Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of looking for a pretext for war in his comments on Saturday. Both sides are deeply at odds, and were already having some border gunfire by Sunday.
Nasrallah had promised to retaliate against Israeli drone strikes last
week, and that came in the form of today’s border clash. Hezbollah
leaders say their commanders are ready for whatever happens next.
What happens next is almost certainly more fighting, as neither side
seems to be looking to deescalate this yet, and Israeli forces are being
added to the border in case of more fighting.
With both sides talking up their readiness, there seems to be every
reason to expect continued clashes, and both Israeli politicians and
Nasrallah will be looking to spin it to their respective advantages.
Got to have a war- Bibi needs those votes! (What was that thing that Goering said about leading the people to war?)
If Bibi loses the September elections, he goes to jail for numerous crimes. Got to have a war, got to have a war, got to have a war…
In all of these “ both sides not backing down” generalities, what seems to be lost is Israel’s obsession with Lebanon. And after who knows how many provocations, the moment Lebanon stands for itself — it is considered aggressive. We are so taking it for granted that Israel has some sort of claim on Lebanon, like it is Bibi’s inheritance. Not having ever been attacked from Lebanon, Israel is repeating the same nonsense— just attack and provoke, then provoke some more. The moment there is any military response — both sides are guilty of not backing down. The real issue is — when will this fabled “international community “ say something, do something, when Israel covets other people’s country. If US backed down from attacking Iran, Israel wants compensation. A little country like Lebanon will do.
Always love to hear Bianca’s take on things which, is often from an angle which I had not fathomed till she tells us her take. In this case, it seems just business as usual at this point. Still, one never knows when the rabbit will come out of one party or the other’s hat… though it’s deadly serious business to be sure. I
You are right. This is a deadly business, and anything might happen.
But we know that what looks like a tactical move may become strategically important. And Israel is a liability. One thing everybody knows about Israel, is the propensity to exaggerate. From the language used, extreme emotional and personally charged communications and unwillingness to negotiate in good faith — some conclusions can be made. If it were up to Israel, bombs would fly, as they did in 2006 when Bush gave Israel free hand in Lebanon.
So, the rabbits that can come out of the hat — really depend on US. Period.
Here is the problem. US would have to feel mighty confident that Israel’s run at Lebanon would not start a chain reaction in which US might lose.
The way it looks like — US has no
firm footing in any of Middle East countries. For all the appearances of alliance — not one of the Gulf countries, or a larger region, are ready to execute unconditionally US wishes. In spite of tanker sabotage — no Gulf country jumped at the opportunity to attack Iran. Not even openly point finger. Iraq will not be involved in conflict with Iran.
Turkey, still a NATO ally is openly in Iran’s corner. There is a also a strong reason to believe that Iran will be defended by Russia and China in the case of attack. Does attacking Iran looks like a solid plan? And if not Iran, does attacking Lebanon looks like a good plan?
So, back to Bibi. Will he be allowed to go as far as Bush let him in 2006? US was then at the pinnacle of power in the Middle East. Still, combination of Hezbollah ground defense, weaknesses of Israeli ground invasion, and pressure from all corners to stop the invasion and for Israel to withdraw — ended the adventure.
What about today? US has already lost in the eyes of global score-counters. First, there was a lame Georgian attempt on 8.8.2008 to take South Ossetia, ending in two Russia-supported states — South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In 2014, celebration of the successful coup in Kiev was cut short by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. On every turn, US best laid plans resulted effectively in a loss.
Not to mention prolonged attempts at taking control over Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. With stalemates all around, it looked like squeezing Iran also meant squeezing our European allies.
Then we raised global ante by attempting to quickly topple Venezuelan government. Raising the ante by starting economic warfare with China. What started as a long overdue recalibration of trade between China and US, quickly got a neocon makeover and became geopolitical entanglement. As it looks, we will be SPENDING a lots of money “countering” China or whoever, instead on economic picture.
If neocons are as jazzed as Bibi about starting trouble — who in US will have enough wisdom to take a stock. And decide that pushing a wrong button now may be a wrong idea. So far, only the fear of unknown has held them back.
“Here is the problem. US would have to feel mighty confident that
Israel’s run at Lebanon would not start a chain reaction in which US
might lose.”
Indeed.
However, if Israel and Hezbollah fight, and the US joins in on Israel’s side, the probability is that no one else will get involved unilaterally – for the same reason. No one else wants that chain reaction.
Syria – and Russia – can’t afford to get the US more directly involved in Syria. Iran can’t afford to give the US direct justification for attacking Iran – so its support to Hezbollah will be as much on the down low as possible (and as Nasrallah has said, Hezbollah already had all the armament it needs – for now anyway.)
Any actions taken by any party outside of Lebanon and Israel will have little direct effect on the conflict in Lebanon – and might cause the US to attack that party as well.
It is possible that the US may use the conflict in Lebanon to extend into Syria – or even Iran – on its own. Certainly the neocons would like to see that.
But the Pentagon, if asked to support Israel in Lebanon, will be arguing to limit the conflict to Lebanon in order not to divide its focus into a multi-front war. In particular, they will not want to have to divide their Mid-East fleet resources to supporting a war in both Lebanon and Iran.
So the probability is high that it will be the US and Israel vs Hezbollah, and everyone else will stay out of it, at least overtly.
Once that war has wound down – whatever the outcome – then the war with Iran will be ramped up. To some degree, that will depend on whether Hezbollah’s missile arsenal has been degraded sufficiently to ease Israel’s concerns about Hezbollah supporting Iran in that war.
That is the entire goal of a new Lebanon war – to take out Hezbollah before starting the Iran war. So no one – except maybe the neocons – is going to want to start the Iran war during the Lebanon war. There’s no advantage to anyone by doing that.
Very interesting. I actually believe that Israel is looking at Lebanon as a two birds with one stone — get compliant Lebanon and remove Hezbollah. And that Israel is absolutely sure that US will take advantage of the conflict to “hit Iran”, and get rid of Hezbollah.
Here are possible problems with the assumption. One, it is not that widely known in Western press, but Israel’s supporters globally, some quite renown personalities in banking, media, etc. have been advocating a complete genocide of Shia in Lebanon. The reason is — Sunni and Christians will be compliant as they are the mire affluent members of Lebanese society and have much to lose. This advocacy of eradicating Shia population is well known in the region. In Lebanon, Christians are no longer sympathizers of Western “values”, after what happened to ancient Christian community in Syria — and West praising head chopping “rebels” leaving small Christian villages to carnage and annihilation. West is pretty much dead among these people. Same metamorphosis occurred among Sunnis — who were hunted by ISIS and not helped by West either.
In Lebanon, at present Israel is talking up war with Hezbollah — but I cannot imagine Lebanese Army staying out if it if Israel actually attacks by air force and ground forces. Today, Lebanon has at the top, President, a Christian, a well liked former General, not kindly inclined to Israel, and Sunni prime minister, thoroughly humbled after Saudi adventure, and Shia Speaker of the Parliament. And Lebanon has intelligence sharing with Russia, there was talk of security guarantees.
We will know probably soon enough. If the spat ends with no more action against Hezbollah — it will indicate that Israel is not getting necessary backing. But if it does, and Israel escalates — I expect Lebanese Army to get involved. If it does not get involved — it may be for the sake of giving Israel the optics of “being decisive”, have a symbolic win.
Somehow, I do not know how can this be resolved easily given Israel’s advertised genocide plan.
If US gives Israel green light to demolish Lebanon , or force it to capitulate. I just cannot see capitulation in such charged environment. Conquering Lebanon by force would require occupation. Israel cannot do it alone without Us help. All of the above assumes that nobody moves a finger to protect Lebanon. To sum up — nobody does anything to protect Lebanon. Israel and US must occupy it — last time they bombed parts of Beirut mostly inhabited by Shia. The brutality if bombing apartment complexes is still not forgotten. This time, they will have to bomb more thoroughly and extensively. What will be the consequences to US/Israel in the Muddle East? I can tell you that no matter what the Gulf monarchies think — they will be afraid of the street. Prolonged butchering of Lebanon will not be popular at home either. Another war of choice being waged to please Israel. The whole Iranian danger story is not gaining on credibility.
In the end of all ends, it will be stalemate, with Israel not being able to subjugate Lebanon. If Lebanon ever came to the precipice of being taken over —- I am not convinced that everybody will remain on the sideline.
World wars start when a party or parties think that they are safe in their calculations — and underestimate the determination of other party not to back off.
I agree pretty much with your entire analysis.
Israel has been promising to “destroy Lebanon” in the next war for some years now. Israel still smarts from its 2006 failure. I imagine some of the Israeli military would like to finish the job, while others aren’t so interested in losing again.
The same applies to the US Pentagon. They still smart from the Marine barracks bombing. Some probably would like to support Israel because they figure Lebanon is a small country which couldn’t resist US forces such as B-52s. Others probably aren’t too keen to take on a battle-hardened insurgency like Hezbollah.
I agree that the Lebanese Army will probably join in if Israel conducts a larger campaign than last time – and Israel will have to, as you note. I’m not sure of the relative value of the Lebanese Army. In 2006 I recall reading they were pretty weak. Not sure how reinforced they’ve become since – whereas even Hezbollah today has its own tank brigade in addition to the missile arsenal and many more battle-hardened troops.
I don’t think Israel and the US will try to occupy Lebanon long-term. The risk for both is a resurgence of a Hezbollah insurgency. They really can’t genocide all the Shia effectively, it’s too large a part of Lebanese society.
Also the problem would be for the US to put a large occupation force in Lebanon while planning a war with Iran. Israel can’t occupy Lebanon by itself – it tried that and created Hezbollah as a result.
Since the real goal is to eliminate Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, there’s no real need to eliminate Hezbollah per se, although Israel would like to. From the US perspective, reducing Hezbollah to a level where it is not an effective threat against Israel in an Iran war would be sufficient.
As to the question of who would intervene, the only likely party – other than Iran – is Russia. Russia has already offered a “military cooperation agreement” with Lebanon, although I’ve not heard anything more about that. I interpreted that as a signal to Israel that Russia would prefer Israel keep hands off.
But I think Russia would stay out of it *unless* the war extended into Syria, which it could easily. If the US or Israel tried to extend the war into Syria, then Russia would have to decide whether to directly confront either country inside Syria. Russia would try negotiation first, as it always does.
But if push came to shove, I think Russia might carefully intervene with things like electronic countermeasures and tit-for-tat shootdowns based on its S-300 systems in-country. Only if Israel directly attacked Syria in a serious manner – a real air campaign or significant numbers of Israeli troops entering Syria – would Russia directly attack Israel military assets.
As for Russia confronting the US directly inside Syria, that is a harder call. Russia certainly has finessed US involvement in Syria so far, as has the US. If things got hotter, the problem for Russia is that its assets inside Syria and in the immediate area are limited compared to US forces. Taking on the US and Israel in the AO would be a tough sell for Putin at home.
The real problem of course is escalation to a strategic level between the US and Russia. I doubt Russia will risk that over Syria – and not at all over Lebanon. But the question is how far would the US – meaning the neocons – push it, thus forcing Russia to escalate. That’s where miscalculations can come in.
As for Iran intervening directly against the US in Lebanon, I remain convinced that Iran will not *overtly* engage the US in Lebanon. For one thing, other than supplying hardware and advisers, Iran has only its militias in Syria to deploy. While it could send those militias into Lebanon in support of Hezbollah, using them directly from the territory of Syria against Israeli or US forces inside Israel would escalate the war into Syria – and neither Assad nor Russia want that. I think Syria and Russia would find a way to stop Iran doing that, even at the risk of alienating Iran’s support of Syria.
And I think Iran does not want to give the US or Israel a reason to directly attack Iran. So its support for Hezbollah will be as covert as possible.
But it is possible that Iran would ignore those considerations, use its Syrian militias in support of Hezbollah, and risk problems with Syria and Russia. It’s even possible that Syria at least will allow it.
We also have to remember that Hezbollah has forces in Syria around the Golan region which are likely to be attacking Israel during the conflict, which, depending on the effectiveness of those attacks, might force Israel into a two-front war, which in turn might draw in Syrian forces. This in turn could draw in the US forces inside Syria, and then US forces outside Syria. That in turn could force Russia to intervene against either Israel, the US or both.
That’s another area where calculations become messy and may or may not act as a deterrent to mistakes.
The one fact we may be sure of is: Israel wants the US to take out Iran. To get that, Hezbollah has to go first. Otherwise the stalemate remains forever – and as you note, Israel is not happy with that. Neither are the US neocons. So someone is likely to make a mistake – just like Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria were mistakes.
Nasrallah may finally have figured out that the reason Netanyahu is willing to provoke a new war is that he has the support of Trump. I’ve been concerned that Nasrallah has been too confident that Hezbollah firepower was a perfect deterrent to Israeli aggression.
It is. But not for a combined Israel-US aggression.
Netanyahu may well have calculated that Israel can withstand a Hezbollah missile bombardment long enough for the US to respond with direct support of the US Navy in the Med and those B-52 bombers Trump send to the Middle East – which are perfect for high-altitude tactical bombing which Israel can not do itself.And that response may be sufficient to buy time for the US to send troops.
Hezbollah’s missile arsenal can destroy Israel’s economy – not by destroying all its infrastructure – that would take too long – but by forcing the Israeli population into bomb shelters 24×7. But Israel’s economy can withstand that for a period of some weeks, possibly even a couple months – time enough for the US to respond. Enough B-52 sorties with decent turn-around time could conceivably suppress Hezbollah missile fire enough to give the US time to get troops into Lebanon.
In any event, from Israel’s perspective, Hezbollah has to go to get that war with Iran started. So whether this year or later, or under Netanyahu or under his successor, war is inevitable.
You know, Germany had to defend itself, too, in 1939 when Poland attacked one of Germany’s border radio stations. Of course Germany had to fight- it had no choice as Poland sucked them into a war Germany didn’t want.
Why don’t we win the next war
Ron Ben Yishai Posted: 01.06.19
The refusal to accept soldiers ‘losses, the politicization of security, the decapitation culture of the commanders who fought in the field, the disproportionate sensitivity to the kidnappers, and the dangerous involvement of soldiers’ soldiers in the IDF. Whether it is with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria or all together – also from the next campaign We won’t win
. . .
A few days after taking office, Aviv Chief of Staff convened a brainstorming session that lasted several days with senior IDF officials. Its purpose was one: to find out and define the practical meaning of the term “victory”. In other words: what the IDF needs to accomplish in the next war so that it will be clear who won and who lost.
We will not win because the IDF is not ready for war or unable to defeat the enemy. As far as I can tell, the IDF is now strong and of high readiness in every respect for asymmetrical or conventional war on two or three fronts simultaneously. What will prevent military decision and victory (see separate article ) are social, mental and political phenomena that developed in civil society and in military-social relations in Israel after the Yom Kippur War .
https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5512754,00.html
Ron Ben Yishai interviews Joel Strick the outgoing Northern Command
4-19-19
ynet
Published on Apr 19, 2019
11:15 min
He believes the tunnel threat has been removed, but can also return. Know the number of 130,000 missiles and rockets in Lebanon, but reassuring that not everyone is targeting the home front. Major General Joel Strick finishes two years in the most explosive sector in the Middle East in conversation with Ron Ben-Yishai
IDF ombudsman presents gloomy report of military shortfalls
Published: 06.25.18 ,
In fresh annual report, General (res.) Yitzhak Brik bemoans the fact that soldiers and commanders continue to use smartphones during operations, risking unit positions, casts doubt on IDF’s readiness for next war, laments falling standards among senior staff; ‘If I read this, you would fall over.’
Yoav Zitun and Yaron Drukman|
The IDF Ombudsman warned on Monday that a new gloomy annual report which he has produced points to a plethora of shortcomings in the military’s operational capabilities, casts doubt on its readiness for a conflict in the south and highlights the subpar standards in the quality among senior military staff.
General (res.) Yitzhak Brik published what will be his final annual report as IDF and Defense Ministry ombudsman having occupied the post for a decade.
“If I read you these reports, you would fall over,” Brik said of the report whose content is not made available to the public.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5296168,00.html