Live Conflict Israel-Palestine War|Regional Escalations

[Relic]

Hezbollah confirms that dear leader is dead.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/world/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-hamas

 

[SilverMachine]

"We'll keep up the good fight, death to the west, Hamas are cuddly friendly puppies, AHH I THINK I HEAR A DRONE BUZZING! RUN!"

Etc.

 

[Relic]

I'm not writing this to be an annoying contrarian, but if there was a region wide popular mobilization, I can see Israel being defeated conventionally. We don't know how Israel can actually deal with an actual naval blockade of Red Sea and Mediterranean or Turkish pipelines, let alone a proper ballistic missile barrage followed by a militia zerg rush. Regional actors are too disjointed and divided to do this but if the stars align somehow, Israel can absolutely be beaten on the battlefield, if you don't count the nukes that is.

And just to add, this adding and subtracting aircraft inventory is a little childish. Readiness levels, munitions availability, command capability, political will, military infrastructure, logistics, weather, luck, espionage all play into the result. I believe this joint force composition has a great potential for dealing damage but would fail to ultimately hold back a decentralized but relentless attack by a large opposing force, especially if that attack comes after a relatively effective BM bombardment.

1. There is no legitimate blockade of the Red Sea that is going to happen with 2 American Carrier Groups in the region. Will there be heightened danger for vessels in region? Yes. A full blockade? No. Not to mention, port access through the Mediterranean will not be blocked.

2. Readiness levels of aircraft and access to ammunition are both relavent points, however, nobody is insinuating that there will be hundreds of American, Israeli and British strike platforms airborne simultaneously. You only need a small number with the quality of Western weapons to wipe out entire armored columns and hundreds of fighters "zerg rushing". Air power is the great equalizer.

3. I purposely left out the immense drone capability that both USA and Israel possess. More "death" from above. Not to mention the hundreds of land attack cruise missiles waiting off the Israeli coast in Arleigh Burke Destroyers and lurking U.S. submarines.

How many militants / military personel are involved in this "zerg" rush you speak of? How much combat power, armor, artillery, etc are they bringing to the table to counter what Israel posseses. Which nations are suddenly involved in this plan?

 

[SilverMachine]

And to reiterate, Vatan, that's only speaking conventional weapons. What happens if your Israel's-gotta-go-down stuff succeeds, one in a million chance?

They're not going down without taking down everyone in that part of the world in an irradiated glass wasteland. Your "winning" scenario is worse than your losing one. If it ever got to that, which it wouldn't.

 

[Iskander]

It seems that there are no two countries in the world that are geographically far apart from each other as Canada and Australia. What is surprising is the coincidence of opinions about the events of our two respected colleagues - @Relic and @SilverMachine - from these countries

 

[Rooxbar]

I doubt that Iran will retaliate in any way if Nasralah is dead... At most you can expect some militias in Iraq, Syria and Houthis launching some missiles towards Israel that won't change anything. What happened to the hundreds of thousands of rockets and missiles that Hezbollah had?

In the last few weeks Israel is absolutely destroying Hezbollah and to me it looks more and more like Iran is ready to sacrifice them to get on better terms with the West. Their new President Pazeshkian hinted how they are ready for a new nuclear deal, how they support Ukraine's territorial integrity etc. Hezbollah are the useful idiots that will be sacrificed like a used napkin.

They might not retaliate but I don't think it will be because the president has any say in the general direction of the country. JCPOA will expire in January 2026 and Iranians' whole strategy has been to drag the negotiations until it expires and the snapback mechanism (an automatic mechanism predicted in JCPOA) is not applicable in the security council to bring back the harshest sanctions by all members of 5+1 (regardless of the fact about how that will be actualized now that Russia and China are very unlikely to follow U.S. unlike how they didn't veto and did obey the security council sanctions during Obama years). Because of this, whatever the new president has been saying about the Iran deal and nuclear negotiations, the last more hardline president was saying as well, as that is the general doctrine and it hasn't changed. I think they are just waiting for the current supreme leader to die or be replaced due to illness to declare his fatwa about nuclear weapons null and void and declare themselves a nuclear power without there being any deal in place which can put them in jeopardy of the security council being able to automatically impose multilateral sanctions on them.

Likud, Otzma Yehudit, New Right, United Torah, and in general Kahanism, revisionist zionists and the settler politicians have always been a fan of full-on war with Iran as they see them as the main obstacle to their goal, i.e. full occupation of Gaza, West Bank, etc. and complete ethnic cleansing of Palestinians into the Jordan valley and Sinai. They also know that they can only achieve this with full U.S. support. Therefore, right now, fully aware of what the Asia pivot by U.S. means for the diminished importance of Israel and the ME region as a whole for U.S. strategic thinking and military and intelligence investment, and the limited capacity of U.S. in supporting a regional war thereafter, seemingly they see a limited timeline for forcing U.S.' hand through the influence of their lobbies and also the semi-organic soft power they wield in U.S. government, institutions, intelligencia, intelligence community and finance, to enter a full-on war with Iran, esp. as the calculation might be that the incumbent (Biden), in case of entering a new war, will not transfer an inconvenient amount of negative consequences and blame to Kamala Harris in the election. The urgency, from their pov, is amplified if we add the January 2026 date for a nuclear Iran to the picture. I name the parties and currents who think this to underline the fact that although this is the majority view in the Israeli political sphere, some of the secular zionists and all of the liberal zionists do not think this is worth ruining Israel's image and making it a pariah state for (as the harsh attacks and mass murder is designed to entice but has such discommodious byproducts). They propose that the Iranian regime can topple itself easily through a combination of sanctions, intelligence work, polarization and ethnic strife, leading to a color revolution (CIA, MI6 and Mossad backed Farsi t.v. stations are the go-to media options [VOA, BBC, Iran International respectively] for almost half of the Iranian population). For the hardliners this is a liberal dream that doesn't take nuclear bombs into the equation.

So putting two and two together (the twos here being the two paragraphs above), one can see why Israel is trying to entice Iran as hard as they can to hit them hard to guarantee casus belli becoming justified for U.S. establishment and their public opinion operation, and why Iran who is trying to wait until 2026 to potentially become a nuclear power and through that deterrence force an acceptance of its reintegration into the banking and finance system of the world, is trying to avoid a war scenario.

EDIT: I don't know how consistent this is with the state of stockpiles and manufacturing capacity wrt the Russia-Ukraine war though.

 

[SilverMachine]

It seems that there are no two countries in the world that are geographically far apart from each other as Canada and Australia. What is surprising is the coincidence of opinions about the events of our two respected colleagues - @Relic and @SilverMachine - from these countries

What's geography got to do with anything? Canada and Australia are virtually culturally identical (aside from our silly accents and their Frenchyness) - western-hemisphere politically, British-origin culturally, US-aligned, secular. Whoa man, huge coincidence. Countries allied with Israel have people that are empathetic to Israel's situation, egads, the shock and horror! Unexplainable phenomenon.

It's like going "there's a lot of Turks in here, why all the common ground among them?" Duh.

 

[Scott Summers]

It seems that there are no two countries in the world that are geographically far apart from each other as Canada and Australia. What is surprising is the coincidence of opinions about the events of our two respected colleagues - @Relic and @SilverMachine - from these countries

Because they are originally not from Canada and Australia. They are part of the same tribe.

 

[SilverMachine]

Speak your mind freely and clearly, good sir. Go on...

 

[Afif]

Australia and Canada are colonial settler states stemming from the same origin. It make sense that both are largely identical to modern day UK.

Also one could easily see why these countries vehemently support Israel. Culturally, it is very similar to the West. Plus it serves the core geopolitical interest of the United States and UK in ME.

English speaking nations (five eyes) understandably very much aligned geopolitically given how identical they are in every other domain. Language, culture, religion and to an extent complexion. (That still matters for many)

 

[SilverMachine]

I think he was more aiming at the idea of us being "sneaky big-noses in hiding using false flag logos" or something. Would square with the guy's usual posting.

Also, plenty of people supporting Palestine over here, I'm guessing it's the same in ol' Canada. You know, secular countries with various diasporas, not monoliths and such. How things should be. Individuals with individual takes on stuff, nobody's going to put a bullet in you for not towing the ideological line, a pretty western notion.

 

[TR_123456]

They should rename it the Axis of Hesitance at this point.

How dare you insult the only resistance to the evil ''West'' and Israel.
You will see sooooooon!!!!!!!

 

[Iskander]

The Ayatollahs of Tehran reacted to the killing of Nasrallah by Israel. They answered very harshly, I would even say cruelly: Rahbar Khomeini is hidden in a safe bunker
Tehran's unprecedented determination should strike fear into the hearts of Israelis