Take the current war with Hamas and multiply it by ten. That’s what war with Hezbollah would look like. And Israelis are not asking if it will begin, but when.
Unfortunately, we have to bite the bullet, and deal with Hezbollah. This time, however, we need to create a dead zone south of the Litany. All villages flattened, all bushes and trees burned. If the world wants something different, it will have to put soldiers and not scarecrows.
Well Israeli leadership ever find the courage to finally use full power with anybody, ever?
10 X Gaza you say?
Not a problem.
But will the "geriatric leaders" finally find the courage to use 10 X the firepower?
Israel certainly has that much available.
And she's only been warning Lebanon, Hezbollah and Civilians for decades.
Even more specific warnings of late.
At what point will Israel finally truly put her own children first , instead of taking care of the Arab children whom the Arabs clearly don't care about at all??
It concerns me, as we as a society will need to begin to prepare for wartime. My dad grew up during WWII and my mother during Vietnam. While I have no desire for us to get involved in a conflict, I fear we somehow will get drawn in, either to defend our allies or end up defending ourselves.
“If people truly understood what the war with Hezbollah will mean,” one officer told me this week, “everyone would be doing every possible thing in their power to find a diplomatic solution.” What would a diplomatic solution look like? I can't even imagine.
Bring it on. I'd like to leave this life with good vs evil settled once and for all. Let's send a couple dozen of our B52 bombers to our base in Iraq and enough bombs to do the job right. Ooops, Biden wants to give our base away that we spilled plenty of American blood for...
This is a sad comment on the facts of the situation. The amount of force to destroy the bases near Israel is there, but at what cost? Diplomacy may work if only because Hezbollah does not want to suffer any sort of injury such as Gaza has.
Matti Friedman, as always your articles are insightful and welcomed, even when you are scaring the hell out of people. Thank you for telling the truth and sounding the warning, especially for those of us in America.
I am worried that much worse is to come and the US will have another 9/11, only this time bigger. Biden and friends have left our borders wide open. I think the government is being dishonest about who exactly is coming into our country and having the freedom to move all around. It's obvious our enemies are skilled at playing the long game and will strike when we least expect it.
Here's just another example of what we could be dealing with:
"...a United Nations peacekeeping force has been ineffectual." Everything the UN does is ineffectual. Waiting for the UN to help solve this or any other world problem is like waiting for Godot. The US should get out of the UN and get the UN out of the US.
Let's call it by its real name. This is early stage WWIII. Russia, China and Iran are on the move, testing our will and expanding their influence. Iran and its proxies are already in a shooting war with the US. Once the US starts fighting in earnest, Iran will claim the US is fighting in defense of Israel. That will weaken any Arab support for the US and may divide NATO or weaken its will by doing so. The Mullahs are not stupid.
NATO is already in a state of de facto war with Russia. Ukraine supplies the blood, NATO the money and weapons. Russia has expanded its territory and can be said to be winning. Russia uses Iranian weapons. Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy, uses Russian missiles to attack Israel. China supplies the money.
China is expanding and militarizing the South China Sea in preparation for war over Taiwan.
The US government appears feckless. Whenever Biden appears in public, he looks and sounds like an escapee from a dementia ward. The Republican contender is promoting isolationism, which has echoes of the 1930's. Biden may be too timid to respond effectively to the latest Iranian attack. It may be too late to establish deterrence.
What's next? That's what Matti Friedman wrote about. Iran will continue to accelerate its attacks against US interests. Unless the US can establish deterrence quickly, Hezbollah will launch an attack on Israel. The US will have to commit significant resources to aid in Israel's defense and protect other US regional interests. This will create opportunities for Russia to make further gains in Ukraine. It will create an opportunity for China to invade Taiwan.
How it ends will depend entirely on the political will of the US and its allies. To paraphrase Churchill, you can count on the US to do the right thing. But only after it has exhausted every other possibility.
Israel thought it was a normal country in a normal situation. But it isn't. It is a country that millions of people world wide want to see destroyed and surrounded by barbaric enemies who can't be reasoned with. Israel needs to fight to win and then to deter. REALLY deter. Israel is not the United States and cannot afford to make ruinous errors. October 7 had best be the last one.
And in future wars the US gets involved with, they will be directed by woke trans generals and fought by high school drop outs. The saviors of the nation will be the armed citizen. But as many point out, the spiraling out of control to becoming a burnt cinder will be the fate of this world.
Israel's political objective has generally been defeat the aggressor and create deterrence. The calculus has changed with the 07-OCT massacre. Israeli civilians will not return to the south or north with terrorists remaining on the border. Deterrence is insufficient.
With Hezbollah being a more powerful and experienced adversary, also embedded within civilian populations, I highly doubt we will see Israel take a surgical approach as taken in Gaza, where civilian-combatant ratio in Gaza is likely somewhere around 1.8:1.
There will be significant loss of Lebanese civilian life with such a conflict. If I were a Lebanese civilian living south of the Litani River I would have already left the area. There is no reason to remain with a high likelihood of war.
Not an encouraging picture but sobering nevertheless. Israel's multi-layered defense of the Arrow-2 and 3, David's Sling and the Iron Dome may metaphorically need to include a more comprehensive level of international defense that I would term as a World Dome of protection.
Unfortunately, we have to bite the bullet, and deal with Hezbollah. This time, however, we need to create a dead zone south of the Litany. All villages flattened, all bushes and trees burned. If the world wants something different, it will have to put soldiers and not scarecrows.
Comes down to one simple question.
Well Israeli leadership ever find the courage to finally use full power with anybody, ever?
10 X Gaza you say?
Not a problem.
But will the "geriatric leaders" finally find the courage to use 10 X the firepower?
Israel certainly has that much available.
And she's only been warning Lebanon, Hezbollah and Civilians for decades.
Even more specific warnings of late.
At what point will Israel finally truly put her own children first , instead of taking care of the Arab children whom the Arabs clearly don't care about at all??
It concerns me, as we as a society will need to begin to prepare for wartime. My dad grew up during WWII and my mother during Vietnam. While I have no desire for us to get involved in a conflict, I fear we somehow will get drawn in, either to defend our allies or end up defending ourselves.
“If people truly understood what the war with Hezbollah will mean,” one officer told me this week, “everyone would be doing every possible thing in their power to find a diplomatic solution.” What would a diplomatic solution look like? I can't even imagine.
Bring it on. I'd like to leave this life with good vs evil settled once and for all. Let's send a couple dozen of our B52 bombers to our base in Iraq and enough bombs to do the job right. Ooops, Biden wants to give our base away that we spilled plenty of American blood for...
This is a sad comment on the facts of the situation. The amount of force to destroy the bases near Israel is there, but at what cost? Diplomacy may work if only because Hezbollah does not want to suffer any sort of injury such as Gaza has.
Victory in an all-out war with these barbarians IS DIPLOMACY.
Enough already...
Matti Friedman, as always your articles are insightful and welcomed, even when you are scaring the hell out of people. Thank you for telling the truth and sounding the warning, especially for those of us in America.
I am worried that much worse is to come and the US will have another 9/11, only this time bigger. Biden and friends have left our borders wide open. I think the government is being dishonest about who exactly is coming into our country and having the freedom to move all around. It's obvious our enemies are skilled at playing the long game and will strike when we least expect it.
Here's just another example of what we could be dealing with:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/sudan-former-slave-jews-israel?fbclid=IwAR2we6w-R0Ym44PLmU0x73XogwiSsDoWwCRrPiPUbS-Mjs66kv91evgM9Zs
"...a United Nations peacekeeping force has been ineffectual." Everything the UN does is ineffectual. Waiting for the UN to help solve this or any other world problem is like waiting for Godot. The US should get out of the UN and get the UN out of the US.
Let's call it by its real name. This is early stage WWIII. Russia, China and Iran are on the move, testing our will and expanding their influence. Iran and its proxies are already in a shooting war with the US. Once the US starts fighting in earnest, Iran will claim the US is fighting in defense of Israel. That will weaken any Arab support for the US and may divide NATO or weaken its will by doing so. The Mullahs are not stupid.
NATO is already in a state of de facto war with Russia. Ukraine supplies the blood, NATO the money and weapons. Russia has expanded its territory and can be said to be winning. Russia uses Iranian weapons. Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy, uses Russian missiles to attack Israel. China supplies the money.
China is expanding and militarizing the South China Sea in preparation for war over Taiwan.
The US government appears feckless. Whenever Biden appears in public, he looks and sounds like an escapee from a dementia ward. The Republican contender is promoting isolationism, which has echoes of the 1930's. Biden may be too timid to respond effectively to the latest Iranian attack. It may be too late to establish deterrence.
What's next? That's what Matti Friedman wrote about. Iran will continue to accelerate its attacks against US interests. Unless the US can establish deterrence quickly, Hezbollah will launch an attack on Israel. The US will have to commit significant resources to aid in Israel's defense and protect other US regional interests. This will create opportunities for Russia to make further gains in Ukraine. It will create an opportunity for China to invade Taiwan.
How it ends will depend entirely on the political will of the US and its allies. To paraphrase Churchill, you can count on the US to do the right thing. But only after it has exhausted every other possibility.
Gee, perhaps we see the real “open air prison”, which is Israel, thanks to the enemies encircling it.
^ Fact!!
Israel thought it was a normal country in a normal situation. But it isn't. It is a country that millions of people world wide want to see destroyed and surrounded by barbaric enemies who can't be reasoned with. Israel needs to fight to win and then to deter. REALLY deter. Israel is not the United States and cannot afford to make ruinous errors. October 7 had best be the last one.
And in future wars the US gets involved with, they will be directed by woke trans generals and fought by high school drop outs. The saviors of the nation will be the armed citizen. But as many point out, the spiraling out of control to becoming a burnt cinder will be the fate of this world.
Israel's political objective has generally been defeat the aggressor and create deterrence. The calculus has changed with the 07-OCT massacre. Israeli civilians will not return to the south or north with terrorists remaining on the border. Deterrence is insufficient.
With Hezbollah being a more powerful and experienced adversary, also embedded within civilian populations, I highly doubt we will see Israel take a surgical approach as taken in Gaza, where civilian-combatant ratio in Gaza is likely somewhere around 1.8:1.
There will be significant loss of Lebanese civilian life with such a conflict. If I were a Lebanese civilian living south of the Litani River I would have already left the area. There is no reason to remain with a high likelihood of war.
Not an encouraging picture but sobering nevertheless. Israel's multi-layered defense of the Arrow-2 and 3, David's Sling and the Iron Dome may metaphorically need to include a more comprehensive level of international defense that I would term as a World Dome of protection.