Security analysts and former officials said the damage Israel had inflicted on Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, had stripped Tehran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack.
Israel has a freer hand to respond forcefully to Iran’s missile barrage on Tuesday than it did in April, security analysts and former officials say, when its retaliation for the previous Iranian attack was a largely symbolic strike against an air-defense installation in Iran.
In April, Israel was worried that issuing too intense of a response would prompt Iran to order its proxy militias — particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon — to retaliate extensively.
But after launching a bombing campaign that killed Hezbollah’s leader and other commanders last week, along with a ground invasion overnight Tuesday, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, stripping Iran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in Iran.
Israel has more than just US interests on their mind. Proxy wars aren’t neutral battlefields.
Iran’s allies unites the nonrecognition of a) the Israeli people and b) the state Israel. The Israeli electorate and thus by extension the IDF doesn’t trust its neighbours (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran) to recognise Israel (a, b) anytime soon, which translates to them as ‘peace was never an option’. Occupation didn’t work, because internationalised guerrilla warfare muddies the waters of combatant status.
The binary nonrecognition is thus a recipe for wars to come, because the Israelis are highly motivated by what they see as an existential threat. Gaza has the same problem, but the 7. October translates to the Israelis as mutual agreement of almost anything is allowed now.
Why should anybody recognize a terrorist regime based entirely on stolen land?
Nobody recognized ISIS either for the same reasons.
I know, but my point is that Israel and Iran can never get along in their current state. Either Israel would have to stop being a US protectorate or Iran would have to submit to US interests. Neither is going to happen, so fruitful diplomacy isn’t possible. That (and the whole settler colonialism thing) is the core reason why they’ve been in conflict for decades. The US can’t buy Iran’s cooperation because Iran accepting that would itself be an act of submission. Israel has its own issues with Iran, but that’s irrelevant compared to (and caused by) the fundamental geopolitical incompatibility between the two states.