A former US military intelligence analyst has warned that Israel is risking a major war in Lebanon for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival.
Former US Army Maj. Harrison Mann resigned from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency earlier this year over the US’s backing of the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and has been speaking out against President Biden’s policy of full-throated support for Israel.
In comments to The Guardian, Mann said, “We know specifically that the Israeli prime minister must continue to be a wartime leader if he wants to prolong his political career and stay out of court, so that motivation is there.”
His comments echo a report from The Washington Post that was published at the beginning of the year. It said US officials were concerned that Netanyahu might view war in Lebanon as key to his political survival.
Mann said he expects Israel to target residential areas in southern Lebanon in the event of a full-blown war, a tactic known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after a neighborhood in Beirut that Israel bombarded in 2006.
“It’s not like an actual written doctrine, but I think we can be very comfortable assessing that bombing civilian centers as a way to compel the enemy is clearly an accepted and shared belief in the IDF and Israeli leadership. We’ve just seen them do it in Gaza for the past nine months,” Mann said.
He warned that Hezbollah would be able to hit back hard against Israel. “They probably have the ability to at least partially overwhelm Israel’s air defenses, strike civilian infrastructure around the country, and inflict a level of destruction on Israel that I’m not sure Israel has really ever experienced in its history – certainly not in its recent history,” he said.
Mann said that the heavy bombardment of Israeli cities would make it more likely that the US would get directly involved. “Our least escalatory participation will be possibly striking supply lines or associated targets in Iraq and Syria to help cut off lines of communication and armaments flowing to Hezbollah,” he said. “But that on its own is risky, because if we start doing that, some of the people that we hit could be Hezbollah, but they could be IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”
Iran has warned Israel that a full-scale assault on Lebanon would lead to an “obliterating war” in the region. It’s unclear if Iran would intervene directly, but it’s likely that the allied Shia militias in Iraq and Syria would get involved.
Mann said he didn’t expect the Biden administration to choose to target Iran directly but warned that the risk of a direct US-Iran war would increase significantly. “I trust the administration not to do that, but I think between us or the Israelis striking Iranian targets outside of Iran, the risk of escalation is also going to get much higher,” he said.
The US claims it’s working hard to avoid a war in Lebanon, but it continues to provide strong support for Israel, which could embolden Netanyahu to escalate the situation. Middle East Eye recently reported that the US has conveyed to Lebanon that it would ultimately support Israel if a full-blown war breaks out.
It's more than Army Maj. Harrison Mann, the number from the Air Force is in double digits, likely triple including those filing for conscientious objector status. At least two Majors and then a quite a number of pilots because they've been directly, and indirectly, engaged in the Genocide the West refuses to acknowledge, delivering the weapons to Israel and and flying strikes on Ansar Allah.
Even the MSM is taking notice. Some mention Airman Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation. Senior Airman Larry Herbert told NBC Hind Rajab spurred him to take the action he'd been considering, "she almost looks just like my daughter."
There are organzations providing armed forces guidance and legal advice for conscientious objector status. “[It's their constitutional right] and I advise everyone to exercise that right,” Herbert told the Intercept. “Whether you like to believe it or not, the Department of Defense supports the missions that kills innocent Palestinians. We cannot just ignore this fact.”
Israel risks everything and to what purpose?……………………………..
Seek the light, love of the father, mother and son of humankind.
……………………………… It is never too late, until it is.
"I trust the administration not to do that…" So in other words, he's an idiot.
US admins have repeatedly shown that they have no appetite for out and out war with Iran.
No, they have not. Before his election, Obama advocated a gasoline blockade – an act of war. Trump was prepared to attack Iran after the drone shootdown until Iran told him if one missiles landed on an empty Iranian beach they would retaliate with everything. Bush lobbied for war with Iran over the bogus "nuclear weapons program" until the NIE undermined him.
The only thing stopping the Iran war before now was 1) how to deal with Hezbollah, and 2) how to set it up so Iran was blamed for it, and 3) an administration crazy enough to do it in both Israel and the US. We have the latter now, and we have #2 as well due to the Gaza conflict, and Israel is now going to attack Hezbollah.
Q.E.D.
We shall see … I said "out and out war" not sanctions and trade war, which has been the US preferred way.
As I believe the neoliberal empire is all about the $$$, and as there is little $$$ to be made and much to be lost in this war, I doubt it will happen, but we shall see.
Oh ya, the Administration is trying real hard to avoid a war in Lebanon … by sending Amos Hochstein (Israeili citizen and former IDF) as special rep.
But what BB is afraid of is not corruption charges, that's SOP there as well as here; what he really fears is the "Oct. 7" post mortem revealing his role. That would poison the well real good. He's even lose his safe mansions in Florida.
What the world must fear most these days are unpopular politicians who are low in the polls and only see their political survival in provoking wars, small wars, big wars, even WWIII.
People are not blind, especially the young who are the first victims of war.
The coming elections in many Western countries should see voters throwing out professional warmongers, Biden, Macron, Trudeau, Sunak, Scholz, etc.
In a few years, such warmongers will be all out.
Unfortunately usually to be succeeded by other warmongers … like Trump, the Christian Dems in Germany, etc.
There is no lobby for peace other than the 99% and we don't pick the candidates.
Truth. Rot and incompetence are at the core of virtually all of the members of NATO, excepting only three European countries.
“It’s not like an actual written doctrine, but I think we can be very comfortable assessing that bombing civilian centers as a way to compel the enemy is clearly an accepted and shared belief in the IDF and Israeli leadership. We’ve just seen them do it in Gaza for the past nine months,” Mann said
And it's called TERRORISM.
Indeed … terror to achieve ethnic cleansing and/or genocide.
Genocide Joe is most probably doing the same thing as Nutandyahoo; that is risking war, Nay, making war, for political survival. Come November, it is more likely that Genocide Joe will find quite the opposite to be true (that is if the Democratic party doesn't find a way to get rid of him first.)
”Risk” is an interesting game of chance. Having said that, how much more are any of us willing to risk by going into a potentially larger conflict?… Will a Holy War, possibly, satiate Israel’s appetites, given that they continue to deny the one true Christ?… Just saying…