Some US officials are concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might see an expanded war in Lebanon as key to his political survival, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Polls show the majority of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign once the campaign in Gaza is over, giving him the incentive to continue the slaughter and escalate the situation into a regional conflict that draws in the US.
Hezbollah and its leader Hasan Nasrallah, on the other hand, are not seeking a wider war, according to the US officials who spoke with the Post. But the two sides continue to trade significant fire across the border, which has increased since Israel escalated the situation by launching a drone strike in Beirut last week that killed a senior Hamas official.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed Wissam Hassan Tawil, a top Hezbollah commander, escalating the situation even further. Israeli officials also continue to threaten a major war in Lebanon if Hezbollah does not move back from the Israeli border.
In his latest threat, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel could “copy-paste” the destruction in Gaza into Beirut. Gallant has said Israel’s open to diplomacy, but US officials concede a deal with Hezbollah is unlikely as long as Israel is still slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza.
An intelligence assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that if the situation in Lebanon does escalate, Israel would have a hard time-fighting Hezbollah. The Post report reads: “A new secret assessment from the [DIA] found that it will be difficult for Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to succeed because its military assets and resources would be spread too thin given the conflict in Gaza.”
The report said the US is putting pressure on Israel not to escalate the situation, and that will be part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks while he visits Israel on Tuesday. But the Biden administration is not using its leverage as it’s still providing Israel with unconditional military aid and backing in the region.
US officials told HuffPost that they believe President Biden’s policy of unconditional military aid to Israel could embolden Israel to expand in Lebanon and lead the US into a major Middle East war. “Every scenario shows this would escalate into something terrible… whether in terms of counterterrorism or war with Iran,” one official said, citing Pentagon war games.
I sure as hell hope this sh-t calms down. I am not prepared to get my ass nuked for AnyOne.
Better plan a one-way trip to South America and have an open ticket, then. Because if the Mid-East doesn’t do it, there’s still Taiwan which is almost a guarantee and Ukraine hasn’t entirely finished yet, either.
Yes, that’s a critical point. Washington backing or no, should BB face military disaster he would reach for his big gun. So unless Hezbollah can take it out at the get-go. ….??
What is the “big gun” and how would Hezbollah take it out at the get-go?
Nukes. And Hezbollah has no answer.
Proximity to ASI territory, and favorable winds, being Hezbollah’s best hope against ASI atomics.
“ASI” ??
Please.
Good question. I don’t think he talking about an Air Speed Indicator.
Oh, sorry – ASI stands for Apartheid State of Israel.
I tend to use full, proper names when I can, i.e. IRI = Islamic Republic of Iran, KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, RF = Russian Federation, EUWSoWU = European Union Welfare State of Western Ukraine*.
*coming 2026
I doubt the latter (the EU voluntarily tying that burden around their neck to choke themselves faster as part of their long suicide) will be the case once they expire their usefulness to the US. What the EU does or doesn’t do is hardly worth the time contemplating as ultimately it will have no effect on outcomes. QED in progress.
I see a lot of pressure from neighbouring states on the EU to assume caretaker status over whatever remains of Ukraine at the end of this, lest Poland et. al. find themselves bordering a postmodern Afghanistan.
That is, assuming Poland, Slovakia, Moldova, Romania, Hungary don’t reach a “gentlemans’ agreement” on how to annex Kiev’s tattered corpse holdings to paint a proxy NATO onto the remnants.
Nukes will not be used by Israel unless Israel is facing extinction. Hezbollah is not capable of doing that.
Indeed, if it goes regional the outcome will be the dissolution of the Zionist race-state.
The true racists are the Jew haters of the Islamic world, and those who assume anyone of so called third world origins is automatically noble.
You see, Sully, not all of us default to “anyone of so called third world origins” (and it really should be “so-called” and “third-world” – you really are not good at hyphenation, wow) being inferior or less-than-human like you seem to.
You really seem to see the ASI as just an island of Civilization in a sea of faceless Barbarians, don’t you ?
Inflict enough casualties over a continued time period,and people will voluntarily leave. A long,slow,intermittent war favors HEZ.
If they’re leaving because you’re inflicting casualties on them, they’re not leaving “voluntarily.”
“Some US officials are concerned …”
Yes, but the cretin in charge as president is fully on board …
I’m sure he was/is invested. But now ponder why several individuals determined that Biden had “no need to know” about Austin’s absence and then wonder who is actually running things?
They substituted a person on vacation without telling the commander in chief. Obviously, this points to Austin not being a critical player either.
Biden is checked out most of the time, and only needs to know what his puppeteers tell him.
Winnah winnah, chicken dinnah!
It was an amazing thing … isn’t the SecDef in the line of command for nuclear decisions and other life and death on earth issues?
Apparently not. The curtain must be drawn to show the great Oz. Where’s Toto?
The simplest explanation that comes to mind is that Austin was actually on a top-secret trip somewhere that Biden didn’t want congressional leadership to know about, and once he seemed to be missing the least bad excuse — because it would cause this kerfuffle instead of some other mroe serious one — was “he was in the hospital and we didn’t know.”
Someone call Sy Hersh.
Dima said he was injured in Ukraine. See this morning summary.
Wow, for real?
He said it. I have no idea if it’s real.
Where?
Military summary channel on YouTube
Do you have a link, friend? Youtube is a big space.
Type in search “military summary channel.”
Who is behind that channel, do you know?
Dima. He is from Belarus
Has he been correct? Does he have intelligence links or something? I know he said it was only a theory, but from who?
He usually reports what he sees on telegram channels populated by all sorts of people, some of them could be military.
Thanks. I guess you have to have a Telegram account to read there? I followed links but couldn’t go any further in the past.
Isn’t the simplest explanation that he WAS in the hospital as claimed ? Is there some claim he wasn’t, or a lack of evidence he was ? Seems a fairly mundane claim.
The simplest explanation for the White House, et al., claiming to not know where he was for several days?
If there was a news story that said “Lloyd Austin is in the hospital” at the beginning of those several days, the simplest explanation (but not necessarily the correct one) would be that he was in the hospital.
When an entire branch of government claims it didn’t know where one of its key members was for several days, the simplest explanation (but in this case at least apparently not the correct one — now they’re saying prostate cancer, etc.) is that someone’s lying.
Fair enough. Stone Cold Lloyd Austin himself could’ve just put on his Out Of Office Assistant from the start, claimed a mental health day(s). Even come back from his unexplained absence & said “Oh I had covid” and it’s still recent enough everyone would’ve forgotten their own concerns and been “oh wow how on earth did you survive ??” and hailed him as the Boy Who Lived.
Nah – maybe in mid 2020 that last one would have worked.
If true, that worked out well. /s
I have doubts when someone must be led off stage by a spouse. In case they would otherwise converse with a flag.
Too bad there’s no way to stop him like cutting off the gravy train.
See, I thought so too. Like, I thought that the best way to stop someone from escalating a war I don’t want escalated was to stop giving them “unconditional military aid and backing in the region.” What non-sense, huh? I’m glad we have Joe Biden–“The Adult in the Room.” …IKR?
“Like, I thought…the best way to stop someone from escalating a war I don’t want escalated was to stop giving them ‘unconditional military aid and backing in the region.'”
You thought wrong. It’s the opposite. See?…
“aides to…Biden have said the president believes that his full-throated support of Israel has given him more leverage to press Mr. Netanyahu for restraint”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/world/middleeast/biden-israel-netanyahu-gaza.html
Now zip it…’less yr a Hamas-luvin’ antisemite…
Lol!
You nailed me with diamond nails, brother! LOL
Another CIA CYA article from the Washington Post. Biden and his crew doesn’t care if there is a wider war – they want one. They JUST DON’T WANT TO BE BLAMED FOR STARTING IT.
This is the same motivation that controls every President – from Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden: plausible deniability.
Listen to Alastair Crooke on Judge Napolitano today:
See, what I don’t understand at all is how in the Hell did Alastair Crook ever get a job in her Majesty’s Government? Like, ever? When you listen to him, he makes perfect sense to me!? What gives? Like: Every Fu@king British politician has to be the most imbecilic person they can find for the whatever job they occupy. …I know. …I must be the problem.
Good question, I have no idea. The conspiracy theorists think he’s just feeding BS on orders, but it’s hard to see how. I prefer to think of him as a realist.
This is obvious though. Although I respect some of Crooke’s opinions, any person not completely captured by propaganda can see it.
Ali is on the Grill
the baby who was burned alive is now part of depraved Israeli marriage rituals, where they take photos of him and stab it as a symbol for all Palestinian babies they want to burn and kill. Ben Gvir, now a top member of Netanyahu’s government, has joined in this genocidal ritual: (video in link)
https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1726456822578770358
miliekowsky needs to meet the gallows.
That’s like a turkey in favor of Christmas
Don’t kid yourself. A wider war including Hezbollah is inevitable, and has been for 2 months. Right now the fighters are dancing around the ring and taking jabs at each other, while they size up their opponent. Soon, one of them will go for a kill shot, and then it is game-on.
I hope not. What good would come out of this war?
In his latest threat, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel could “copy-paste” the destruction in Gaza into Beirut. Gallant has said Israel’s open to diplomacy, but US officials concede a deal with Hezbollah is unlikely as long as Israel is still slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza.
Sure. Can’t do a damn thing except cut Israel off and end the slaughtering of the Palestinians.
Which won’t happen as long as Biden is president, and not likely otherwise.
I give up on this country. The leadership are a pack of ghouls, surviving on the blood of women and children.
They are also stealing Palestinians’ organs once they kill them…!
“and not likely otherwise”
Yeah, it’s not like this shit is new. But it almost gets insulting. Do they think people are that fucking stupid?
“Do they think people are that fucking stupid?”
Are they?
It is not 100%, since we are talking about it. But how many are just that fucking stupid?
Are Biden/Blinken (and Bolton, and Nuland) 90% right to think so?
I don’t think, I know we are.
I was debating with myself to even write that. I really don’t think we are that fucking stupid. Just that fucking ignorant.
Good point. Even at a young age, kids have an intense sense of “fair” and no doubts about it. It is human. So no, not stupid.
I prefer the (compound) term non-conditional.
If Netanyahu wants a wider war and Hezbollah does not, than Hezbollah should stop firing rockets into Israel. Don’t give Israel an excuse to attack.
Actually, Israel should stop the genoocide, it was the only demand made. Then the rockets would stop, the attacks in the red sea would stop and hostages could be exchanged. Isreal has become a rogue criminal state and needs to be brought under control before they decide to nuke iran or Lebanon. Israel doesn’t care what the world thinks, they don’t even care about their own people, they’ve exposed themselves as the crazy religious extremists that they are. If they keep antagonizing their neighbors, they’ll end up banished in the desert again.
Again, Hezbollah/Lebanon is playing into Netanyahu hands by firing rockets into Israel. The fighting will stop in Gaza when Hamas surrenders and/or releases the hostages. And how quickly one forgets who started this current war in Gaza. Yes a lot of civilians have died, but who choose to build the forts under civilian houses? Hamas does not care about their own people.
And who is antagonizing who? Both Yemen and Lebanon are not involved so why are they attacking Israel and risking a wider war?
The Palestinians are Hamas, they were born in Gaza, their parents and grandparents are the Palestinians, this is not a current war, it is a war with very deep roots in decades of brutal, humiliating occupation. Hamas, are the children of Palestine, they experienced the torture and humiliations their ancestors experienced starting the day they were born, they did not fall out of the sky, the occupiers made them do it. They had to break out, the pressure cooker exploded, the Israelis did it.
The Israelis are the most brutal and longest occupiers. The world knows it.
“And how quickly one forgets who started this current war in Gaza.”
By definition, the illegal occupying power, Israel, is responsible for the fighting. Occupied people have a right to resist, including by force. This isn’t even controversial under applicable international law.
“The fighting will stop in Gaza when Hamas surrenders and/or releases the hostages.”
How do you know this for sure; why should anyone believe this; and most importantly, what assurances does Hamas have that the ASI will keep “their word” (if a promise was even given) on this ? Nobody seems to be able to reign in the ASI now…nothing would compel them to honor a deal post-facto.
What needs to happen is an end to the occupation, the illegal murderous “settlers” out of the West Bank, and a two-state solution with equitable distribution of resources.
History clearly indicates isreal as the agressor, colonizer, since before 1948.
What i find puzzling is why you bother speaking here. We’re all commie loving idiots no? You should go play on the pro war, pro zionist, white supremacist sites, you’d make more friends, lol.
When Israel “wins” a war it takes land from other nations. If Israel “loses” this war, will they have to cough up real estate? I didn’t think so! The war will go on, but the root causes remain!
The ASI won’t “lose” this war in any fashion that will see them lose land. Lose land they WANT to annex, sure, but it won’t be a net loss of territory for them. Both the Hamassians, and the Hezbollese, are (or will be) up against a vastly superior force to them both combined. The IDF has the personnel, military, and resources to win (same as the Russian Federation against NATUkraine).
Netanyahu’s ASI either wins, or doesn’t lose.
“The report said the US is putting pressure on Israel not to escalate the situation, and that will be part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks while he visits Israel on Tuesday.”
Total. Crock. of. Shit. Blinken, the world’s most pathetic excuse for a foreign minister. The other part of the talks will be how to shovel more weapons and ammunition to the IDF so that Israel can pursue the final solution, in exchange for a continuing stream of dollars from AIPAC to help the old man get reelected.
He won’t survive anyway. He is a doomed man………