Israel Leaves Lebanon, Passes Escalation Baton to Turkey and Syria
On Tuesday, almost simultaneously, representatives of Lebanon and Israel announced that they had reached an agreement on a ceasefire. As a result, the time of the onset of silence was also set - 11:00 on November 27. On Wednesday, traffic jams formed on the Lebanese highways - people headed home.
Shortly before the official announcement, E. Blinken, who was working at the G7 summit at the time, said that he had no doubt that the fighting in the Gaza Strip would soon end.
Although the Gaza agreement has been torpedoed by both sides more than once, in this case everything suggests that the head of the US State Department is not far from the truth. The current act of carnage in the Middle East Mediterranean is close to completion.
Russia should closely monitor what is happening, since Ukraine and this region are connected in the current crazy politics by many threads. And also because if the Russian society has already somewhat forgotten Syria, then a number of players not only have not forgotten it, but also intend to step up their actions.
Israel and the American "Window of Opportunity"
The operation in the Gaza Strip ceased to make sense for Israel (from a public point of view, of course) already in April, when the first full-fledged versions of agreements between Hamas and Jerusalem appeared.
The intensity of the operation began to subside even earlier, in March. The deadlock of the situation was obvious to Israel, since the actual act of revenge had been accomplished, but not a single strategic goal of the operation had been achieved. The hostages, with a few exceptions, had not been released, and the Hamas leadership (at that time) was still in place.
As a result, either Israel or Hamas dragged out the terms of the agreement, constantly inserting new points and sub-points into it. Talk about Israel's plans for the Lebanese Hezbollah did not subside, and to some extent this was a way out for B. Netanyahu, since it allowed him to conduct operations permanently. In addition to Lebanon, pressure was added on the West Bank, Iran, and Syria.
Israeli society was divided even before the tragedy of October 7, and this split is quite deep. The disputes over the Supreme Court (BAGATS) are only the visible and manifest part of this split.
The issue of hostages was added to this polarization, since even the most staunch optimists understood that B. Netanyahu was, at best, sacrificing them for the sake of a major strategic goal. Pessimists spoke of more mundane and cynical motives. In general, the very posing of the question of “hostages against even the most important strategic goals” was already an internal test for Israel.
Everything was heading towards the fact that whether B. Netanyahu would bring troops into Lebanon or not, the madness in the Gaza Strip itself had to end somehow. The question here is not only in the already obvious senselessness of the action, but also in the effect that this operation had on US policy.
In Russia (and this is understandable) they think that the whole world is looking mainly at the fields of Ukraine, however, a good half of the world was discussing only the Gaza Strip. For the democrats, all this worked strictly to the minus. Sooner or later, but the issue would have been pressed.
In July, the American administration lets go of the reins of the international agenda, leaving all past strategies, smart and not so smart moves, to their own devices.
In Israel, perhaps, they were the first to guess (most likely, they simply knew before others) that in six months or so there would be a rare window of opportunity through which it would be possible to knock out, snatch, squeeze out, etc. those assets with which a new bargaining would be possible according to the new American strategy.
Whether Democrats or Republicans, it is important that this will be a revision of the old and the construction of the new. Whoever comes to this stage with what, that is what will be constructed in fact. And B. Netanyahu decided to use this window to the maximum.
Loud but mixed results
Despite the fact that Israel's military steps during this half-year have looked quite impressive, it cannot be said that B. Netanyahu has turned the nonsense in the Gaza Strip into a real strategy with a long-term negotiating advantage.
Indeed, Israel's actions to eliminate I. Haniyeh in Iran and a number of Lebanese Hezbollah leaders were carried out at an exceptionally high level. The operation with the "death pagers" will probably be included in textbooks for special services and saboteurs.
Israel demonstrated a very serious level during the landing operation in the Syrian city of Masf. This is generally a landing from the sea and through the entire Syrian coast into the Hama province. Yes, we will note once again that this is impressive, however...
Israel did not act according to a template, but for some strange reason acted inappropriately to its tasks.
In the Gaza Strip, limited in space and maneuverability, it would be more rational for Israel not to strike at areas in the style of the biblical “destruction of Jericho,” but to knock out the military leadership.
This is what they eventually came to, but at that time, when the sector had already been reduced to dust, the number of victims was in the tens of thousands, and Israel itself became a symbol of military madness for many in the world (mostly liberals).
In the US and EU, this role was intended exclusively for Russia, and not for Israel, the symbol of liberal democracy in the Middle East. Israel, in the person of B. Netanyahu, has thrown these semantic allusions of liberals into the trash - its electorate is made of a different stuff.
Hamas' leadership is more centralized, and with it in place, the operation in the Gaza Strip has become a carousel for the IDF - they leave one area, it flares up, they return, it flares up where they left, etc.
With the Lebanese Hezbollah, everything also turned out to be “ambiguous,” since here, on the contrary, Israel immediately targeted the leadership and its upper-echelon contacts. But it turned out that Hezbollah is a very decentralized organization, and such effective and high-profile sabotage did not provide an advantage in terms of results on the ground.
The Israeli army moved north at a teaspoon a day. Although Lebanon was bombed daily, the advance units reached the Litani River just before the end of the operation, which is ±25 km from the border. There were not enough forces, and B. Netanyahu could not put everyone under arms.
By the way, as it turned out, up to 70% of the weapons spent by Israel were provided by the United States, and the Israeli Prime Minister could not open this tap at his own command.
That is, Israel acted in Lebanon in the way that would have been suitable in the Gaza Strip, and acted in the way that would have been suitable in Lebanon in the Gaza Strip.
Assets acquired and assets disposed of by B. Netanyahu
What should be added to B. Netanyahu's list of new assets is the very serious damage that Israel has inflicted on Hezbollah's financial institutions. The work on the movement's financial sector was entirely within the framework of the American strategy of putting pressure on Iran's trade, and here Israel has brought any administration in Washington an important and valuable trophy.
For Iran, this is the most painful and negative factor of this military campaign. A significant part of Lebanon was directly dependent on this financial system, and the washing out of such volumes of valuables and cash from it will take more than one month to replenish.
The next asset is crossing the demarcation line on the Golan Heights: the long-standing “status quo” has been violated, which even the meticulous media somehow overlooked. The value of this step for B. Netanyahu is that the “warming up” of Syria is coming to an end, and the window of opportunity will be used there by all the past opponents - pro-American anarchists, Turkish proxies, Turkey, Iran and Idlib radicals. The importance of this lever for B. Netanyahu is very high, if you look at it through the prism of the future “big bargain”.
What is absolutely not an asset for Israel (and now the US) is the results of the escalation with Iran. The exchange of blows was not senseless, the parties tested each other seriously, and it turned out that Israel is not at all ready for a direct clash with this rival.
Neither alone, nor together with the US and some of its satellites. Now a reasonable question arises: if Iran and Russia transfer the agreement on strategic comprehensive partnership in the face of the "Trump factor" and big bargaining to military rails (and the probability of this is not zero), then what will happen if Iran gets its own, for example, IRBM "Pistachio"?
It was a great mistake for our domestic media to actively engage in the discussion of whether many or few floors were destroyed underground at Yuzhmash by the recent strike, searching for craters, ruins and scorch marks.
Actually, Yuzhmash was needed to strike not in a field or a city, but somewhere in between. The effect here is not in the crater at all, but in the fact that the footage clearly shows and proves the impossibility of interception, and monitoring - the real speed.
PRO system/Defense Israel has already missed many of the conventional weapons in Iran's arsenal, which has greatly limited the much-hyped "retaliatory strike." But Iran's conventional arsenal also shows that geography cannot be fooled; a territory as small as Israel's is not meant for missile wars with heavy ballistics, if it is available in commercial quantities.
Well, and the question with which all the current riot began - Hamas. The movement is pretty battered, but it hasn't gone anywhere. It would seem that everything is over, even Qatar refused to "rent premises" to Hamas, but towards the end of the year the American administration took the reins of politics again and began to set "bookmarks" for the future everywhere, so as not to completely lose the threads of influence and control. Qatar changed its mind, and the Egyptians went to Israel again to talk about the agreement.
In general, the situation with the caches left by the outgoing US administration is very complicated, if only because there are so many of them. The latest is the ICC warrant for the arrest of the leader of Myanmar (a gift to China). And for those who think that Myanmar is somewhere out there, far away, the Russian regulator brings gifts for the New Year (and for the fall in general). And will bring them before the end of January. All coincidences here are, of course, accidental.
The American point here is that even if something surprising happens and Hamas decides to dissolve itself, the Gaza Strip will fall (even if only formally) under Fatah. And Hamas will not go anywhere in fact, and B. Netanyahu will have to stop insisting on the idea of "one state".
But this is the fruit that his conservative and orthodox electorate has been patiently waiting for to ripen. After all, they have tolerated so many problems and the current “international anti-Semitism” for this reason. In fact, the hostages have not been released, and the operation is formally underway.
The head of Fatah M. Abbas is acting quite wisely here, having appointed his successor in advance (R. Fattuh is the chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council). The matter is not only that M. Abbas is a respectable 89 years old, but also in the fate of I. Haniyeh. By the way, his successor is not inferior in rhetoric to the odious Israeli minister B. Smotrich.
In the disposal of assets, both direct and specific, B. Netanyahu will have to include not only the loss of manpower, but also the material and technical base. Israeli armored vehicles have not been scrapped in such quantities for a very long time. Average estimates are from 12% to 25% of the fleet tanks and infantry fighting vehicles depending on the type.
It is clear that not all of them are irretrievable, part of the park will be restored, and these losses are not on the scale of the Yom Kippur War, but the military actions are not at all on the level of 1973. At the same time, the number of obituaries for commanders of iconic units also looks unusual specifically for Israel.
Conclusions: Israel, Syria and Türkiye
Israel was the first to see the window of opportunity this summer and was the first to stick its neck out of it, but the facts presented (and not only them) show that Israel and its leadership did not acquire exactly those assets with which it will be possible to enter a new round of the great global bargaining next year.
They have made an important contribution to the US in its future Middle East agenda, but this is a contribution for Washington, not for Jerusalem. Israeli society has yet to realize and comprehend this.
In a situation with ambiguous results, the player traditionally prefers to work according to the principle of "strengthening the strong sides". In Lebanon, the agreement provides for the withdrawal of Hezbollah beyond the Litani River (as usual, fictitious) and a ten-thousand-strong contingent of the Lebanese army on the border. But where Israel's strong side can work further is the Syrian border, where Israel has violated the line of contact and seriously threatens Damascus.
It is not for nothing that Israeli social networks are so happy about the current offensive of radicals from Idlib to Aleppo. This wave is confusing questions about Lebanon (as much as possible), but the main thing is that official Damascus is in a position where it is unclear where to turn its head.
On the one hand, Israel quickly shut down Turkish ideas about various “peacekeeping missions” and contingents in Lebanon, which made the situation easier for the Syrians rather than more difficult, but on the other hand, Turkey will now try by any means to get into the window of opportunity until the end of January and put something in its favor.
Ankara has been delayed here, but now it will make up for lost time and will do it quickly, while Hezbollah is recovering and the Iranians are restoring transit. And Israel will play along with Turkey from the south and put pressure on B. Assad, put pressure painfully, loudly and traditionally cynically.
All the previously “warmed up” forces will now come into motion in Syria, and it would be gratifying to know that Russia and Iran have prepared for this option in advance, because history Palmyra should not be forgotten at all.
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