After being hit by some 200 Iranian missiles Israel has not yet dared to response to to the strike. It instead has launched new air attacks into the center of Beirut and its southern area known as Dahiyeh (which simply means suburb) with its predominantly Shia population.
Israel seems to have forgotten what attacks on Dahiyeh mean:
Hizbullah asserts that it has established a new deterrence equation: an Israeli attack on the al-Dahieh neighborhood in Beirut will be met with a retaliatory strike on Tel Aviv.
…
According to Hizbullah, the new equation established by Hassan Nasrallah is that any attack on Tel Aviv will be the response to Israeli actions taken in the al-Dahieh district in Beirut.
Hizbullah’s new leadership will certainly adhere to that doctrine.
That Hizbullah has not been degraded by Israel’s strikes at is leadership could be seen by yesterday’s incursion attempts by the Israeli army into south Lebanon. Its special forces was immediately ambushed by Hizbullah forces. Eight of its soldiers were killed and many more wounded. Additional casualties were reported today.
Israel is now tempted to risk an all out war with Iran. There is little chance that such a war would achieve anything but an all out war in the Middle East, a rapid increase in oil prices and a severe hit on the Democratic chances in the ongoing election campaign.
Iran, who’s ballistic missiles had no problems in passing Israels air defenses, has threatened an all out attack on Israel’s infrastructure – electricity and gas installations as well as harbors – should Israel attempt to take revenge against Iran.
U.S. media still spreading the myth that the Biden administration is trying to hold back Israel.
The Washington Post for example headlines:
Biden works to limit conflict as Mideast edges closer to all-out war
However the piece admits that some views disagree strongly with its headline:
American officials say they are encouraging Israel to respond in a measured way, but U.S. allies in Europe are concerned that Washington is not putting sufficient pressure on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Our understanding is the Americans are not holding them back,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.
Further down it comes to the heart of the issue:
Biden has been unwilling to use the most significant source of U.S. leverage — conditioning or suspending military aid to Israel — to try to change the dynamics of the war, as Israel has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. advice and counsel.
Not for one moment has Biden tried to limit Israel’s ability to strike on its neighbors. A headline in the Times of Israel even proclaims that Biden is urging Israel to launch a new strike:
Biden: US opposes Israel hitting Iran nuclear sites, response should be ‘proportional’
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Biden urged Israel to respond “proportionally” to the attack. Asked whether he backs a strike on Iranian nuclear sites, Biden responded: “The answer is no.”
Yves at Naked Capitalism correctly notes that:
Biden’s Israel Policy Has Led Us to the Brink of War on Iran
Yves shows that its was U.S. treachery that preceded the Israeli attack on Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah:
We now learn that Nasrallah had agreed to the ceasefire shortly before he was assassinated and Israel or the US was affirmatively duplicitous, as if that comes as a surprise. Antiwar summarizes a CNN interview with the Lebanese foreign minister:
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah agreed to a US and French-proposed 21-day ceasefire with Israel right before Israel killed him.
Habib said the US and France told Lebanon that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also agreed to the ceasefire proposal.
“They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this, and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And, you know what happened since then,” Habib told CNN host Christiane Amanpour.
I would put my bet on the misrepresentation being US doing, to secure agreement from Hezbollah and then hope they could use that to browbeat Israel into what it would contend was a short pause. Recall that the US has presented ceasefire proposals as originating with Israel and later ‘fessed up that they came from Biden.
It was this ceasefire lie by the Biden administration that enabled the Israeli strike which then prompted the moderate Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian to change his course. As I noted yesterday:
Pezeshkian noted rather bitterly that the order by the Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahoo to kill Nasrallah had been given from New York:
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says the international community will not forget that the order for Israel’s terrorist act to assassinate Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was issued from New York.
…
In a message of condolences on Saturday, Pezeshkian said the United States cannot absolve itself of complicity with the Zionists in the terror attack against the Hezbollah chief.The assassination of Nasrallah demonstrated that Pezeshkian’s politics of moderation had failed.
After arriving back in Tehran Pezeshkian’s tone had changed: …
In a second point Yves presents evidence that the Iranian attack on Israel has caused significant damage and likely disabled significant parts of Israel’s F-35 fighter forces.
She then quotes a Code Pink piece which concludes:
Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.
Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.
So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”
The U.S. has many indefensible assets in the Middle East. Its troops in Iraq and Syria are few and in precarious positions. Its bases in the Gulf states have no defense against attacks from Iran and its navel forces in the Middle East lack the ability to refuel the fleet.
Should Israel be allowed to strike Iran the security of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, the energy infrastructure of the whole region and the global oil supplies will be in danger of imminent destruction.
It is high time for someone to wake the White House up to those facts.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
