PREVIEW LIVE： Realpolitik #50 ｜ The War Resumes
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Summary
In this episode of RealPolitik, Firas Maudad talks about the renewed Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon, the reasons behind it and the prospects for a return to a cease-fire. He also talks about Iran and Hezbollah's reasons for wanting to escalate the conflict.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to another episode of RealPolitik. I am your host Firas Maudad and today we're
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going to be talking a little bit about the resumed war in the Middle East. Does it actually
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escalate more? Does it subside and Trump succeeds in reimposing the ceasefire? What are the prospects
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for a deal and what kicked this whole thing off to begin with? Let's start a little bit with the
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last question and the incentives of the two sides, especially Iran and Hezbollah and Israel
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actually, to escalate the conflict again. So the first bit, if you look at the map here,
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is that the Israelis are trying to establish a new buffer zone in Lebanon. They've announced
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this yellow line all over southern Lebanon that is intended to become a buffer zone between them
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and Hezbollah. Here it reaches the Litani River, which runs along the border between the dark red
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area and the light red area. And the idea in an ideal world for the Israelis might be to connect
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to the Christian town of Yazine here. And then that means that they can fully intervene in
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Lebanon's politics. And that would be a restoration to the line of control that existed in Lebanon
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before 2000, when the Israelis occupied a pretty big chunk of South Lebanon with the aim of just
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keeping Hezbollah away from the border. Remember, Hezbollah was created because Israel invaded.
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it's a long story but let's not get into that and so the israelis are occupying bits and pieces of
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territory along the border they're trying to stay away from some of the christian villages like
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ramesh here um but the idea is to clear hezbollah out and hezbollah has been receiving a pretty bad
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beating all things considered it's been fighting back and inflicting some casualties and it's
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decided to sacrifice some territory in the belief that over a long enough time period it will turn
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this into a war of attrition and will therefore be able to beat the israelis and force them back
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but in the meantime the israelis are actually escalating quite badly
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and they were trying to implement the dahi doctrine now the dahi doctrine for those of you
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who don't know this is a israeli military strategy that was developed in 2006 which basically says
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that in response to an attack by an unstate armed group like hezbollah or whoever or hamas for that
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matter the israeli reaction is to absolutely blast to smithereens the main urban areas that
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the enemy depends on and in lebanon's case this area is called dahi which is the arabic name
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for this the southern suburb of beirut um which is predominantly shia where hezbollah has some
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of its headquarters this is a bit of a misrepresentation it expands that area more
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than it should actually it stops along this line here it doesn't include this area but whatever
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and for the israelis the strategy is to just blow up everything in these urban areas and
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by inflicting this mass civilian suffering win the war if they can't win against the insurgents
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and this is what was implemented in gaza and this is an evolution of the israeli strategy that was
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pursued in the 1993 and in the 1996 wars in Lebanon, which basically obliterated civilian
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areas right along the border. They found that this wasn't enough, so they went fully to the urban
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areas. And the Israelis wanted to do this again, essentially. And they wanted to start blowing up
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the southern suburb of Beirut in full. And Trump said, don't do it. And the Iranians said,
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if you do it, we are going to start launching attacks against Israel directly in support of
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Hezbollah. So this is the context in which all of this was happening. Basically, the Iranians
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imposed a red line on the Americans and on Israel and said that if Israel returns to the Dahi
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doctrine and starts obliterating the urban areas where most Shia Lebanese live, then
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Well, because so long as there is a major urban area close to the port of Beirut here
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that allows Hezbollah to access weapons, move them to first the southern suburb and then
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through the mountains into southern Lebanon, then Hezbollah can keep fighting, and Hezbollah
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can keep trying to regain these territories that were lost to the Israelis, even if this
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becomes a 5-10 year war of attrition, with the aim of basically repeating what happened
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in the year 2000, when after 18 years of fighting, Hezbollah eventually forced Israel out.
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Again, what you have to think about is that the partisans in this conflict are all thinking
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in generational terms, and they're thinking about the next 10 years and the next 15 years.
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They're not thinking about the next quarter.
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Whereas on the other hand, if the Israelis continue this policy where they're blowing up major Shia
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cities like Tir in the south, Nabati here also in the south, and they blow up the southern suburb,
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then essentially the Shia civilians of Lebanon have nowhere to go. And they are essentially
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ethnically cleansed and they leave the country and they're defeated. So Iran's intervention
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was intended to save Hezbollah, to allow it to live to fight another day. Whereas the Israeli
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objective, which is now shared with a portion of the Lebanese government, is to completely break
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Hezbollah with no regard to what happens to the Shia and to, if necessary, plunge Lebanon into a
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civil war between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah. And this then becomes an excuse for the Israelis
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to intervene further in Lebanon, to strengthen themselves, to link up with the Christian
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communities. And as we said, I think in the last episode, from the Christian communities,
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they get access to the Alawite communities, and they become the dominant power over the
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entire Eastern Mediterranean, which is a problem for Turkey, etc., etc. That's not the conversation
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right now. But what happened was that the Iranians set out a red line, and the Israelis decided
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that they will test the red line with the explicit objective of either making sure that they can be
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given a full free hand in Lebanon to do whatever they wanted or to draw the Americans back into
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the war and force another escalation with the Iranians and therefore gain a free hand in Lebanon
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and in the rest of the region. So what's competing here are two projects, both of them seeking
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regional hegemony. The Iranians are trying to get their own empire, and so are the Israelis,
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and indeed so are the Turks. If the Israelis can force the Iranians to separate from Lebanon,
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even if there's a deal with Iran, that is a little bit acceptable. But if they can't force
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a separation from Lebanon, that is the worst case scenario for the Israelis. And on the other hand,
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if the Iranians give up Lebanon, it discredits them in the eyes of the Houthis in Yemen and of
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the militias in Iraq and possibly in the eyes of their supporters in Bahrain and in Kuwait and in
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and Saudi Arabia, and it becomes a major defeat for the Iranians. So Lebanon ended up becoming
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the center of this conflict because every side needs to be able to say that we held on to our
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gains in Lebanon in order to win. And because of the Israelis' experience fighting Hezbollah from
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the 1980s to 2000, and eventually having to withdraw, and Hezbollah being able to impose
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deterrence on Israel from the year 2000, 2006 to 2023, they don't want to go back to the status
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quo. So what's changed is that both sides have become much more hardline in their positions.
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And so the Americans, being largely unaware of any of this stuff, what they were trying to do
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in order to stay away from a resumption of the conflict
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and they don't even want to ceasefire with Lebanon.
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the Israelis conduct an airstrike in South Lebanon
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killing a brigadier general in the Lebanese army.
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Its actual function is not to defend the borders of Lebanon.
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That's something that it's practically never done.
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Its actual function is to maintain internal peace
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It's a domestically oriented force, not a foreign oriented force.
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It was in partnership with Hezbollah, and it was against the jihadis that were coming in from Syria.
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And it performed badly, and it would have failed were it not for Hezbollah backing it.
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The issue is, however, is that now because the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon,
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the Lebanese army is being set up to take the task of dismantling the weapons of Hezbollah,
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which is what the israelis want and which is what officially the lebanese state wants but the lebanese
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state is weak and incapacitated and the current people who are running it were literally hand
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picked by the united states uh the president and the prime minister they they've got no popular
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mandate no popular base of their of their own they were handpicked by the united states
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and so they're risking an internal conflict with Hezbollah and the Israelis know this
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and it seems that the general that was targeted was somebody who was heavily involved in the
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coordination mechanism between Israel and Lebanon and the United States which is the mechanism
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that keeps the ceasefire nominally functioning between Israel and Lebanon. And by killing this
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guy, the Israelis are sending a message to the Lebanese state and to Hezbollah that even though
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they're negotiating under American auspices to achieve a ceasefire, the Israelis don't really
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want it. The Israelis don't actually want a ceasefire. So not only did they attack the southern
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suburb of Beirut to test Iran's red line, they also bombed the representative of the Lebanese
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state who was supposed to be their partner in dismantling Hezbollah. And the reason for that
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is that any ceasefire for it to be signed by the Lebanese is going to involve Israel having to
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withdraw from Lebanese territory. This is not what the Israelis want. They want to settle in South
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Lebanon and expand their territory, which, you know, is the traditional way of making war before
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World War II. You go and you seize territory and you kick out the people you don't like and you
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settle it and it becomes yours. Like, this is not that unusual. But everybody's pretending that,
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you know, we are living under international law when we're in the law of the jungle as we always
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where. So the Israelis don't want a ceasefire. But the Iranians also have a reason to escalate.
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So Hezbollah has a reason to want the Iranians to escalate because it's getting hammered
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and it needs the Iranians to protect it and save it. The Israelis want to escalate because they
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want to dominate all of Lebanon and that becomes a pathway to dominating the entire East Mediterranean
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coast, the Iranians also have an interest in escalation. I just want to be clear about that
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so that nobody tells me in the comments that I'm picking on Israel or what have you. And the reason
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the Iranians want an escalation is because currently under the ceasefire, Iranian oil
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exports are falling apart because of the American blockade on Iran and because that blockade is also
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targeting ships that the Iranians use to export oil, and the Iranians need oil exports for their
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economy to function. They need to find a way around it. Previously, when it was just sanctions,
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what the Iranians could do was basically evade the sanctions, offer their oil at a pretty big
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discount, and you will find some enterprising shipper who's willing to break the law and sell
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Iranian oil. And the Chinese helped with that. The Malaysians helped. The Indonesians helped.
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The Romanis helped. The UAE helped. Everybody cooperated in this. But now with an actual
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physical blockade, the Iranians are facing a problem. And they need to break out of this
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blockade and improve their situation. And one way of doing so is to see, is to basically take
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advantage of the fact that Donald Trump has been signaling for some time that he really doesn't
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want to return to the war and capitalize on it and escalate. So the three major sides here
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have an interest in escalation. The people who don't want the escalation are the Gulf states
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because they will bear the brunt of Iranian missiles and attacks and the Americans who
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somehow think that they can go and bomb Iran and then go back to peace, which is not how any of
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these things work. When you go and attack someone, as Machiavelli said, you don't leave an injured
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enemy, because the injured enemy is a lot more vindictive. And so they've injured the Iranians,
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cornered them, didn't finish them off, because they can't finish them off, and now here we are.
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the Iranians feel emboldened enough to want to escalate again. And so that's how the ceasefire
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broke down. These are the incentives for the ceasefire to break down. The Israelis went ahead
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and attacked Beirut in a violation of the ceasefire that they'd agreed, in violation of the
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Iranian red lines. They attacked the Lebanese army. Hezbollah said that they don't recognize
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that ceasefire because the way that it was meant to work as approved by the Lebanese government
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was that it would be Hezbollah seizing fire, but not the Israelis.
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So, like, ceasefire means different things to different people.
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But the way this was meant to work was essentially to say
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As far as the Israelis are concerned, everybody's a threat.
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Different sides escalated, and Iran fired four salvos of missile into Israel.
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The Israelis responded with airstrikes over air defense systems, but also over petrochemicals
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facilities in Iran, which is a big deal, because when you attack industry, you encourage retaliation
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from the Iranians against the energy infrastructure in the Gulf.
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And so the Israelis attacked the Iranian energy sector, not because it was necessary militarily,
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but because what they wanted was for Iran to attack the Gulf, and for that to force the Americans back into the war.
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It seems to not have worked yet, but if they keep trying, eventually it will.
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And in response, the Houthis in Yemen decided that they were going to join the fray.
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Now, I've been waiting for the Houthi to do something for some time.
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In the previous round, they were very much the dog that didn't bark.
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Now they finally decided to enter into the conflict, and they issued a statement saying
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that they're going to stop all Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, and that they are going to
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meet any escalation with escalation. Now, this has a couple of purposes, and they also fired
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missiles into Israel proper. Now, this has a couple of purposes. Firing the missiles into
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Israel, this is intended to support Hezbollah, and this is intended to force the Israelis to
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distribute their air defense and their capabilities to make it easier for the Iranians.
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The second objective, if the Americans escalate and try to stop the Houthi from blocking the Red
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Sea, is to put pressure on the U.S. Navy so that it wouldn't be in a position to enforce the blockade
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against Iran as rigorously. And if they can't enforce the blockade against Iran as rigorously,
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that means that the Iranians solve at least part of their problem with falling oil exports.
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So the thinking behind this is sort of two-phased, you know. One, support Hezbollah. Two, support
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Iran. And then there is a third objective, which is this. The Iranians' bid to make shippers pay
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in order to pass through the Strait of Hormuz seems to be working. And we are hearing from
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some shippers saying, yeah, we're willing to pay Iran. I'll bet that pretty much all of the Asian
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clients are willing to pay a million two million dollars per per ship in order to keep on trading
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and keep on doing business and so for the houthi this is a good time for them to get into that
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business they too have aspirations to charge fees for anybody using babel mandab the straight at the
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tip of the Red Sea. This is obviously a disaster for the Egyptians.
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It means that there might be less shipping, or it means that the Egyptians have to cut
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the amount of fees that they charge for the use of the Suez Canal.
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But for the Houthi, this is absolutely fine. So we saw the Houthi entering this,
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the Americans did their best to stop the Houthi
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this part of Yemen here, this little corner of Yemen,
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the Americans had to make a deal with the Houthi.
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And as part of that deal, the Houthi were allowed, essentially, to continue to attack shipping related to Israel.