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This article is part of a series on disgusting US-led imperialism

ICONOCLAST VOICES • AS SEEN ON UNZ.COM
by Taxi
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PLATO'S GUNS

Mideast Geopolitics & Poetics
The US, Israel and Beirutshima
Wherever there is mass murder in the Middle East, there you find the Israeli fingerprint. And it was always forever thus.

Time and time again, since 1948, Israel has demonstrated that it solves all its regional problems with violent terroristic solutions that change the political and geostrategic equation in its favor. Time and time again, there is always a major Western government that benefits from and supports this Israeli terrorism, and in the case of the recent horrific explosion at the Beirut Port, now otherwise known as ‘Beirutshima’, it is the US who greatly benefits as well as Tel Aviv.

Since 1948, the Beirut Port has long been a target marked for destruction by Israel. It has long been Israel’s wet dream to destroy this busy and industrious port, originally built by the ancient Phoenicians. This is because the Beirut Port poses the biggest trade competition to Israel’s Haifa Port, therefore a constant threat to Israel’s lucrative marine economy. Also, the Beirut Port is a well-established and crucial lifeline to Lebanon’s daily energy and sustenance needs, therefore destroying it renders the Lebanese government vulnerable and open to a practical siege of all its economic and political decision-making: a virtual colonization of political Lebanon by its more affluent enemy and neighbor. Not forgetting here also that Lebanon’s militarized resistance groups being the biggest immediate threat to the very existence of the Jewish state itself, Israel fears the port being used to transfer unchecked weapons into the hands of Palestinian resistors residing in Lebanon, as well as into the hands of various other Lebanese resistance groups at war with Israel.

Moreover, the Port of Beirut also poses the biggest geostrategic threat for the US’s eastward-bound power projection where China and its new Silk Road operation is fast creeping westwards and is attempting to land at the eastern coastal strip of the Mediterranean, right where the Beirut Port docks. The US having recently forced Israel to cancel its Haifa contact with China has somewhat dampened the Chinese advance in the eastern Mediterranean, and what remains now in the path of the US is the Beirut Port. The US must either invade it to block the Chinese geostrategic mission creep, or else destroy it.

Evidently, the US has chosen the latter option – with Israel assigned the task of accomplishing the destruction of Beirut Port. After all, for different reasons, both benefit greatly from Beirutshima.

And so very timely is this destruction of the Beirut Port as the Lebanese government has very recently been in official talks with the Chinese over their offer to vastly invest in and develop the Beirut Port: a much needed gateway port and bridge into Europe for China, which represents an absolutely intolerable equation for the US’s hegemony in Europe. The Beirut Port’s rebuilding to its previous standard of activity will be contingent on strict conditions imposed by the US and Israel on the Lebanese government, if the port is allowed to be rebuilt at all, that is. Most certainly, the US is determined not to allow the Chinese any executive, investment or managerial access to it.

Furthermore, unable to overcome the Lebanese Resistance’s muscle on the battlefield, as demonstrated again recently by Israel’s hysteria and fear of Hezbollah’s retaliation over Israel killing one of its fighters in Syria, the Israeli terrorist attack on the Port of Beirut shakes off, to a degree, Israel’s own domestic sense of cowardice and military weakness in the face of Hezbollah; while simultaneously dealing a massive blow to the currently anorexic economic belly of its Lebanon enemy.

Dear reader, this article is not concerned with the ‘whodunit’ aspect of the Beirut Port bombing – it’s a fait accompli that this is the work of Lebanon’s enemy and its agents of chaos. Yes, there was gross negligence involved on behalf of the Lebanese port authorities and some politicians, but it was not the port authorities or politicians whose fingers triggered the gigantic port explosion, it was Israel taking advantage of this neglect and corruption and setting it up for an explosive false flag op against the unarmed Lebanese citizens themselves. A typical Israeli behavior: strike at unarmed civilians when unable to strike at an enemy’s army or armed resistors. And no, Hezbollah does not have an arms depot in the port: this is a ludicrous posit that should be immediately dismissed as it falsely demotes Hezbollah’s intelligence and renders their superior weapons strategists into inferior port gangsters. There is zero reason for the Hezbollah to use the busy and exposed thoroughfare of Beirut Port for a secret weapon storage when it already has several mountains and an endless string of remote hills for safe weapons storage. Certainly, Hezbollah is present at the Beirut Port, but only for Intel gathering, not for weapon storing.

This article is not concerned with establishing whodunit and whatnot forensics gathered in slo-mo. It is already clear to all discerning minds who exactly benefits from the false flag attack on the Beirut Port. This article is concerned with the geostrategic why’s and wherefores of the terrorist attack against the Lebanon, and concerned especially with the target itself and the timing. The pertinent questions here being why the Beirut Port and why now? Therefore, let us look at the wider geostrategic meaning of this terrorist attack on Beirut. After all, such a gigantic event does not just suddenly materialize out of the blue. Such a gigantic and consequential event is never for nothing. It is not an unfortunate accident that occurred by happenstance due to neglect and gross incompetence. Indeed, it is a trigger for a larger regional and global project, in the same way that the 9/11 attack was a trigger for a larger project whose ultimate beneficiaries remain Israel and the US’s MIC.

And this larger US project has everything to do with the current US war on China, albeit presently a non-military war, but a war nevertheless, a war that the Pentagon is militarily preparing for – hence the ever increasing and breathtakingly high defense budget that Congress has been allocating to the US military throughout the terms of the last three Presidents.

The US having lost Pakistan to the China sphere of influence, thus losing an attack dog bordering China, and having recently assigned Turkey as its new enforcer in the middle east, it now behooves the US to use its Mideast allies of both Turkey and Israel, two infamous terrorist states who regularly break international law with impunity: use them as spoilers and saboteurs against an advancing China and against any of Beijing’s Mideast regional allies. Beirutshima is clearly an apparent US endeavor to push-back the Chinese advance in the highly strategic eastern Mediterranean, as the US attempts to simultaneously pivot eastwards itself through secured territories wherever China is successfully backtracked by the US and its regional henchmen.

But, can this grand geostrategic plan really work for the benefit of the US? Can the US really succeed at remaining the only superpower in the world by the incessant knee-capping of China’s new Silk Road project?

This is yet to be determined. But judging by the deep budgetary and societal crisis engulfing the US homeland, with no sign whatsoever of its deepening troubles abating, analysts doubt that the US has lungs large enough to last the whole race through with China. Here I will add that the US-China fight over the Beirut Port is not yet over. One wonders what went through the mind of the wily Chinese ambassador in Lebanon to witness the Beirut Port exploding as it shockingly did: to witness his pet project and assignment be destroyed right before his eyes and right before a signed agreement was made between him and the Lebanese government of Diab. And knowing the Chinese, they will see this as an opportunity to entrench their feet even further in Lebanon by offering both a rebuilding and a security deal to the Beirut Port, whereas the deal on the table before Beirutshima was smaller and only for expansion and renovation. And here lies the crunch: is Diab’s government brave enough to face further US and Israeli terrorism in order to align with China who is offering to save Lebanon from its current intractable financial double-crisis? I estimate that sooner or later, Diab’s mettle will be tested in this regard.

Here, I will remind readers that within our living memory, little Lebanon has actually humiliated and evicted both the US and Israel’s military forces from its territory. But can it do it politically too? I say yes, so long as Hezbollah’s sophisticated weapons remain intact, coupled with a united society that gives its PM a clear mandate to go forward with a China deal. The first condition is guaranteed, no one can touch Hezbollah’s arms. But, will the US and Israel succeed at creating another sectarian war in Lebanon after numerous failures at this these past 30 years? The 7th of August (tomorrow) is the date of the official verdict release for the assassinated Rafic Hariri case – the nation of Lebanon has anxiously waited some 15 years for it. Local analysts are predicting a finger falsely pointing at Hezbollah. If this is the case, a sectarian gunpowder keg may very well be lit. Or it may not, as Lebanon since the night of the port explosion has been under Marshall Law, therefore security on the street is in the hands of the military, not in the hands of government security apparatuses and their sectarian alliances. And even though the US has its own agents inside of the Lebanese army, they are a minority who would be risking the breakdown and breakup of the Lebanese army itself – an outcome that the US desires the least because should this army breakup happen, then Hezbollah will be forced to step in so as to take over the task of securing the streets of Lebanon. And nobody wants this scenario, not even Hezbollah.

All Hezbollah cares about is spending its energy on confronting and defeating Israel.

And despite Israel’s successful terrorist attack on Beirut Port, all that Israel cares about is finding someone else to face Hezbollah on the battlfield in its place.

Thus, post Beirutshima, Israel remains hostage to Hezbollah’s missiles. And China sees added opportunities to land bigger feet and currency in a devastated Lebanon.

(Republished from Plato's Guns by permission of author or representative)

"Taxi" is the nom de guère of a geopolitical analyst focusing on the Middle East, and global US foreign policy. He blogs at Plato's Guns.

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The US, Israel and Beirutshima

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