Declan Hayes
The looming war between Israel and its allies with Hezbollah and its allies for South Lebanon resembles the prelude to the Great War of 1914-1918.
The looming war between Israel and its allies with Hezbollah and its allies for South Lebanon resembles the prelude to the Great War of 1914-1918. Though nobody wants it, everyone has been preparing for it, just as the Dreadnought race between Germany and Britain were the stepping stones to Verdun, the Somme and the Marne.
Israel's objective, if Tel Aviv can be believed on this or, indeed, on anything else, is to extend its South Lebanese toehold as far as the Litani River, which it would then hope to use as a natural border between it and a broken Lebanon to the north.
The Hezbollah alliance, for its part, is fully aware of this objective, as it is of the Israeli alliance's larger plans to march on Iran, via Lebanon and all other countries that are in the way, not least because they and the military means to achieve them have been clearly and repeatedly spelled out in NATO aligned outlets, including these ones here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
The ideal scenario, from the Israeli alliance's point of view, would be to conduct yet another blitzkrieg into Lebanon, perhaps as far north again as Beirut, to get its various Muslim Brotherhood and allied forces to again harass Hezbollah from the north and to do to South Lebanon what they are currently doing to the Gaza salient.
This approach would have the advantage that the Syrian Arab is not in a position to effectively intervene to stop them, as they famously did in bygone invasions. That said, though a full on Lebanese invasion would rally Israelis around the flag and perhaps even help Joe Biden secure re-election, it is very difficult to see any other advantages to the Israeli alliance waging blitzkrieg or an American style shock and awe extermination campaign. Certainly Jordan and Gulf State collaborationist countries would find themselves in a right pickle were that to happen.
Blitzkrieg also has the disadvantage that, as Hezbollah have over a thousand miles of tunnels up to a hundred metres beneath South Lebanon, Gaza and even Iwo Jima would be comparative cakewalks compared to what the Hezbollah alliance has waiting for them beneath South Lebanon's bucolic hillsides.
Although the Japanese were the world's best tunnelers, the Vietnamese at Củ Chi were no slouches either. However, just as Vietnam's tunnels at Củ Chi were part of a grander logistical strategy that brought them success, so also are the tunnels but one arrow in Hezbollah's quiver. Hezbollah's tunnels would be manned not only by their own forces but by their Palestinian and other allies, who would revel at the chance to hit back above or below ground at their common enemies.
Although the Israeli alliance used tunnels with great success in their colour revolution against Syria, an open war against Hezbollah would also mean open season against their collaborators. Although the Syrian Army might not be able to directly enter the fray in South Lebanon, Idlib and the Israeli alliance's collaborators in northern Lebanon would, should Hezbollah will it, learn the truism of that old proverb that revenge is a dish best served cold.
None of this is to presume that this war would be fought only underground. Land, sea and air will see plenty of action too. Israel's land forces can only hope that Netanyahu reverses his Hannibal doctrine because the nature of the fighting will dictate that hundreds, if not thousands of them will go missing in action. The nature of the tunnels are such that the Hezbollah alliance will be almost impossible to defeat in a ground war on its home turf.
Although Hezbollah did engage in some conventional armoured warfare against the Israeli alliance in Syria, Israel's far greater firepower ensures this should not feature much in South Lebanon. That said, Hezbollah's tank-killing armoured divisions will, like moles from hell, be waiting in ambush.
Next up is the drone and missile capability of the Hezbollah alliance, which we have already seen in the Red Sea and in Ukraine, where Iranian drones have made quite a name for themselves. The successful use of these munitions by the Houthis has boosted asymmetric warfare to a new level and their deployment in Ukraine has done the same for the art of generalship, which is at the heart of how this pending war will go.
This interesting interview with retired 4 star American Marine Corps general http://youtube.com/watch?v=tQI1Wn9YSCY shows us how that role in the Israeli alliance has regressed since the days of Bradley, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur and Patton. If McKenzie is to be believed, the job of the American and Israeli top brass is still to command, control, and coordinate action on intelligence but, even more so, to sell military hardware to America's vast array of satrapies.
There are a number of problems with this, which Vietnam, Ukraine and Iran all illustrate. First off, there is Vietnam's General Võ Nguyên Giáp, whose logistical genius and leopard-like focus sent the French and then the Yankees packing. Next off is Ukraine, which is largely a drone and artillery war, making large scale infantry advances by either side across open terrain impossible. And, finally, there is Iran, which shows that massive retaliatory drone and missile responses must be factored into the decision making matrix.
Shoehorning all that into South Lebanon, we can expect Israel's finest to get bogged down in Hezbollah's tunnels, just as Hitler's Sixth Army got enmeshed in Stalingrad street battles they too were ill equipped to fight. And, as Israel's tunnel rats get cornered beneath the bucolic hills of South Lebanon, we can expect the Houthis to unleash hell on steroids, and Iran and Hezbollah to take a leaf out of Curtis LeMay's playbook and bomb Israel back to the Stone Age.
And, though the Yankee and Israeli navies, with Britain and other NATO poodles joining in from their Cypriot bases, will mercilessly bombard South Lebanon, illegal American installations in Jordan, Iraq and Syria will fall like ninepins. And, as all that is happening, Russia and China will up the ante in Ukraine and the South China Sea to give America's High Command even spicier news to relay to their dopey President who, in theory at least, gets to make the final call on how to deploy his troops.
The problem for the American/Israeli alliance is they do not have sufficient troops for the raging infernos that await them, when Hezbollah begins this worldwide bolt from Yankee bondage. Although America's leaders, like Hitler before them, have their own selfish reasons to fight on to the bitter end, that end might come much quicker than any of them can possibly prepare for.
The Litani River is, in any event, just a bluff. Not only does Israel have no right to advance to it, just as they have no right to be in occupation of the Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian lands they currently occupy but reaching the Litani would not be the end of their manifest destiny dreams. Given how the Israeli and American political leadership are wired, it is inconceivable that their dreams of conquest will ever end, except in the very violent way the Hezbollah alliance is going to end them not only in South Lebanon, but globally as well.
As processions of diplomats visit South Beirut to plead with Hezbollah to outdo the prophet Job in patience, Hezbollah's morale is sky high because they know, whether their Mahdi returns in their lifetime or not, the end times, with or without Chairman Mao's nuclear paper tiger, are here for Israel and all it represents.