What next for the Middle East? * WorldNetDaily * by David Brummer

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(Video screenshot)

JERUSALEM – When the death of Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nassrallah was confirmed on Saturday, a wave of conflicting emotions and opinions was evident around the world, but especially in the Middle East. The most important question: “What now?” was also very much in the foreground.

In all the fuss surrounding the death of an arch-terrorist, drug dealer and murderer – for what Hezbollah was, if not an enormously powerful cartel – we should pause for a moment and understand how extraordinary the past two weeks have been for Israel, Lebanon and the entire Middle East. -East.

On September 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the hands of Hezbollah terrorists – mainly in Lebanon but also Syria – causing a range of wounds, from minor injuries to blindness, amputations and even death. This operation, attributed to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad – although not officially confirmed – set in motion the chain of events that culminated in Nasrallah’s downfall.

As if the so-called “Grim Beeper operation” didn’t seem extraordinary enough, it was followed a day later by similar explosions in the walkie-talkies and other electronic devices of Hezbollah operatives. In both cases, commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were also affected, highlighting the level of coordination between a state actor, Iran, and a deadly non-state actor, such as Hezbollah.

It set the terrorist proxy on its heels, and one can only imagine the confusion and suspicion that came from such an attack. The organization switched to pagers and walkie-talkies out of fear that Israeli intelligence would intercept mobile phone calls – and then the less technical option was used as a weapon against them.

The distrust that Hezbollah and the IRGC leaders had of their electronic communications forced them to meet face-to-face – like mafia donors – in an attempt to formulate a response to Israel’s successes in the field of intelligence services. It would be their downfall, as Israel had obtained or already had important and accurate information on Hezbollah’s leaders, up to and including Nasrallah.

Personally, he must have felt over the past two weeks that it was only a matter of time before his number appeared. And the thing is, there was no unanimity within the Israeli cabinet on the decision to take him out. Even a figure like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, no Arab lover, reportedly felt somewhat uneasy about eliminating Nasrallah, presumably fearful – and rightly so – of the reprisals that could result from this action.

What has become clear over the past two weeks is how compromised Hezbollah’s internal security has become. From an outsider’s perspective, it does not seem possible to achieve the scale of disruption that Israel has caused without a level of superior intelligence, including deeply infiltrating Hezbollah’s organizational structure.

It is important to also note the role that the IDF Northern Command has played in cooperation with the intelligence services. Since October 8, when Hezbollah decided to join Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s so-called “Al-Aqsa flood” operation on a somewhat limited basis, the IDF, while largely focused on Gaza and the need to there to dismantle the northern arena.

Even before the operations of the past two weeks, the Israeli military has eliminated some 450 Hezbollah and IRGC operatives, including senior field commanders with significant battlefield experience. The Israeli air force also tried to hit supply lines carrying material from Iran or Iran’s allies in Iraq or Syria to get closer to the Lebanese front.

What is evident in the reactions to Nasrallah’s demise is a strange group of people – commentators, so-called journalists and politicians – who decry Israel’s actions and label it ‘an escalation’, conveniently forgetting the thousands of rockets fired at the were fired in the north of the country. the tens of thousands of people displaced as a result. There is a certain degree of myopia and cowardice, which allowed the Associated Press to label Nasrallah as “charismatic and smart.” It is reminiscent of the Washington Post’s description of Abu Bakr al-Baghdai as an “austere religious scholar.” (The Post followed that up by calling Nasrallah a “father figure and moral compass.”)

The fascination with genuine murderers, thieves and terrorists is a disease that the West struggles to overcome. For its own long-term survival, it would do well to abandon the suicidal empathy that allows previously respected news institutions – among other things – to wax lyrical about some truly terrible people.

Let us also remember that those civilians were evacuated not only because of the rockets, but also out of fear, which was later confirmed, showing that Hezbollah’s powerful Radwan force was planning an October 7-style attack on the Galilee . Although the terrain along the Israel-Lebanon border is much steeper and more difficult, and a remnant of distant tectonic shifts in the Great Syrian-African Rift, than the sand dunes along the Mediterranean coast, Hezbollah is known to have invested enormous sums in creating cross-pollination. border attack tunnels.

However, millions of Middle Easterners, Syrians, Iraqis and Lebanese – the people who witnessed and suffered Hezbollah’s brutality – let’s call it their life experience – were elated by the news of Nasrallah’s demise. A sense of hope begins to germinate, a small flame radiating some light and a sense of opportunity, a belief that a fog has lifted.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, and someone deeply involved in throwing away the assumptions of the past and rethinking the Middle East, posted a rare comment about X. He wrote: “Sept. 27 is the most important day in the Middle East since the breakthrough of the Abraham Accords.”

Kushner was also completely blunt in his assessment of the callous and cowardly attitude of the Biden-Harris administration in general, and the US State Department in particular: “Anyone who has called for a ceasefire in the North is wrong. There is no way back for Israel. They cannot now afford not to finish the job and completely dismantle the arsenal aimed at them. They will never get another chance.”

There are still many unanswered questions and some uncertainties. Will Lebanon be able to unite around a few unifying figures so that the country can escape the clutches of Shia terrorists who want to lead the country down the path to hell? What will be the response of Iran and its allies?

The Houthi already fired a ballistic missile on Saturday towards Ben Gurion International Airport near Lod – ironically a significantly mixed Jewish and Arab city. Will Israel conduct a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon to drive Hezbollah operatives – and their missiles – back across the Litani River and further away from Israeli population centers (although some of their munitions have a range of several hundred kilometers, allowing the entire country in reach)?

Beyond the immediate realities of the Middle East, what will happen to the relationship between the United States and Israel? There were reports, similar to other operations the Jewish state has carried out, that no permission was sought nor were US officials informed until the planes were already in the air to destroy Hezbollah’s underground headquarters.

There seem to be two simultaneous things at work; the first is that there is (at best) a frosty relationship between Israel’s leaders — particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and the Biden administration, including that administration’s titular head, President Joe Biden, and the U.S. Department of State . What is to be an ally in the situation where the sitting president, due to the machinations and needs of his own political party, has been reduced to a side role? Biden is the lamest of lame ducks; a person we know is supported by a greedy and greedy woman, and a party that cannot change him for fear that his shortcomings will be too closely tied to his anointed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris.

In addition to the cooling of personal relations, there is also a very clear lack of trust between the Israeli defense establishment and its American counterparts – and for good reason. Too often, plans have been leaked or telegraphed, and at times the Biden administration has put unnecessary pressure on its ally, rather than the genocidal terrorists arrayed against it.

The same thing happened just before the attack that took out the head of Hezbollah. Perhaps the US and France have heard some talk about a possible attempt on Nasrallha’s life; Perhaps they put two and two together, figuring that if Israel went after Hezbollah’s top leadership, Nasrallah would be the ace in the pack, even if they weren’t confident that Israel would definitely go for it. It did, and it is conducting operations that offer hope to millions of people in the Middle East, unhindered by American timidity.


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