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War Aims
Israeli troops are in Lebanon for "limited, localized and targeted raids." Or for boundless, generalized and indiscriminate bloodletting. Check back in six months to find out which.
Tuesday's incursion was presaged by a series of in-and-out, cross-border reconnaissance operations. The IDF spent the last week softening up the terrain with an unsparing air campaign that killed dozens of civilians, injured scores and sent locals scurrying north, where safety was tragically hard to come by amid esc
Beyond the immediate scope for suffering and turmoil, which is obviously immense, there’s some interesting geopolitical read throughs.
In the absence of a capable and adversarial Iran, do the saudis still need American military protection/ the petro dollar?
Does Israel continue to play an important strategic role/partnership with the US?
The riyal’s hard-pegged to the dollar. That’s an underappreciated aspect of this discussion.
Perhaps Iran thinks to repeat its face-saving but ineffective April missile attack on Israel? It must be hoping Netanyahu’s reaction function has not changed.
Yeah, that’s precisely what they’re thinking, although I’d suggest “hoping” is the better word
And now it indeed looks as if Israel will respond directly, imminently.
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this, but appreciate the insight. It seems Israel can do just about whatever they want since they don’t care how many civilians are killed in the process. I don’t have much context about the 2006 conflict, but were they as willing to blow up civilians back then?
As far as assassinating Khamenei, I’d love to see a world where Iran isn’t under the thumb of a theocrat, but nature abhors a vacuum and it’s hard to believe Iran would suddenly become a bastion of democracy. Israel is making a big bet that whatever comes after all the destruction and assassinations is better than the current situation. I suppose they can rest easy under the protection of the US, but seems like a recipe for decades of conflict and terrorism across the entire region. Odin help us if Trump gets back into office and pours gas on the fire. At least we know he won’t take out the Saudis as he wouldn’t want to ruin his son-in-law’s business prospects.
At least in my lifetime, Iran (Persia, remember) has always been subjected to the rule of some form of autocracy, now a theocracy. For a long time they sought not only to control the Arab world, but a much larger area of the known world. When I started teaching in Iowa, during the reign of the Shah, our state had one of the largest Iranian student populations in the country. The Shah may have convinced others to believe he was benevolent but he was a stern ruler, supported with the help of a large and generally nasty secret police agency known as Savak. Many of these agents were embedded in our Iowa colleges, indeed I had some in my classes. As far as I can remember, no mid-east/Muslim country has ever been a democracy.
It has been interesting to read comments here from people who have contacts in Lebanon expressing the hope that Hezbollah is crippled. That makes sense, though I wonder if those contacts were Maronites who once dominated the government.
But there is also an equally important domestic factor in Israel at play which points to a quick “shock & awe” approach to the special military operation in Lebanon.
The Israeli population may not tolerate an extended ground occupation in southern Lebanon. Israel does not have an endless pool of soldiers and reservists to tap. The economic and personal cost is significant. Perhaps not an immediate worry, but it risks further fanning resentment against the ultra-Orthodox conscription waiver. The Haredi community which enjoys the exemption is not a minor splinter group – they comprise 24% of recruitment-aged Israelis.
This is a problem for Netanyahu because he relies on two Ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – to maintain his governing coalition. They fiercely oppose limiting the exemption. In fact, ultra-Orthodox demonstrators have blocked roads under the banner “death before conscription”.
So it may be imperative for him to avoid tying down the IDF in an extended guerilla war in southern Lebanon or an occupation of the Gaza strip for that matter.
Thanks for the insight – are these ultra orthodox groups pro-war as long as other people are doing the fighting or are they pacifists?
Actually: “The 1953 Iranian coup d’état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d’état (Persian: ?????? ?? ?????), was the U.S.- and British-instigated, Iranian army-led overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the autocratic rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
What role has the Lebanese Armed Forces taken on in the recent conflict?
War is hell.