Opinion | Israel has launched an invasion of Lebanon

By Tom Fowdy

While the mainstream media refuse to call it that, in a huge contrast to their choice of discourse for the Ukraine war, we should not call it anything less. The unhinged and extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu is trigger happy to pursue escalation at all costs, recognising the sheer inability of Washington to hold him to account in any way, and seeks to actively provoke Iran. Having decimated Hezbollah's leadership with sabotaged pagers and then a series of precision strikes, Netanyahu is gambling on an attempt to completely destroy the Lebanon based militant group hoping, like in Gaza, to permanently change the status quo in the region.

Tehran already has egg on its face having failed to respond to Israel's massive provocations including the killing of Hamas's political chief on their own soil. It is said a massive diplomatic effort by the US and others to stop Iran retaliating in "exchange for a ceasefire" was partly the reason why, only for Tel Aviv to continue with huge escalations anyway. This has brought the world into the opening stages of what could be a huge Middle East conflict, and the United States? As much as they claim to want to peace, the reality is anything but and these claims have no credibility whatsoever. That's because Washington perceives it to be in its interest for Israel to cripple the Mullah regime in Tehran.

Israel is taking advantage of a change in the international context towards multipolarity and the fragmentation of unipolarity. The US, once the exclusively dominant country, has became increasingly aggressive on the global stage as it attempts to wrestle back its unipolar position from challenges such as Russia and China, of whom it sees as competitors in the Middle East region. The US wants to be able to control the security architecture of the entire middle east, making its traditional clients the Gulf States wholly reliant on them as their military partners, and subsequently shutting out Moscow and Beijing, of whom they have been increasingly cozy with.

In the Biden administration's foreign policy this has been obvious, hence it has been attempting to forcibly upgrade its alliance with Saudi Arabia to that of a "South Korea" level status, share with them new technologies and lock them into anti-China commitments, but this has not materialised. In order for Washington to justify these military and security alliances, it needs of course to prevent peace in the region and block reconciliation between the Gulf States and Iran, of which made progress in 2023 through a China backed normalisation deal with the Saudis. Tehran itself has also become a key strategic partner of China and Russia in the field of energy and munitions, being a supplier of Putin's war in Ukraine.

Thus since Trump terminated the nuclear deal in the year 2018, it has been American policy to try and cripple Iran, regionally contain it and thus lead an "us vs. them" alliance system against it in the Middle East with Israel as the lynchpin, hence the US has pushed the "Abraham Accords" to try and get Arab states to recognise Israel, and succeeded in getting the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan to do so, often buying them off with unilateral concessions. However, the crown jewel of this Arab normalisation the US seeks is Saudi Arabia, as part of the above deal, who has not been willing to do so due to the significant political cost such a move comes with amidst Israel's actions in Palestine. Hence American logic is if the whole Arab world recognises Israel, Iran as the only opponent becomes an isolated player against the US system, and likewise with the US as the dominant security player, China and Russia are shut out.

When you look at it like this, why would the US oppose Israel's constant efforts at extreme escalation, its desire to destroy Hezbollah and to antagonise Iran? This is serving American goals and if Iran gets roped into a broader conflict directly then surely its supplies to Russia will also be impacted too, hence as the Ukraine war falters, why not stop the source of Shahed drones and Iranian ballistic missiles? Or cut off a major oil supply route to Beijing? We live in a multipolar world that the United States is eager to crush, and it has had the Islamic Republic of Iran in its sights for some time. This creates a huge dilemma for Iran's leadership on how to handle this scenario, already appearing weak to the world. Whether it likes it or not, however, it appears Israel is taking the war to them, and the US is happy to back it while pretending not to do so.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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