Israel is definitely not pussy footing around in Lebanon.

 Israel is definitely not pussy footing around in Lebanon.  Their most recent move in the Beirut bombing, took out two very prominent terrorists, one a Lebanese, and one an Iranian.  The primary target appears to have been a Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but, today, we learn that a senior Iranian military leader, General Abbas Nilforushan, was killed as well.  (I suspect that the later may not have been a specific target, but seen from Jerusalem as being serendipitous collateral damage.)  Both of these men were enemies of peace in the region and Nasrallah, in particular, was responsible for the death of many Americans.  I do not bemoan their removal from the battlefield and suspect that the move, along with the pager explosions that took out a lot of middle level Hezbollah leaders, may well be part of Israeli preparations for a major cross border operation into Lebanon.  I presume that the Israeli military leadership is arguing that they must move against their enemies now.  If I were an Israeli, in their shoes, I would undoubtably be making the exact same argument.

The Biden/Harris Administration professes America’s support of Israel’s right to defend itself, but does not want to see the situation escalate into even more intense warfare.  We have sent a token reinforcement  of our own military to the region to make that point, while ensuring that it is not a significant enough reinforcement to confuse Teheran as to our unwillingness to get involved directly.  No matter how the potential Israeli incursion into Lebanon turns out, it will not accomplish any long term strategic objective, even if it does manage to impact the tactical situation somewhat.  The reason being, as I noted in a previous article, we are fighting the wrong enemy.  Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi’s, and all of the other splinter groups funded by Teheran are nothing more than pawns in a much larger struggle.

Americans tend to judge the importance of a war by the number of people being displaced, killed, and wounded, and, as long as it is foreigners that are doing the dying, we feel that we can get on with our lives in this country as though it is basically irrelevant.  I argue that the introduction of nuclear warfare to the calculation has changed things fundamentally.  We will not resolve any of the existing conflicts in the Middle East until Washington confronts Teheran and convinces it that it must accept Israel and end its attempt to shove Riyadh aside in an effort to dominate the Muslim world.  

Our ignorance on this point is fundamental bedrock dominating our current foreign policy.  We must understand that Shia Teheran, and Radical Islam more generally, are incompatible with stability in the Middle East.  Iran does not have to be eradicated, but radical Shia involvement in the Middle East must be dramatically reduced if not eliminated entirely.  That is a huge, long term, expensive task that must, in a democracy, start with an understanding at ground level out here in the neighborhoods.  It is this point that worries me most.  The task itself is humungous, but educating the American people to its necessity, may well be impossible.  We give no indication that we can stretch our minds beyond the age of the fetus, the sign on the bathroom door, the price of gasoline, and our precious feelings.