean,”
Netanyahu declared. “Iran’s aggression, if it’s not checked, will endanger
every single country in the Middle East, and many, many countries in the rest
of the world, because Iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the
Middle East.”
Israel has not been content to
launch attacks against Iranian proxies. Back in April, Israel struck Iran’s
diplomatic compound in Damascus, killing three senior Revolutionary Guards
(IRGC) officials. Over the summer, in a brazen violation of Iranian sovereignty,
it detonated a bomb inside a guest house in Tehran to assassinate a top Hamas
leader. And in the most recent aerial attack on Beirut that killed Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah, Israel also killed a top Iranian military official,
Gen. Abbas Nilforushan of the IRGC.
These last two attacks have come
after elections in July elevated a reformer to the presidency in Iran. They
have come after Iran has given a number of indications that it is reevaluating
its unremittingly hostile policy toward Israel. They have come after the
Iranian government has showed signs of willingness to restart nuclear
negotiations with the United States.
If Donald Trump wins the U.S.
presidential election in November, Israel will once again have an ally that is
equally committed to confronting Iran, militarily if necessary.
But if Kamala Harris wins, the stage
will be set for a potential return to a détente in U.S.-Iranian relations.
Certainly, the Israeli government is
interested in weakening both Hamas and Hezbollah. Certainly, it wants to push
back against Iran on various fronts.
But perhaps the real motivation for
Netanyahu right now in attacking Hezbollah and refusing a ceasefire in the
conflict in Gaza is to goad Iran into retaliating and burying all hopes of a
reconciliation between Washington and Tehran. This week, with Iran lobbing
missiles at Israel, everything is so far going according to plan. What’s not
yet clear is whether Netanyahu will reap a side benefit of making the Biden
administration look foolish, thus elevating Trump’s electoral chances in
November.
Iran’s Restraint
Imagine if Russia had somehow
smuggled a bomb into Volodymyr Zelensky’s hotel room in Washington, DC and
managed to assassinate him on his recent visit. The United States might very
well use such an attack as a casus belli to declare war on Russia. The only
thing that could stay Washington’s hand would be Russia’s nuclear arsenal and
the potential for planetary annihilation.
Israel’s assassination of a Hamas
official inside Iran at the end of July might have triggered an all-out war—if
not for Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Of course, Tehran threatened revenge. Its
retaliation for the attack on the Iranian compound in Syria, which took place
two weeks later in mid-April, might have looked impressive: 300 missiles and
drones aimed at Israel. But only a few evaded Israeli defenses, and there were
no Israeli casualties.
Israel has an advantage over Iran in
terms of intelligence and technology. How on earth did it smuggle a bomb into
one of the most secure buildings in Iran and then trigger it at just the right
moment to kill its target? And how did it manage to turn hundreds of pagers and
walky-talkies into hand-held bombs that killed and injured Hezbollah operatives
along with many Lebanese civilians? These were intelligence failures on the
part of Iran and its proxies, to be sure, but they also reveal the patience, planning,
and technological sophistication of the Israelis.
In other words, it’s not just
Israel’s nukes that serve as deterrent.
In effect, Iran is practicing a
policy of “strategic patience.” It knows that it’s outmatched in any
conventional (or nuclear) conflict. In response to successful Israeli
operations, its feckless missile attacks on Israel have been more theater than
actual military campaign. In some cases, it has been even more restrained, for
instance, after the death of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan in January when it
instructed its allies not to escalate their attacks against U.S. targets.
In general, the successes that Iran
and its allies have had against Israel have been in guerrilla warfare.
“Hezbollah and Iran are conserving military resources and waiting for Israeli
ground forces to enter a trap inside Lebanon territory,” former Iranian
journalist Mohammad Mazhari concludes.
In its eagerness to “teach Hezbollah a lesson”
and draw Iran into a wider war, Israeli forces may just be walking into that
trap once again.
Change in Iran?
While Netanyahu beat the drum of the
Iran threat at the UN, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian took a different
tack in his speech to the General Assembly:
I embarked on my electoral campaign with a platform focused on “reform,”
“national empathy,” “constructive engagement with the world,” and “economic
development,” and was honored to gain the trust of my fellow citizens at the
ballot box. I aim to lay a strong foundation for my country’s entry into a new
era, positioning it to play an effective and constructive role in the evolving
global order.
Pezeshkian also announced his
willingness to work on reviving a nuclear agreement. What he said in private
meetings was perhaps even more important. For instance, he promised to accept
whatever agreement that Palestinians favored to end the conflict with Israel,
which presumably includes the two-state solution that Iran has traditionally
opposed because it would mean acknowledging Israel as a state.
Indeed, after replacing Ebrahim
Raisi, who died suddenly in a helicopter crash last May, Pezeshkian has quietly
charted a different trajectory for Iranian foreign policy. One important
indication is the team that he has assembled. Head of the foreign policy team
is Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in orchestrating the 2015 nuclear deal
with the United States and other countries. Javad Zarif, the face of Iran’s
negotiating team that year, is now vice president for strategic affairs. The
cabinet contains plenty of conservatives, but the foreign policy team is both
ready and experienced in the politics of détente.
Outside observers ascribe Iran’s
“tepid” response to attacks on Iranian territory and against allies like
Hezbollah and Hamas to Iran’s relative weakness. “The biggest explanation
appears to be simply that Iran is weaker than it wants the world to believe,”
writes David Leonhardt in The New York Times. “And its leaders may recognize
that they would fare badly in a wider war.”
Another explanation, however, is
that the consensus inside Iran is shifting, not simply within the political
establishment (which has swung from reformism to conservatism and back again)
but within the governing religious bodies as well. This is not a doctrinal
transformation so much as a coming to terms with different geopolitical
realities, particularly within the Middle East.
Contrary to Netanyahu’s ominous
presentation at the UN, Iran is not experiencing a massive expansion of its
influence. To be sure, it can count on support from Syria, a significant share
of Iraq’s population, and the three Hs: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. But
Syria’s still a mess, Iraq is divided, and the three Hs are reeling.
Meanwhile, Sunni powers in the
region like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey are ascendant. The Abrahamic
Accords, pushed by Trump and embraced by Biden, rallied Sunni powers like the
United Arab Emirates and Morocco to recognize Israel. Saudi Arabia was next in
line when Hamas disrupted the looming rapprochement by attacking Israel on
October 7. So concerned was Iran about the prospect of the Abrahamic Accords
cutting it out of regional geopolitics that it concluded its own détente with
Saudi Arabia in 2023 after seven years of severed relations.
World War III?
The risk of regional escalation is
large. This week, Iran fired missiles at Israel, though they have done limited
damage. Israel wants an excuse to strike back against Iran, particularly
against its nuclear complex. The United States has expanded its military
footprint in the region as a visible sign of preparedness. Although Israel has
declared that its invasion into Lebanon will be limited, the government has
generally pursued maximalist goals—the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah—even
in the face of doubts from the Israeli Defense Forces.
The Israeli government aside, nobody
wants a regional conflict. The Israeli government aside, everyone after October
7 has practiced a degree of restraint. Iran, in particular, has absorbed the
kind of punishment that rarely goes without serious retaliation in today’s
world of geopolitics. To a certain degree, it has satisfied demands both
internally and externally for retaliation against Israel without inflicting any
serious damage—like a short fired into the air in a duel. At some point,
however, Iran might feel compelled to abandon its strategic patience and take
more lethal aim at Israel.
To prevent a wider war, the Biden
administration had best be conducting non-stop quiet discussions with
Pezeshkian’s foreign policy team. Even while expressing support for Israel, the
United States has to go over Israel’s head to negotiate with Iran. Benjamin
Netanyahu is a problem that must be isolated somehow within Israel and somehow
within the region.
But how to pry Netanyahu out of his
office and put someone in his place with at least an ounce of pragmatism? The
prime minister continues to wage war because war keeps him in power. So, too,
did Antaeus draw strength from the earth until an opponent lifted him into the
air to defeat him. That is the essential question today: figuring out a way to
separate Netanyahu from war and thus deprive him of his power.
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