FB removed my post again- because the Berlinski article on Nazrallah is “spam” + user (me) is trying to get “likes” + trying to get others to click on a link.” + a FB warning about consequences for repeat violations.
I just now re-posted this article to FB. This is my second attempt to post. I will check in an hour to see if it is posted or removed by fb sensors. On Sep 28; FB removed this article from my post along with a weird complaint that I was posting “spam”.
Regarding the latest rounds of nuclear saber rattling by V. Putin: He’s running a bluff. The very last thing that the Russian neotsar is a widening of the present war. If NATO were to become involved in the conflict, that would spell instant disaster for Russia. The comments above on Russia’s military vulnerabilities are well founded. I myself have been making that point for two years now. Nor can Putin extricate himself from the corner he’s in by resorting to nuclear escalation. That too would spell instant disaster for Russia.
What Putin’s counting on is the irresolution of the US government. Biden is no longer capable of making decisions, and in their different ways both Trump and Harris would kick Ukraine to the curb by advocating a negotiated settlement of the war. But unless Ukraine sits down at the table with a clear battlefield victory to its credit, negotiations would be tantamount to its surrender. Alas, it looks as though that’s likely to be the US position. And of course, Ukraine would never agree to such a deal.
Claire, re: The story “Israel (probably) killed Nasrallah in massive air strike”. My quick analysis of some of the implications.
What needs to be understood is that Nasrallah was, in many ways, the articulate face of the Hezbollah. The bulk of its strategy and direction, even some of Nasrallah’s speeches, came from Tehran. While some in the Middle East will celebrate Nasrallah’s demise, (note there still isn’t absolute confirmation, and, of course, there may well never be), Tehran will now find that it has to prolong the war. In the short-run the intensity of attacks against Israel will likely increase, as other proxies are used to try and keep the momentum going.
For the long-run, Tehran will find ways to strengthen and further amplify its anti-Israel, anti-US/West narrative, as a tool of influence and opinion control. The strengthened narrative will be used as a tool to cover for the inadequacies that arise from the decimation of the Hezbollah leadership, (with or without a Nasrallah gone), while the rebuilding proceeds apace. Some ideologically allied states in the region will amplify Tehran’s narrative, and complement it with their own, both globally and across the region.
The strengthened regional narrative will be targeted towards strengthening the anti-Israel (and allies) political and ideological consensus around the region, to end any chances of rapprochement by other states that are now trying to build economic and political bridges with the US and thereby, indirectly, with Israel. Recent US moves like designating the UAE a “major defense partner” aren’t going down well with Tehran, nor are projects like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor which will end up strengthening trade relationships across the region, though Iran might be a big gainer if it takes a pragmatic economic view.
Globally, the strengthened narrative will be used to build a wider consensus that makes pro-Israel policies/actions difficult for US/Western leaders, using democracy itself to subvert opinion. It’s also important to note that Israel’s perception war isn’t going well. Tehran and its allies have a lead in this perception war, even as of now.
Will Iran get involved even more actively? That's another discussion point, with considerable short-and -long term implications both for Iran, and the wider region.
This is all possible assuming that the destruction of Hezbollah isn’t a precursor to an attempt to decapitate the Mullah-dominated regime in Tehran along with attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities (which will be hard to accomplish) and its economic engines, especially Kharg Island (which will be easy to accomplish).
Would Israel attack Iran directly? Surely it knows that as long as Iran does most of its dirty work through surrogates, those surrogates will be continuously rearmed every time Israel attacks them. Israel also knows that the drip, drip, drip of its loss of international legitimacy can’t be sustained forever.
My guess is that contingency planning for the destruction of the Iranian regime was completed months ago and that those plans are constantly updated as new information emerges. Given the considerable evidence that Israeli intelligence has infiltrated the Iranian regime almost as thoroughly as it infiltrated Hezbollah, it’s quite possible that Israel has some interesting tricks up its sleeve.
None of this means destroying the Iranian menace will be easy or risk free. Whether it’s achievable is an open question. But nothing would be more positive for Israel and the Middle East than removing the Mullah’s from power. Once Israel has finished in Gaza and Lebanon, it will have little choice but to reflect on taking down its principal opponent.
Israel’s destruction of Iran’s most important surrogates, Hamas and Hezbollah, removes the only two terrorist entities on its border. The Shia terrorists in Iraq and Yemen are merely annoyances (though potentially deadly ones); they don’t pose very serious threats. Arguably the Houthis are a far bigger threat to world trade and western finances than they are to Israel.
Israel’s window to act against Iran may be a short one. If it’s to attack Iran, it only has as long as it takes for Iran to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon. Whether that’s a few months or a few years is anyone’s guess but it’s a good bet that the Israeli’s possess good intelligence about that.
Another important factor is the result of the American election. If Harris wins, her Administration will do everything it can to thwart an Israeli attack on Iran. Despite the fact that Iran has done more to assist Russia’s war against Ukraine than any nation except China, the Obama wing of the Democrat Party (which Harris is firmly ensconced in) continues to be fascinated by the possibility that Iran could serve as a counter-weight to the regime that they actually loathe, the Netanyahu regime.
Harris, like Obama, dreams of exiting the Middle East. Given her naivety about international affairs, she is likely to recruit the same cast of characters to advise her as Obama and Biden did. In particular, Philip Gordon, who is known to dislike Netanyahu and be sympathetic to the idea of Iran balancing Israel would probably be her National Security Advisor.
If Trump is elected, he won’t order American participation in an actual Israeli attack on Iran but he’s likely to provide Israel any help it needs to plan and execute the attack. But Trump isn’t a get out of jail free card for Israel. If it attacks Iran and things go south as they easily could, Israel will have to wonder what price Trump will require for the United States to come to the rescue. The price could be Israeli acceptance of the Trump peace plan for Israel/Palestine that he developed during his first term in office and might want to resurrect.
The knock on Netanyahu has always been that he is too cautious and hesitant to act. The question is whether Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon demonstrate that there’s a new Netanyahu.
Claire- thanks for the good news. I posted your article on FB and they removed it as “spam” as trying to get people to click a link. Violating community standards. Doesn’t make sense.
Re cowardly nonsense. If "Ukraine wouldn't have enough missiles to respond to Russia" just why would that be?? Maybe because the US and our European allies didn't provide them?
Re Beijing and its support for Russia and its war on Ukraine. IMO, China is the reason Russia will NOT use nuclear weapons in response to, say, a Ukrainian deep strike into Russia using materiel supplied by the United States. China's leaders remember, or have parents who remember, the Cultural Revolution and they know what real disorder and starvation look like. There is no reason for them to support Russia going nuclear and upsetting the world game board. The Chinese are slowly tightening their grip on the rest of the world, and they have no reason to support the kind of disruption that a Russian nuclear strike would unleash. If I can see this why don't Biden and Sullivan??
The Ukrainians have figured this out and proved it when they moved into Kursk.
It occurs to me that even if this rat bastard managed to dodge the Zionist Entity’s bullet, he’ll never dare to advertise his survival. So if he isn’t dead, he might as well be.
If for a minute we get ahead of ourselves and contemplate an Israeli victory over Hezbollah, what should Israel do in the territory of southern Lebanon? The local population will not have changed much. If occupied, Israel would have another Arab population to control, this one with more experience in arms and organization, as well as outside contacts and prepared tunnels. If not occupied, that same organization or a similar one could reform and rearm that much faster. Pushing the frontier back even a few kilometers would put Haifa out of range of the most common type of rocket in Hezbollah’s arsenal, but nations tend to be touchy about losing territory- Syria is still sore about the Golan Heights.
Regarding tech companies, can we expect legislators to stand up to the companies which have their search histories?
Well if the Spanish postal workers want to go in strike over Israel’s aggression perhaps they could deliver a package I sent to my friend in Barcelona almost two months ago. The same package that has already been sent back as undeliverable because they couldn’t figure out the address in Spain even though it was the one given to my friend by the guy at the front desk of their building 🙄 All that to say no one will notice any difference whether they’re working or not so it’s really a pointless exercise.
Netanyahu is such a bad ass. At the exact moment he's delivering his address to the General Assembly he knows that the hit he ordered on Nasrallah is about to go down. It reminds me of the baptism scene from “The Godfather.” Take a look to see what I mean.
This exactly why Israel is best served with Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s office. Lapid, Gantz and even Bennett would never have given the command to off the Hezbollah leader. They would have been too afraid that Biden might order Harris to take them over her knee and spank them. For Netanyahu the thought that Nasrallah’s execution might annoy the clueless American President and Vice President must have been the icing on a delicious cake.
There’s a lot to learn by assessing who’s celebrating and who’s mourning Nasrallah’s death (if he is indeed, dead). We know that they’re not happy in Tehran. The Supreme leader must be wondering whether someone is about to drop a house on him like Dorothy did to the Wicked Witch of the East.
But it’s also a good bet that Biden, Harris and their apparatchiks are none too happy. Their dream of having Iran and its terrorist allies serve as a counterweight to Israel in the Middle East is going down the drain.
Shouldn't stop now. As long as the Iranian regime is in place, peace in the region is at best temporary. The leadership there doesn't give up as has been shown countless times. It outrages me - yes, I know I'm nobody but there are more like me - to see the leaderships of the US and some European powers try to negotiate with these people while those suffering from their oppression yearn for relief.
FB removed my post again- because the Berlinski article on Nazrallah is “spam” + user (me) is trying to get “likes” + trying to get others to click on a link.” + a FB warning about consequences for repeat violations.
I just now re-posted this article to FB. This is my second attempt to post. I will check in an hour to see if it is posted or removed by fb sensors. On Sep 28; FB removed this article from my post along with a weird complaint that I was posting “spam”.
Regarding the latest rounds of nuclear saber rattling by V. Putin: He’s running a bluff. The very last thing that the Russian neotsar is a widening of the present war. If NATO were to become involved in the conflict, that would spell instant disaster for Russia. The comments above on Russia’s military vulnerabilities are well founded. I myself have been making that point for two years now. Nor can Putin extricate himself from the corner he’s in by resorting to nuclear escalation. That too would spell instant disaster for Russia.
What Putin’s counting on is the irresolution of the US government. Biden is no longer capable of making decisions, and in their different ways both Trump and Harris would kick Ukraine to the curb by advocating a negotiated settlement of the war. But unless Ukraine sits down at the table with a clear battlefield victory to its credit, negotiations would be tantamount to its surrender. Alas, it looks as though that’s likely to be the US position. And of course, Ukraine would never agree to such a deal.
From Tablet Magazine, this is the best article on the execution of Nasrallah by Israel that you are likely to ever read. See,
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/killing-nasrallah
Claire, re: The story “Israel (probably) killed Nasrallah in massive air strike”. My quick analysis of some of the implications.
What needs to be understood is that Nasrallah was, in many ways, the articulate face of the Hezbollah. The bulk of its strategy and direction, even some of Nasrallah’s speeches, came from Tehran. While some in the Middle East will celebrate Nasrallah’s demise, (note there still isn’t absolute confirmation, and, of course, there may well never be), Tehran will now find that it has to prolong the war. In the short-run the intensity of attacks against Israel will likely increase, as other proxies are used to try and keep the momentum going.
For the long-run, Tehran will find ways to strengthen and further amplify its anti-Israel, anti-US/West narrative, as a tool of influence and opinion control. The strengthened narrative will be used as a tool to cover for the inadequacies that arise from the decimation of the Hezbollah leadership, (with or without a Nasrallah gone), while the rebuilding proceeds apace. Some ideologically allied states in the region will amplify Tehran’s narrative, and complement it with their own, both globally and across the region.
The strengthened regional narrative will be targeted towards strengthening the anti-Israel (and allies) political and ideological consensus around the region, to end any chances of rapprochement by other states that are now trying to build economic and political bridges with the US and thereby, indirectly, with Israel. Recent US moves like designating the UAE a “major defense partner” aren’t going down well with Tehran, nor are projects like the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor which will end up strengthening trade relationships across the region, though Iran might be a big gainer if it takes a pragmatic economic view.
Globally, the strengthened narrative will be used to build a wider consensus that makes pro-Israel policies/actions difficult for US/Western leaders, using democracy itself to subvert opinion. It’s also important to note that Israel’s perception war isn’t going well. Tehran and its allies have a lead in this perception war, even as of now.
Will Iran get involved even more actively? That's another discussion point, with considerable short-and -long term implications both for Iran, and the wider region.
This is all possible assuming that the destruction of Hezbollah isn’t a precursor to an attempt to decapitate the Mullah-dominated regime in Tehran along with attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities (which will be hard to accomplish) and its economic engines, especially Kharg Island (which will be easy to accomplish).
Would Israel attack Iran directly? Surely it knows that as long as Iran does most of its dirty work through surrogates, those surrogates will be continuously rearmed every time Israel attacks them. Israel also knows that the drip, drip, drip of its loss of international legitimacy can’t be sustained forever.
My guess is that contingency planning for the destruction of the Iranian regime was completed months ago and that those plans are constantly updated as new information emerges. Given the considerable evidence that Israeli intelligence has infiltrated the Iranian regime almost as thoroughly as it infiltrated Hezbollah, it’s quite possible that Israel has some interesting tricks up its sleeve.
None of this means destroying the Iranian menace will be easy or risk free. Whether it’s achievable is an open question. But nothing would be more positive for Israel and the Middle East than removing the Mullah’s from power. Once Israel has finished in Gaza and Lebanon, it will have little choice but to reflect on taking down its principal opponent.
Israel’s destruction of Iran’s most important surrogates, Hamas and Hezbollah, removes the only two terrorist entities on its border. The Shia terrorists in Iraq and Yemen are merely annoyances (though potentially deadly ones); they don’t pose very serious threats. Arguably the Houthis are a far bigger threat to world trade and western finances than they are to Israel.
Israel’s window to act against Iran may be a short one. If it’s to attack Iran, it only has as long as it takes for Iran to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon. Whether that’s a few months or a few years is anyone’s guess but it’s a good bet that the Israeli’s possess good intelligence about that.
Another important factor is the result of the American election. If Harris wins, her Administration will do everything it can to thwart an Israeli attack on Iran. Despite the fact that Iran has done more to assist Russia’s war against Ukraine than any nation except China, the Obama wing of the Democrat Party (which Harris is firmly ensconced in) continues to be fascinated by the possibility that Iran could serve as a counter-weight to the regime that they actually loathe, the Netanyahu regime.
Harris, like Obama, dreams of exiting the Middle East. Given her naivety about international affairs, she is likely to recruit the same cast of characters to advise her as Obama and Biden did. In particular, Philip Gordon, who is known to dislike Netanyahu and be sympathetic to the idea of Iran balancing Israel would probably be her National Security Advisor.
If Trump is elected, he won’t order American participation in an actual Israeli attack on Iran but he’s likely to provide Israel any help it needs to plan and execute the attack. But Trump isn’t a get out of jail free card for Israel. If it attacks Iran and things go south as they easily could, Israel will have to wonder what price Trump will require for the United States to come to the rescue. The price could be Israeli acceptance of the Trump peace plan for Israel/Palestine that he developed during his first term in office and might want to resurrect.
The knock on Netanyahu has always been that he is too cautious and hesitant to act. The question is whether Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon demonstrate that there’s a new Netanyahu.
Time will tell.
Claire- thanks for the good news. I posted your article on FB and they removed it as “spam” as trying to get people to click a link. Violating community standards. Doesn’t make sense.
No idea--try again and tell me what happens?
Re cowardly nonsense. If "Ukraine wouldn't have enough missiles to respond to Russia" just why would that be?? Maybe because the US and our European allies didn't provide them?
Re Beijing and its support for Russia and its war on Ukraine. IMO, China is the reason Russia will NOT use nuclear weapons in response to, say, a Ukrainian deep strike into Russia using materiel supplied by the United States. China's leaders remember, or have parents who remember, the Cultural Revolution and they know what real disorder and starvation look like. There is no reason for them to support Russia going nuclear and upsetting the world game board. The Chinese are slowly tightening their grip on the rest of the world, and they have no reason to support the kind of disruption that a Russian nuclear strike would unleash. If I can see this why don't Biden and Sullivan??
The Ukrainians have figured this out and proved it when they moved into Kursk.
It occurs to me that even if this rat bastard managed to dodge the Zionist Entity’s bullet, he’ll never dare to advertise his survival. So if he isn’t dead, he might as well be.
Regarding this breaking news, the official Un-Woke in Indiana comment is: No great loss.
If for a minute we get ahead of ourselves and contemplate an Israeli victory over Hezbollah, what should Israel do in the territory of southern Lebanon? The local population will not have changed much. If occupied, Israel would have another Arab population to control, this one with more experience in arms and organization, as well as outside contacts and prepared tunnels. If not occupied, that same organization or a similar one could reform and rearm that much faster. Pushing the frontier back even a few kilometers would put Haifa out of range of the most common type of rocket in Hezbollah’s arsenal, but nations tend to be touchy about losing territory- Syria is still sore about the Golan Heights.
Regarding tech companies, can we expect legislators to stand up to the companies which have their search histories?
Well if the Spanish postal workers want to go in strike over Israel’s aggression perhaps they could deliver a package I sent to my friend in Barcelona almost two months ago. The same package that has already been sent back as undeliverable because they couldn’t figure out the address in Spain even though it was the one given to my friend by the guy at the front desk of their building 🙄 All that to say no one will notice any difference whether they’re working or not so it’s really a pointless exercise.
Huzzah!!!
Re: "US president briefed by national security team." - we should check whom they briefed so we can find out who our President is.
Love multiple "Won’t work. —Claire"
I am actually glad about no class on the 30th because I will be en route to NYC to see Douglas Murray!
And what a happy sighting of the "elusive, nocturnal Striped Himalayan Pinball Wizard"
Thanks for a wonderful Global Eyes! (And this was only a half?!?)
Netanyahu is such a bad ass. At the exact moment he's delivering his address to the General Assembly he knows that the hit he ordered on Nasrallah is about to go down. It reminds me of the baptism scene from “The Godfather.” Take a look to see what I mean.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1CDlBLvc3YE
This exactly why Israel is best served with Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s office. Lapid, Gantz and even Bennett would never have given the command to off the Hezbollah leader. They would have been too afraid that Biden might order Harris to take them over her knee and spank them. For Netanyahu the thought that Nasrallah’s execution might annoy the clueless American President and Vice President must have been the icing on a delicious cake.
There’s a lot to learn by assessing who’s celebrating and who’s mourning Nasrallah’s death (if he is indeed, dead). We know that they’re not happy in Tehran. The Supreme leader must be wondering whether someone is about to drop a house on him like Dorothy did to the Wicked Witch of the East.
But it’s also a good bet that Biden, Harris and their apparatchiks are none too happy. Their dream of having Iran and its terrorist allies serve as a counterweight to Israel in the Middle East is going down the drain.
Excellent shot there chaps!
Shouldn't stop now. As long as the Iranian regime is in place, peace in the region is at best temporary. The leadership there doesn't give up as has been shown countless times. It outrages me - yes, I know I'm nobody but there are more like me - to see the leaderships of the US and some European powers try to negotiate with these people while those suffering from their oppression yearn for relief.