The Bidenites Want to Prevent the IDF From ‘Escalating’ Conflict with Hezbollah

It is not, of course, the IDF that has been “escalating” attacks on Hezbollah. The Bidenites appear not to realize, or not to care, that it is Hezbollah that has doing all the “escalating,” while the IDF has been limiting itself to tit-for-tat responses, having no interest in opening up a major second front in the north while it is still preoccupied with dismantling the last four intact battalions of Hamas in Rafah, in the very south of Gaza. Since October 7, Hezbollah has unleashed an almost daily barrage of rockets and drones in northern Israel, in the Galilee. A few days ago, after a senior commander, Taleb Abdallah, was killed by the IDF, Hezbollah launched 250 rockets at Israel, with 100 of them landing almost simultaneously. Israel responded by hitting nine sites — weapons warehouses, control-and-command centers, and Hezbollah fighters’ hideouts. That does not sound like an “escalation” to me, but more of the same tit-for-tat we’ve gotten used to. More on the Bidenites’ concern that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah might “expand through the region” and on their desire to prevent it by pressuring Israel to “tone down” its responses to Hezbollah’s attacks, can be found here: “Biden Administration Urges Israel to Tone Down Response to Hezbollah Aggression in Bid to Avert Wider Conflict,” by Corey Walker, Algemeiner, June 14, 2024:

The Biden administration has become increasingly concerned that the increasing conflict and rocket exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah could expand through the region, anonymous US officials told CBS News on Friday.

Hasn’t the conflict already “expanded through the region”? Hasn’t Iran been making war on Israel through its proxies for decades? Hezbollah is its main, but not Iran’s only, proxy. The Lebanese Shi’a group has already received huge supplies of rockets — about 150,000 — from Iran, sent via Syria, as well as money to finance its terror attacks. And Hamas, despite being a Sunni Muslim group, has been receiving from Shi’a Iran large numbers of weapons, smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels that snake from Egypt into the Strip. Furthermore, Iran supplies weapons and money to the Houthis in Yemen, to support their attacks both on the Yemeni national government, on Saudi oil installations, and most recently, on shipping in the Red Sea, in order to block Israel’s shortest maritime route to Asia. The war that has been fomented by Iran against Israel and, to a lesser extent, against the Saudis (and, until recently, against the Emiratis as well) has already “expanded through the region.”

An official said that the administration had been working toward lowering the risk that US troops face in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan.

There are 3,300 American troops in Syria and Iraq, and another few hundred in Jordan, whose main mission is to prevent ISIS remnants from regrouping. They can hardly be said to be endangered if Israel makes war on Hezbollah; though few in number, the American soldiers and airmen have enough firepower, including that from the American battleships now in the eastern Mediterranean, to make any attackers regret taking them on in the Middle East. And if need be, they can all be pulled out of the region within two or three days. ISIS fighters need no prompting from Israeli actions to attack the hated Americans. Certainly any flareup — “escalation” — between Israel and Hezbollah will not make any difference in ISIS’ calculations. The notion that Israel should permanently stay its hand against Hezbollah, which like Hamas exists in order to destroy Israel, because 3,600 American troops “might” be endangered, is absurd. Should Israel entrust such life-and-death decisions as to if, and when, and how, to take on Hezbollah, to the Americans, who are worrying only about the safety of a few thousand of their own troops?

Some of the US officials told CBS that they interpreted the deepening IDF strikes in Lebanese territory as a preparatory measure for a sweeping assault. This, the officials worry, could start a war with Lebanon that Israel would require US support to win.

IDF strikes deep into Lebanon are meant not to start a war, but to prevent one, by demonstrating to Hezbollah how far the IDF can project its deadly power into Lebanon, and thus to make the Shi’a militia think hard about further provoking the Israelis. In the same way, the killing of the senior Hezbollah commander, Taleb Abdallah, was a sign to Nasrallah, who is very afraid of being killed by the Israelis — he sleeps in a different bed every few nights and jokes that “even I don’t know where I will be sleeping tonight” — that now would be a good time to stop provoking the IDF.