The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Realpolitik #23 ｜ Israel, Iran, Venezuela and Ukraine

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to another episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Moadad.

00:00:09.820 Today, we have an exciting episode for you, I hope. We're going to be talking about Hezbollah 1.00

00:00:15.400 and Lebanon and Iran and the plans for another war with Iran. Then we're going to move all the 0.99

00:00:23.020 way across the world to talk a little bit about Venezuela, and we will be closing with Ukraine.

00:00:28.000 And the theme here is about the limits of American power and how much can the U.S. and its ally in

00:00:36.240 the Middle East, Israel, actually achieve, and how much can they achieve globally. So without 0.99

00:00:42.400 too much fluff and introduction, let's start off by talking about Hezbollah. If you listen to Israeli 1.00

00:00:48.940 media, they are constantly warning that another war with Hezbollah is going to break out. And

00:00:55.380 American envoys to Lebanon are pretty much repeating the same theme constantly, that either Hezbollah

00:01:01.820 is forced to fully disarm by the Lebanese state, which they know couldn't do something like that

00:01:08.260 because they can't physically do it, or the Israelis are going to launch another war. Now, this is a bit

00:01:15.940 misleading, shall we say, because we've reached a very strange position where the Israelis need Hezbollah

00:01:24.100 to be in Lebanon, but they don't need it to be too strong. And let me explain why. I wrote about it

00:01:31.280 here on my own blog, Modagio Politics, and explained the following points. Right now, because of the new

00:01:39.940 configuration of Syria, because Syria is run essentially by the successors of Al-Qaeda in

00:01:46.380 alliance with Turkey, the last thing that the Israelis need is for these groups in Syria to become so 0.73

00:01:55.380 strong as to take over Lebanon and play the game that was used by the Assad regime in Syria, which is

00:02:02.500 using Lebanon as a pressure point against Israel in order to cause trouble for the Israelis and keep 0.97

00:02:09.620 pressure on them over the Golan Heights. And this is especially the case, given that Israel has pretty 0.99

00:02:15.060 much expanded its presence in Syria significantly. So you see the dark blue line here, which is the

00:02:22.340 demarcation line from the 1973 war, and you see this extended area in blue that really threatens Damascus

00:02:32.580 directly. This is the city of Damascus here. And now the Syrians are finding that they have a big 0.99

00:02:38.820 problem with the Israelis, because the Israelis won't withdraw just to the pre-fall of Assad border,

00:02:46.260 let alone withdraw all the way out of the Golan Heights, which, as Trump told us, the Americans now

00:02:54.820 recognize as part of Israel because Miriam Adelson and her husband, late husband Sheldon, paid him a lot

00:03:01.460 of money in order to recognize it. So the Syrians are stuck, and they've started some militant operations 0.99

00:03:08.420 against Israel. This happened actually just yesterday, and it's reported here by Amit Shai

00:03:17.940 Shikli, an Israeli security correspondent. Oh, sorry, he's the Israeli minister. Sorry, I got confused

00:03:24.180 here. And the Israeli official position is that they are now combating al-Qaeda in Syria, which is

00:03:33.380 planning on attacking Israel. Okay, interesting. But the reality is that if it is al-Qaeda that is in

00:03:41.700 control of Syria, then you really don't want them in control of Lebanon. And if Hezbollah is there in 0.98

00:03:49.460 Lebanon, then that kind of makes sure that the Sunni influence in Syria doesn't extend into Lebanon,

00:03:57.140 and that Turkey doesn't end up being on the Israeli border. Because remember, as things currently stand

00:04:03.620 in the Middle East, as Trump has said, it's really the Turks who have taken over Syria. And northern

00:04:10.740 Syria is now using the Turkish leader as a currency. Turkey is Syria's main economic lung, the main source 0.86

00:04:20.260 of any kind of goods in Syria. Ideologically, the groups that are in control of Syria are fully

00:04:27.300 aligned with Turkey and with Erdogan and his pan-Islamist project. So the Israelis find themselves

00:04:32.660 in this very, very strange position, where Hezbollah is a threat because it's an ally of Iran,

00:04:39.380 and Syria is a threat because it's an ally of Turkey. And the best thing that can happen for the 0.99

00:04:46.500 Israelis is more or less chaos in the region and keeping different parts of Syria and Lebanon under

00:04:53.700 the control of different powers and different entities. Because the alternative would be,

00:04:58.500 essentially, Turkey consolidating over both Syria and Lebanon and becoming a major threat to Israeli

00:05:05.860 security. That's the real problem that they're facing. So they're making all of this noise constantly

00:05:11.380 about wanting to attack Hezbollah again. Why? Because Hezbollah acts as a deterrent, in a sense,

00:05:18.420 a much weakened deterrent because of all of the casualties that it took during the last fight with

00:05:24.180 Israel. But it still has the ability to hurt Israel to some extent if the Israelis attack Iran again.

00:05:32.740 And the big fear of the Israelis is that Iran would get a nuclear weapon. And if it got a nuclear

00:05:39.780 weapon, then the Israelis cannot attack Iran because there would be nuclear deterrence in operation,

00:05:47.220 and then the Iranians would be free to arm Hezbollah or the Iraqis or the Houthis as much as they want.

00:05:55.460 So we see this weird situation now where the Israelis hate Hezbollah but also need it. 0.93

00:06:02.100 And this is a security dilemma that they're facing, meaning that they will probably attack Hezbollah 1.00

00:06:09.300 again, as they've been threatening to do, as American envoys, essentially speaking on behalf of Israel,

00:06:15.380 have been telling Lebanese officials endless times that an Israeli attack is happening unless they force

00:06:20.980 Hezbollah to disarm. But they don't want to actually destroy Hezbollah anymore. They needed to be in a 0.99

00:06:28.820 weakened state existing there as a kind of Baba Yaga, as a kind of ghoul, scary entity that allows 0.98

00:06:38.500 the Israelis to keep pressure on Lebanon through sanctions, through regular military strikes,

00:06:44.340 through attacks, etc. It keeps Lebanon from functioning, although Lebanon is dysfunctional by 0.95

00:06:49.780 its own very nature. It doesn't really need Israel for that. It keeps the Syrians from consolidating. 0.99

00:06:55.780 This is why they're backing the Druze in Syria. This is why they're backing the Kurds. Let's have a 1.00

00:07:00.500 look at the map and see what we're talking about. This is why they are backing the Druze in this part 1.00

00:07:07.300 of Syria here in the south near the border with Jordan and not far from the border with Israel.

00:07:14.500 This is why the Americans are backing the Kurds here in order to basically keep Syria divided. This is the 0.99

00:07:21.060 territory that has the best agriculture and most of the oil. So if the Kurds control it, the Syrians 1.00

00:07:27.620 don't have enough money to rebuild. And so what the Israelis are trying to do is to sort of maintain a

00:07:34.340 state of chaos and to prevent the Turks from actually consolidating and capitalizing on the fact that 0.63

00:07:42.100 Damascus is ruled by their ideological ally. So this is the state of play here in Lebanon briefly.

00:07:51.380 Which brings us to Iran. Again, the reason that the Israelis have a problem with Hezbollah is because

00:07:57.380 its ideology dictates that there be war with Israel at some point in the future.

00:08:07.220 The two, under this ideology, cannot work together. But I've argued in the past on my blog on

00:08:14.580 Manageo politics that they are natural allies. And this is something that the Shah saw before the

00:08:20.980 Islamic revolution in Iran before 1979, where his calculus was, yes, the Iranian public hates Israel

00:08:30.500 because of the Islamic sentiment in the country. But we need to work with Israel because Israel is 0.99

00:08:36.500 an ally against the Arabs and against Arab nationalism. Arab nationalism would mean that Ahvaaz,

00:08:43.780 the province in the south of Iran, which is incredibly oil rich, this part of the country here, where you

00:08:51.780 have places like the Habadan refinery and a bunch of oil fields and which lead to a small island called

00:08:59.140 Khadig from which Iran exports its oil. These parts of Iran, under an Arab nationalist movement, would go to 0.75

00:09:06.900 the Arabs. So the Shah found Iran useful. And now with the rise of Turkey, there is a 0.88

00:09:13.700 possibility that the Iranians might again find Israel useful, but not under this ideology. And so what

00:09:20.900 the Israelis are saying in their own media is that another round with Iran is more or less inevitable.

00:09:28.980 They describe it as only a matter of time, according to the New York Times. And this message is also

00:09:35.940 getting repeated by Israeli media and by Israeli security analysts who are saying that

00:09:42.100 that the war isn't over and that what's happening with Iran is a move to a different model where

00:09:49.540 every once in a while there's an exchange of blows between the two sides and it doesn't get resolved

00:09:54.980 and it won't get resolved until there is regime change in Iran. You have to remember, getting regime change

00:10:01.380 in Iran has been a long-standing objective for the Israelis from the 80s really. The US backed Saddam Hussein

00:10:12.820 against the Iranians in the eight-year war from 1980 to 1988 between Iran and Iraq. They've been trying to

00:10:20.900 get rid of this regime for some time. And the reason they want to get rid of it is because of its position

00:10:26.580 on Israel, essentially. So this is continuing. And what's being said now is that the strikes against

00:10:35.140 Iran in June 2025, just six months ago, didn't really achieve very much in destroying the Iranian nuclear 0.76

00:10:43.620 program. If you remember when the strikes, just before the strikes happened, a bunch of large Iranian 1.00

00:10:51.060 trucks showed up to the Furdou nuclear facility, which was about to be hit, and took something.

00:10:59.700 The assessment is that this was enriched uranium that was carried from the site to somewhere else

00:11:08.260 and hidden away in Iran. And so the actual enriched uranium, which the Iranians would need

00:11:14.180 to make a bomb, still exists. Others argue that the strikes weren't that damaging and that there are

00:11:21.780 other facilities where the Iranians could be enriching uranium. And so what we see here is that the Iran 0.83

00:11:30.100 issue hasn't been solved yet, as far as the Americans and the Israelis are concerned. The negotiations

00:11:37.220 between the U.S. and Israel aren't really getting anywhere between the Americans and Iran aren't 0.99

00:11:45.860 really getting anywhere. The Iranians are in no mood to compromise because the last time they negotiated 1.00

00:11:51.700 with the Americans, the Israelis went ahead and launched a military operation. And they took advantage 0.83

00:11:58.580 of the fact that the Iranians were lulled into a sense of security and decided to just try to decapitate 0.99

00:12:05.780 the Iranian leadership, again, in the hope that this would lead to the overthrow of the regime,

00:12:11.220 and try to destroy some of Iran's most important military facilities. They had some serious successes, 0.84

00:12:17.620 they had some serious successes, but it didn't conclude the conflict. I see a question here,

00:12:26.100 isn't that where Arabistan is? Yes, the part where Iran's oil comes from is referred to as

00:12:35.300 Arabistan or Khuzistan or whatever you want to call it, or Ahvaz. And that is an area that is dominated by

00:12:43.300 the Arabs. And it's a big problem for the Iranians, because that is where their oil is. So going back 1.00

00:12:50.020 to this, the war isn't resolved. And the Iranians are doing everything that they can to build up their 0.90

00:13:00.420 military capabilities. There are reports that they've been buying Chinese air defense systems,

00:13:06.180 the HQ-9s. We saw these be quite effective when in the hands of the Pakistanis against Indian jets. 0.99

00:13:16.580 We don't know how they would perform against Israeli F-35s, possibly considerably worse. And the Iranians 1.00

00:13:23.620 have been hesitant to build up too much dependency in their air defense systems because they understand

00:13:30.260 that this will come with further political dependencies. But right now they really don't

00:13:36.740 have much of a choice. So there's talk about buying Russian jets, Sukhoi Su-35s. There's talk about

00:13:45.940 buying the HQ-9s. There's talk about buying S-400s, basically doing everything that they can to expand

00:13:54.580 their military capabilities in order to be able to deter the Israelis more effectively, in order to be 0.94

00:14:02.580 able to prevent another attack by Israel, and also quite importantly, in order to deter the Turks. 0.63

00:14:09.620 Because the Iranians have a huge problem with Turkey, including over Iraq, including over Syria,

00:14:16.100 and including over Lebanon. So this is something of a three-way fight. And the Israelis, so far, 0.81

00:14:22.660 don't feel the need to make any alliances with any other groups. And the Turks and the Iranians really

00:14:28.740 don't want to align with Israel either. So it's a bit of a free-for-all. So you see the Iranians 1.00

00:14:35.060 engaging in this military buildup, and you also see the Israelis trying to find a solution to the

00:14:42.340 problem of drones and missiles that were used quite effectively by both Iran and Hezbollah.

00:14:50.820 Now they are going to deploy something called the Iron Beam, as opposed to the Iron Dome, which is a laser

00:14:58.420 defense system that is supposed to be very effective in intercepting all kinds of

00:15:06.580 ordinance. Although I don't think it will have any impact on the hypersonic missiles that the

00:15:12.500 Iranians can use. And it seems that the Iranians are working to build up their capabilities to be able

00:15:18.260 to fire up to 2,000 missiles at the same time. Now, when you deploy this many missile launchers,

00:15:25.060 it creates its own problem. Because then they can be detected from the air and attacked and intercepted

00:15:31.780 as you are staging your big dramatic attack. So it's not that easy to do.

00:15:40.020 But the theme of all of this really is that the Israelis haven't solved their problems in the region

00:15:47.860 despite two continuous years of war. Hamas is still operational in Gaza. That hasn't changed.

00:15:56.580 Hezbollah is weakened but still operational in Lebanon. That hasn't changed. It seems to be rearming

00:16:04.340 and it seems to be rebuilding some of its capabilities, but it doesn't have a solution to

00:16:09.780 the Israeli intelligence penetration that it's suffering from. To the extent that just last week

00:16:15.460 the Israelis killed essentially its military chief of staff, the most important military guy in 0.59

00:16:22.020 Hezbollah, Abu Ali Tabataba'i, was whacked by the Israelis in an apartment in Beirut. And it seems that

00:16:31.620 Hezbollah knew that this location had been compromised. But for some reason this guy went to that location again.

00:16:40.740 And then he got killed. Meaning that the Israelis have still live intelligence on the movements of

00:16:49.380 senior Hezbollah leaders and they can still take them out when they want. So this means that if a war

00:16:56.660 happens, it won't be because Hezbollah wants one. It will be because the Israelis have decided that 0.70

00:17:02.740 Hezbollah still needs to be weakened further. And the question is, do the Americans allow them to do this? 0.74

00:17:08.340 And the other question is, what are the second order consequences? Like if the Israelis hammer Hezbollah 0.68

00:17:14.740 too much, does that create an opening for the Syrians and therefore create for the Israelis an even 0.51

00:17:20.580 bigger problem? Which is what the Israelis are saying. They're saying that the new government in

00:17:26.500 Damascus is now organizing resistance against them. They've reverted to calling Ahmad al-Shara,

00:17:34.020 the new president of Syria, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to go back to his name from his Islamic State

00:17:40.420 al-Qaeda days. And they're stuck confronting Israel because Israel is invading their territory and trying 0.88

00:17:51.460 to expand further in their territory. So there's no solution there. There's a choice of different wars.

00:17:58.180 So this is the picture here in the Middle East. And to summarize, we're still possibly on the

00:18:08.420 precipice of another war between Israel and Hezbollah and Israel and Iran because the last rounds haven't

00:18:16.100 really created new political realities that would bring about peace. And I would argue that the Israelis

00:18:23.940 don't want peace, either with Syria or with Lebanon, because they benefit more from keeping both 1.00

00:18:30.180 countries in a state of chaos. If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

00:18:35.220 head to our website where you can find more.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 03, 2025

PREVIEW： Realpolitik #23 ｜ Israel, Iran, Venezuela and Ukraine

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