“You either die a hero, or you live just long enough to become the villain.” - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
By Tom Luongo - April 18, 2024
Too many people are trying to downplay last weekend’s response from Iran to Israel’s attack on their consulate in Damascus as some kind of “Wag the Dog” event. While I do agree there was a certain level of theatrics in the entire scene, to think this wasn’t a major geopolitical event is the worst kind of cynical cope.
Usually that type of detached cynicism is reserved to Millennials, but when I see folks in my age cohort doing this I become far more worried that everyone’s in denial to a dangerous degree. I was contacted by Sputnik News to discuss the Biden administration’s options and potential response via sanctions on Iran among other things.
While Biden signed off on a bunch of toothless virtue signaling, the reality of the post-Israel/Iran exchange is far starker.
Like when Trump assassinated General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, Iran reacted with just the right amount of force, bloodying US forces in Iraq, showing off a little as to what their missile arsenal is capable of, and leaving the ball squarely on Trump’s side of the court to either pick up or ignore.
Trump, smartly, left the ball where it lay.
Iran’s strike on Israel, as others have pointed out quite effectively, was designed to show the Israeli people who support Benjamin Netanyahu’s unhinged, in my opinion, response to the October 7th attack that they can be gotten to.
This was an example of asymmetric warfare at its finest. The economics of war have changed. Now, attacking with swarms of drones and missiles is far cheaper than the sophisticated air defense systems and the property they are protecting.
Iran made that point very clearly last weekend.
Israel’s leadership has led the Israeli people to the brink of extermination just as Hamas’ has led the people of Gaza to the same fate. Never think for a minute that either of these groups of people are anything but cannon fodder for the globalist imperative to remake the world in their preferred image.
So, before the attack on Iran’s embassy Benjamin Netanyahu was their standard bearer, if polls from Israel are to be believed, for the extermination of the Palestinians in Gaza. Today, after digesting the sight of hundreds of drones and missiles from Iran and its allies impacting in the backyards he better be on his way to being their villain.
Because the theatrical part of Iran’s attack on Israel was that it wasn’t intended to do a ton of damage or kill hundreds of people. The goal was to send the right message to various groups of onlookers. And part of that message was that Iran and the United States agreed on a general framework for the strike so as to put the ball in Netanyahu’s court and dare him to have the strength that Trump showed.
I don’t have high hopes for that.
But it does signal a change in US behavior. And if my read on the Obama/Biden axis in the US is correct, then Bibi has vastly overplayed his hand. I believe the facts fit the scenario that the US told Iran they wouldn’t stop an attack on Israel as long as it fit within the scope of Israel and its allies’ ability to defend. Step out of that box, Iran, and we’ll let you have it.
Iran had every incentive to take a deal like that because it preserves their victim status and continues to cast Israel as the regional aggressor. It’s the message the US wants to send as well as the image Iran wants to project.
From this perspective it’s the only win/win on the table.
And Israel is the loser, but it’s a manageable loss.
The problem is that in my view Bibi one of the truly sinister people on the world stage today. And he’s operating under a number of misconceptions which inform us of his likely course of action from here.
He believes that he still has the power, like he did in the 1990’s, to order the US to jump and we would say, “how high?”
Bibi is staring at not only the end of his political life but one where he walks around as a free man, if not a breathing one. And when a man like him, a serial abuser and narcissist adept at triangulating his allies and his enemies, who gets off of the attention he courts in his pursuit of power and his own agenda, will use this moment to the fullest.
He doesn’t know how to back down here. He just knows that he can play every card in his deck and commit his ‘allies’ to bail him out because of their interests, their enmeshment with him and Israel.
Our outrage is Bibi’s fuel, his supply. He’s like the kid who picks fights with people bigger than him knowing that his big buddy will come to his rescue out of loyalty. Narcissists use your humanity against you.
And the question I have now is whether the US finally told Bibi with this strike he’s gone too far. When he convinced Trump to kill Soleimani (because come on, who else could have?) he left Trump to clean up the mess he created. Trump, for his part, won’t speak to him anymore, from the reports I’ve seen.
Now he’s upped the stakes taking out IRGC Generals in Syria and has to be thinking there’s an angle to play where he can take things to the next level. But, the Biden administration, being the Obama administration 2.0, may finally leave Bibi out to hang.
It’s now a liability to back Israel within Biden’s fading base. My read from the past few years that Bibi has the support of the UK and US neocons, but his opposition in Israel work for Davos and continental Europe, broadly speaking.
That is the pressure Bibi is under; to back down in Gaza and Lebanon, back off Iran. And that means he’s a cornered snake.
Does anyone seriously think this man is going to do back down under these circumstances?
We could be staring at that moment where Israel strikes back at Iran and the US finally just says, no more. Eventually the bodyguard realizes he’s the one with the broken nose and the bruised ribs.
Sadly, the more likely scenario is that no one on Capitol Hill, Tel Aviv, and London got the message and are now using this exchange as cover to secure more war funding for Israel for 2025 and beyond.
God help us all.
As always, my . . .
[SNIP]
