Benjamin Netanyahu returned from Washington charged with vengeful energy. One can say this was fueled by the round of applause he received in Congress, eventually motivating him to launch attacks on three capitals: Beirut, Baghdad, and Tehran. Washington’s fingerprints accompanied the raiding aircraft.
In Beirut, Hezbollah military leader Fouad Shaker was targeted. The U.S. had previously announced a financial reward for information about him, accusing him of involvement in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
In Iraq, bases belonging to Hezbollah Iraq were bombed in Jurf al-Sakhar, an area long known for launching rockets at American military bases, the latest of which were launched just days before. It is still unclear who carried out the attack—Washington or Tel Aviv.
The third and most devastating raid took place in the heart of Tehran, resulting in the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. The circumstances of this raid are shrouded in mystery. Where did the missiles come from, and how was Haniyeh’s location determined? Undoubtedly, intelligence and operational intersections led to the success of the operation.
On the day before the tri-capital attacks, Washington announced that it would defend Israel against any attack it might face. American diplomacy actively contributed to creating a sense of “ease” that preceded the raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut. This prompted the Lebanese government and its Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib to reassure the Lebanese that “the situation is under control.” However, the raid, which killed one of Hezbollah’s top military leaders, said otherwise, and the minister “fell into a diplomatic trap” that led to a tragedy.
We, too, fell into this trap, overlooking the statement from the U.S. embassy directed at its citizens in Beirut, advising them to prepare for long days of war. It is likely that Hezbollah itself fell into this trap, as having one of its leaders in an area declared a probable target raises real questions about the reasons.
This time, Washington is involved in the confrontation. This is what Netanyahu returned with, and this is what the overlapping objectives revealed on the eve of Netanyahu’s assault on the three capitals. What we witnessed in Beirut in the hours before the raid on southern Dahyeh unveils the fact that this war has a diplomatic management behind it!
Everyone knew that the southern suburbs would be targeted in the coming hours. We believed the targeting would be symbolic, as everyone knew the time and place of the raid! Yet, a missile killed a Hezbollah leader, another killed a Hamas leader, and a raid in between targeted Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad!
Netanyahu, with Washington’s active support, pushed the scene to the brink of war. It is difficult for Tehran to get over what happened, yet engaging directly in the confrontation seems like it would lead to Washington’s direct involvement, as the latter announced yesterday! Meanwhile, Israel, exhausted by over ten months of fighting in Gaza, appears to have chosen to open fronts on multiple battlefields as a strategy of its political leadership, suffocating from its failures in Gaza and drowning in the likelihood of internal defeat the day after the war ends.
With the U.S. elections around the corner and an Israeli leadership stumbling under the prospect of internal defeat, the three targets were chosen as a step intertwined with the prospects of a regional war. Both capitals feel that this option may bring with it the chances of Netanyahu’s survival and avoidance of the Democrats’ defeat in America.
The next few hours will provide more answers about the likelihood of war, and this time, “diplomacy” will not be able to deceive us, especially those who suggested we “be a little afraid” yesterday.
The talk about the civilian cost of potential war remains a marginal issue for the parties involved. The two siblings and woman who were killed in the southern suburbs of Beirut, reveal the moral compass of those that consider them “collateral damage.”
