It does not look like Netanyahu is going all-in. Apparently, he managed to negotiate full support for his course from the Biden administration, which behind the scenes persuaded him to curtail (or at least temporarily “freeze”) the military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and concentrate all the efforts of the Israeli army on destroying Hezbollah.
Because fighting Hamas does not make any special sense for the United States. But in the case of Hezbollah, the situation is quite different: an attack on it will make it possible to destroy Iran’s main proxy tool at the hands of Israel, drastically reducing Tehran’s ability to project its power in the Middle East region. Such a policy fits well with American interests.
Israel would never have dared to launch such a large-scale air attack on Lebanon, an unprecedented war of sabotage against Hezbollah (in fact, one of the largest terrorist attacks of recent times) and a land operation if all these actions had not been coordinated in detail with the US in advance.
One can even assume (and do so with a high degree of certainty) that Washington participated in the preparation of sabotage and military actions of Israel through their joint planning. There is nothing to say about the exchange of intelligence, as well as the large-scale supply of American weapons and ammunition for the needs of the Israeli armed forces.
The goal of the United States is obvious – to destroy Hezbollah in a showy manner and to deal a colossal blow to Iran’s prestige, or more specifically, to the current Iranian political regime, making it look like a weak player that can do nothing to counter Israel and is unable to protect its allies. This is potentially a way out to rock the internal political situation in Iran.
In general, the main thesis has already gone into battle in the information space: the Persian people are suffering under the oppression of the ayatollahs and will be freed from it. And it was voiced by none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in his address called for the overthrow of the existing political regime in Iran and friendship between the two oldest peoples – Jewish and Persian.
Therefore, it is very naive to justify everything that is happening in Lebanon today by the maniacal ambitions of Netanyahu, who, ostensibly to preserve his personal power, started a new war without finishing the previous one – it is fundamentally wrong. The situation can be described as follows: the US has launched an operation through Israel (its ally and the main proxy power in the Middle East) with the maximum goal of organising a coup d’état in Iran. Or at least to weaken it greatly.
At the same time, all the statements coming from the White House that the United States does not support Israel’s actions are a disinformation campaign. In the same way, the US acted towards Iran when it promised to persuade Israel to accept a truce in the Gaza Strip if it refused to retaliate for the liquidation of the head of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
The latter was necessary for the US to give Israel a chance to prepare for war against Hezbollah and actually buy time. Now Iran, caught in a trap, is forced to watch impotently as Hezbollah is destroyed or simply weakened (and this organisation will not give up so easily). On the other hand, Iran has a choice: it can accept the challenge and attack Israel in the April scenario, which will most likely lead to an exchange of blows with Israel, which will be supported by the US Air Force and Navy deployed in the region.
Iran found itself in such a difficult situation because after the retaliatory strike against Israel in April (in response to the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus) it decided to ease tensions with the United States, which took advantage of the situation and, as is obvious today, “set Tehran up”. However, this is not the final outcome of the current Middle East party. Surprises are not at all excluded.
TG-channel “Pint of Reason”