Former UK Diplomat Alastair Crooke Explains Why Hezbollah Still Will Likely Win

“Alastair Crooke: Netanyahu Gambles on Slaughter”

30 September 2024, Judge Napolitano interviews Crooke

That’s the best commentary I’ve seen on Israel’s war against Hezbollah and Iran, but here are two other commentators whom I have likewise found previously to have an exceptionally high percentage of their predictions come true, and they likewise agree with Crooke — Brian Berletic, and the anonymous “Moon of Alabama” blogger:

https://journal-neo.su/2024/09/24/washington-sets-trap-for-iran-will-iran-take-the-bait/

https://archive.is/RNjP1

“Washington Sets Trap for Iran, Will Iran Take the bait?”

24 September 2024, Brian Berletic

Amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific, Washington is moving toward an equally dangerous, regional war in the Middle East between its Israeli proxies and a growing list of neighboring states and organizations.

This includes Lebanon and the Lebanese-based military and political organization Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Republic, Iran, as well as Shi’a militias across Iraq and Yemeni-based Ansar Allah referred to across the Western media as the “Houthis.”

This large group of nations and organizations stretching across the region share a common denominator – they all serve as obstacles to US primacy over the region, with the US itself having waged war directly and/or indirectly against each since the end of World War2.

Just as the US has recruited Ukraine to wage war on Russia by proxy in Eastern Europe and has politically captured and used the island province of Taiwan against the rest of China in the Asia-Pacific region, the US has carefully cultivated Israel politically and militarily for decades to serve as a proxy used to carry out assassinations, terrorist attacks, military strikes, and even provoke wars the US itself seeks plausible deniability in regard to.

Washington seeks war – by proxy or otherwise – with Iran sooner rather than later

Toward this end, the US provides Israel with billions in aid annually, including a steady flow of arms and ammunition Israel’s various wars of aggression would be impossible to conduct without. While Washington publicly poses as seeking peace and stability in the Middle East, its continuous support for Israel enables the perpetual conflict and instability undermining the region.

Most recently, the US has repeatedly claimed to have urged Israeli restraint regarding its military operations against Gaza. In practice, however, the US has enabled the large-scale destruction of Gaza through the continual shipment of munitions including thousands of bombs used in Israeli airstrikes. …

The nature of Israeli belligerence is transparent, part of a well-documented US policy to provoke wider war across the Middle East the US can then justify intervening in – and war both the US and its Israeli proxies can cite when using weapons and tactics otherwise difficult or impossible to justify – up to and including nuclear weapons.

In 2009, the Brookings Institution in its 170-page paper titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran” [by the six neocons Kenneth M. Pollack, Daniel L. Byman, Martin Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael E. O’Hanlon, and Bruce Riedel], would detail various means to coerce, contain, and ultimately overthrow the government of Iran, including waging war against Iran.

The paper admits how difficult it would be for the United States itself to launch military strikes against Iran, stating:

… any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. 

It also says:

… it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it.

An entire chapter was dedicated to the use of Israel to carry out an initial strike on Iran, allowing the US to distance itself from culpability. Titled, “Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” it explicitly states:

… the goal of this policy option would be to destroy key Iranian nuclear facilities in the hope that doing so would significantly delay Iran’s acquisition of an indigenous nuclear weapons capability. However, in this case, an added element could be that the United States would encourage — and perhaps even assist — the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto Israel.

The paper notes that an Israeli strike could, “trigger a wider conflict between Israel and Iran that could draw in the United States and other countries,” giving Washington the pretext it seeks ahead of any war of aggression it itself wages against Iran.

With this policy in mind, Israel’s steady cadence of increasingly provocative attacks against Iran and its allies is easier to understand. The US, through Israeli provocations, seeks to provoke a wider war the US itself can wade into, appearing to be aiding an ally rather than initiating yet another war of aggression in the Middle East.

Ultimately, for this trap to work successfully, Iran must retaliate to one of these many provocations, and do so in a way the US and its allies can portray as disproportionate or even “unprovoked.”

So far, Iran’s responses have been exceedingly measured. …

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/10/israel-invading-lebanon-to-prolong-and-expand-its-supremacists-war.html

https://archive.is/tb9Ug

October 01, 2024

“Israel - Invading Lebanon To Prolong And Expand Its Supremacists War”

Is it a trap?

That is the question the Zionists should ask themselves. To me the answer seems to be 'Yes!'

The Zionist entity is invading Lebanon - again. All earlier such invasions have ended in failure. Zionist troops had to retreat under fire. The current invasion is unlikely to see a better fate.

The Izzies, and their U.S. sponsors, are delirious over their perceived success in killing a number of Hizbullah officials including its leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah.

Don't they understand that Hizbullah has explicitly been built in ways that allow it to sustain such losses? All the murdered officials have already been replaced. If these new ones get killed their replacements are ready.

Before last week the war between the resistance was restricted to an (unequal) exchange of missiles. Israel fired many more than the resistance but not to more effect. The nature of that slow walking war of attrition will now change.

An Israeli ground invasion is exactly what Hizbullah has prepared for. It has readied its ambush sites. Its weapons and the people need to launch them are down in their well prepared bunkers.

The invading forces will be subjected to all kind of surprises. The ground troops are expected to proceed only after heavy preparatory bombing. But the mountainous grounds will allow the defenders to survive the bombing and to attack when and where they are least suspected. I do expect heavy military casualties but mostly on the attacker's  side.

This war will likely go on for several months. It could easily extend into a years long and much larger conflict.

The Biden administrations is in full support of the invasion. It may even have urgedNetanyahoo to proceed with it:

Senior White House figures privately told Israel that the U.S. would support its decision to ramp up military pressure against Hezbollah — even as the Biden administration publicly urged the Israeli government in recent weeks to curtail its strikes, according to American and Israeli officials.

Presidential adviser Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East, told top Israeli officials in recent weeks that the U.S. agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah in order to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict, the officials told POLITICO.

The Pentagon though is not convinced that this operation will be a success. It fears that, at some point, the U.S. forces will be sent in to rescue the Izzies from a severe defeat.

The Netanyahoo government will try its best to expand the war into Syria or, even further, into an all out war on Iran. It will need the full military support from the U.S. to do so. Its political maneuvering towards the U.S. will thus be done with the intent to further drag it into the war.

Without the full support of the U.S. Israel will fail to become the regional superpower it is striving to be.

With full U.S. support their might be a chance, a small one though, for Israel to win this round. …