PREVIEW： Realpolitik #23 ｜ Israel, Iran, Venezuela and Ukraine
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Summary
In this episode of RealPolitik, we discuss the situation in Lebanon and Syria, Iran's influence in Lebanon, and the possibility of another war with Iran. Then we move all the way across the world to talk about Venezuela and Ukraine.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Moadad.
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Today, we have an exciting episode for you, I hope. We're going to be talking about Hezbollah
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and Lebanon and Iran and the plans for another war with Iran. Then we're going to move all the
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way across the world to talk a little bit about Venezuela, and we will be closing with Ukraine.
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And the theme here is about the limits of American power and how much can the U.S. and its ally in
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the Middle East, Israel, actually achieve, and how much can they achieve globally. So without
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too much fluff and introduction, let's start off by talking about Hezbollah. If you listen to Israeli
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media, they are constantly warning that another war with Hezbollah is going to break out. And
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American envoys to Lebanon are pretty much repeating the same theme constantly, that either Hezbollah
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is forced to fully disarm by the Lebanese state, which they know couldn't do something like that
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because they can't physically do it, or the Israelis are going to launch another war. Now, this is a bit
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misleading, shall we say, because we've reached a very strange position where the Israelis need Hezbollah
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to be in Lebanon, but they don't need it to be too strong. And let me explain why. I wrote about it
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here on my own blog, Modagio Politics, and explained the following points. Right now, because of the new
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configuration of Syria, because Syria is run essentially by the successors of Al-Qaeda in
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alliance with Turkey, the last thing that the Israelis need is for these groups in Syria to become so
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strong as to take over Lebanon and play the game that was used by the Assad regime in Syria, which is
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using Lebanon as a pressure point against Israel in order to cause trouble for the Israelis and keep
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pressure on them over the Golan Heights. And this is especially the case, given that Israel has pretty
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much expanded its presence in Syria significantly. So you see the dark blue line here, which is the
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demarcation line from the 1973 war, and you see this extended area in blue that really threatens Damascus
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directly. This is the city of Damascus here. And now the Syrians are finding that they have a big
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problem with the Israelis, because the Israelis won't withdraw just to the pre-fall of Assad border,
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let alone withdraw all the way out of the Golan Heights, which, as Trump told us, the Americans now
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recognize as part of Israel because Miriam Adelson and her husband, late husband Sheldon, paid him a lot
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of money in order to recognize it. So the Syrians are stuck, and they've started some militant operations
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against Israel. This happened actually just yesterday, and it's reported here by Amit Shai
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Shikli, an Israeli security correspondent. Oh, sorry, he's the Israeli minister. Sorry, I got confused
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here. And the Israeli official position is that they are now combating al-Qaeda in Syria, which is
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planning on attacking Israel. Okay, interesting. But the reality is that if it is al-Qaeda that is in
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control of Syria, then you really don't want them in control of Lebanon. And if Hezbollah is there in
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Lebanon, then that kind of makes sure that the Sunni influence in Syria doesn't extend into Lebanon,
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and that Turkey doesn't end up being on the Israeli border. Because remember, as things currently stand
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in the Middle East, as Trump has said, it's really the Turks who have taken over Syria. And northern
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Syria is now using the Turkish leader as a currency. Turkey is Syria's main economic lung, the main source
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of any kind of goods in Syria. Ideologically, the groups that are in control of Syria are fully
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aligned with Turkey and with Erdogan and his pan-Islamist project. So the Israelis find themselves
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in this very, very strange position, where Hezbollah is a threat because it's an ally of Iran,
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and Syria is a threat because it's an ally of Turkey. And the best thing that can happen for the
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Israelis is more or less chaos in the region and keeping different parts of Syria and Lebanon under
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the control of different powers and different entities. Because the alternative would be,
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essentially, Turkey consolidating over both Syria and Lebanon and becoming a major threat to Israeli
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security. That's the real problem that they're facing. So they're making all of this noise constantly
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about wanting to attack Hezbollah again. Why? Because Hezbollah acts as a deterrent, in a sense,
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a much weakened deterrent because of all of the casualties that it took during the last fight with
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Israel. But it still has the ability to hurt Israel to some extent if the Israelis attack Iran again.
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And the big fear of the Israelis is that Iran would get a nuclear weapon. And if it got a nuclear
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weapon, then the Israelis cannot attack Iran because there would be nuclear deterrence in operation,
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and then the Iranians would be free to arm Hezbollah or the Iraqis or the Houthis as much as they want.
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So we see this weird situation now where the Israelis hate Hezbollah but also need it.
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And this is a security dilemma that they're facing, meaning that they will probably attack Hezbollah
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again, as they've been threatening to do, as American envoys, essentially speaking on behalf of Israel,
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have been telling Lebanese officials endless times that an Israeli attack is happening unless they force
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Hezbollah to disarm. But they don't want to actually destroy Hezbollah anymore. They needed to be in a
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weakened state existing there as a kind of Baba Yaga, as a kind of ghoul, scary entity that allows
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the Israelis to keep pressure on Lebanon through sanctions, through regular military strikes,
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through attacks, etc. It keeps Lebanon from functioning, although Lebanon is dysfunctional by
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its own very nature. It doesn't really need Israel for that. It keeps the Syrians from consolidating.
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This is why they're backing the Druze in Syria. This is why they're backing the Kurds. Let's have a
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look at the map and see what we're talking about. This is why they are backing the Druze in this part
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of Syria here in the south near the border with Jordan and not far from the border with Israel.
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This is why the Americans are backing the Kurds here in order to basically keep Syria divided. This is the
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territory that has the best agriculture and most of the oil. So if the Kurds control it, the Syrians
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don't have enough money to rebuild. And so what the Israelis are trying to do is to sort of maintain a
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state of chaos and to prevent the Turks from actually consolidating and capitalizing on the fact that
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Damascus is ruled by their ideological ally. So this is the state of play here in Lebanon briefly.
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Which brings us to Iran. Again, the reason that the Israelis have a problem with Hezbollah is because
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its ideology dictates that there be war with Israel at some point in the future.
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The two, under this ideology, cannot work together. But I've argued in the past on my blog on
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Manageo politics that they are natural allies. And this is something that the Shah saw before the
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Islamic revolution in Iran before 1979, where his calculus was, yes, the Iranian public hates Israel
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because of the Islamic sentiment in the country. But we need to work with Israel because Israel is
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an ally against the Arabs and against Arab nationalism. Arab nationalism would mean that Ahvaaz,
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the province in the south of Iran, which is incredibly oil rich, this part of the country here, where you
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have places like the Habadan refinery and a bunch of oil fields and which lead to a small island called
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Khadig from which Iran exports its oil. These parts of Iran, under an Arab nationalist movement, would go to
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the Arabs. So the Shah found Iran useful. And now with the rise of Turkey, there is a
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possibility that the Iranians might again find Israel useful, but not under this ideology. And so what
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the Israelis are saying in their own media is that another round with Iran is more or less inevitable.
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They describe it as only a matter of time, according to the New York Times. And this message is also
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getting repeated by Israeli media and by Israeli security analysts who are saying that
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that the war isn't over and that what's happening with Iran is a move to a different model where
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every once in a while there's an exchange of blows between the two sides and it doesn't get resolved
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and it won't get resolved until there is regime change in Iran. You have to remember, getting regime change
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in Iran has been a long-standing objective for the Israelis from the 80s really. The US backed Saddam Hussein
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against the Iranians in the eight-year war from 1980 to 1988 between Iran and Iraq. They've been trying to
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get rid of this regime for some time. And the reason they want to get rid of it is because of its position
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on Israel, essentially. So this is continuing. And what's being said now is that the strikes against
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Iran in June 2025, just six months ago, didn't really achieve very much in destroying the Iranian nuclear
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program. If you remember when the strikes, just before the strikes happened, a bunch of large Iranian
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trucks showed up to the Furdou nuclear facility, which was about to be hit, and took something.
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The assessment is that this was enriched uranium that was carried from the site to somewhere else
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and hidden away in Iran. And so the actual enriched uranium, which the Iranians would need
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to make a bomb, still exists. Others argue that the strikes weren't that damaging and that there are
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other facilities where the Iranians could be enriching uranium. And so what we see here is that the Iran
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issue hasn't been solved yet, as far as the Americans and the Israelis are concerned. The negotiations
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between the U.S. and Israel aren't really getting anywhere between the Americans and Iran aren't
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really getting anywhere. The Iranians are in no mood to compromise because the last time they negotiated
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with the Americans, the Israelis went ahead and launched a military operation. And they took advantage
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of the fact that the Iranians were lulled into a sense of security and decided to just try to decapitate
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the Iranian leadership, again, in the hope that this would lead to the overthrow of the regime,
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and try to destroy some of Iran's most important military facilities. They had some serious successes,
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they had some serious successes, but it didn't conclude the conflict. I see a question here,
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isn't that where Arabistan is? Yes, the part where Iran's oil comes from is referred to as
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Arabistan or Khuzistan or whatever you want to call it, or Ahvaz. And that is an area that is dominated by
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the Arabs. And it's a big problem for the Iranians, because that is where their oil is. So going back
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to this, the war isn't resolved. And the Iranians are doing everything that they can to build up their
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military capabilities. There are reports that they've been buying Chinese air defense systems,
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the HQ-9s. We saw these be quite effective when in the hands of the Pakistanis against Indian jets.
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We don't know how they would perform against Israeli F-35s, possibly considerably worse. And the Iranians
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have been hesitant to build up too much dependency in their air defense systems because they understand
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that this will come with further political dependencies. But right now they really don't
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have much of a choice. So there's talk about buying Russian jets, Sukhoi Su-35s. There's talk about
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buying the HQ-9s. There's talk about buying S-400s, basically doing everything that they can to expand
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their military capabilities in order to be able to deter the Israelis more effectively, in order to be
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able to prevent another attack by Israel, and also quite importantly, in order to deter the Turks.
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Because the Iranians have a huge problem with Turkey, including over Iraq, including over Syria,
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and including over Lebanon. So this is something of a three-way fight. And the Israelis, so far,
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don't feel the need to make any alliances with any other groups. And the Turks and the Iranians really
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don't want to align with Israel either. So it's a bit of a free-for-all. So you see the Iranians
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engaging in this military buildup, and you also see the Israelis trying to find a solution to the
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problem of drones and missiles that were used quite effectively by both Iran and Hezbollah.
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Now they are going to deploy something called the Iron Beam, as opposed to the Iron Dome, which is a laser
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defense system that is supposed to be very effective in intercepting all kinds of
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ordinance. Although I don't think it will have any impact on the hypersonic missiles that the
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Iranians can use. And it seems that the Iranians are working to build up their capabilities to be able
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to fire up to 2,000 missiles at the same time. Now, when you deploy this many missile launchers,
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it creates its own problem. Because then they can be detected from the air and attacked and intercepted
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as you are staging your big dramatic attack. So it's not that easy to do.
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But the theme of all of this really is that the Israelis haven't solved their problems in the region
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despite two continuous years of war. Hamas is still operational in Gaza. That hasn't changed.
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Hezbollah is weakened but still operational in Lebanon. That hasn't changed. It seems to be rearming
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and it seems to be rebuilding some of its capabilities, but it doesn't have a solution to
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the Israeli intelligence penetration that it's suffering from. To the extent that just last week
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the Israelis killed essentially its military chief of staff, the most important military guy in
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Hezbollah, Abu Ali Tabataba'i, was whacked by the Israelis in an apartment in Beirut. And it seems that
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Hezbollah knew that this location had been compromised. But for some reason this guy went to that location again.
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And then he got killed. Meaning that the Israelis have still live intelligence on the movements of
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senior Hezbollah leaders and they can still take them out when they want. So this means that if a war
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happens, it won't be because Hezbollah wants one. It will be because the Israelis have decided that
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Hezbollah still needs to be weakened further. And the question is, do the Americans allow them to do this?
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And the other question is, what are the second order consequences? Like if the Israelis hammer Hezbollah
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too much, does that create an opening for the Syrians and therefore create for the Israelis an even
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bigger problem? Which is what the Israelis are saying. They're saying that the new government in
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Damascus is now organizing resistance against them. They've reverted to calling Ahmad al-Shara,
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the new president of Syria, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to go back to his name from his Islamic State
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al-Qaeda days. And they're stuck confronting Israel because Israel is invading their territory and trying
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to expand further in their territory. So there's no solution there. There's a choice of different wars.
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So this is the picture here in the Middle East. And to summarize, we're still possibly on the
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precipice of another war between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Iran because the last rounds haven't
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really created new political realities that would bring about peace. And I would argue that the Israelis
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don't want peace, either with Syria or with Lebanon, because they benefit more from keeping both
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countries in a state of chaos. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,