Today, I was again a talking head on Lebanese television. They wanted to talk about Biden's renewal of a security finding that describes Hezbolleh as a national security risk to the United States, about skirmishes on the Lebanon-Israel border, and about spying on telephones of people in the Lebanese government using spyware from the Israeli company, Pegasus. I prepared what follows to gather my thoughts.
Context: The world is still in crisis because of the Covid pandemic and the related economic collapse. In the broader context, global capitalism is in decline, especially in the United States, which is losing its economic hegemony but trying to maintain its military hegemony. That underlies the US campaign against China, which is growing economically but not militarily.
In the Middle East, Syria is still suffering the massive violence and displacement of the wars of the last decade. Lebanon is in a very weak state because of the pandemic, the economic collapse, and the reverberations of the Beirut port explosion. The Lebanese government has collapsed with few prospects for a solution. The political isolation of Israel is growing, and its new government is very unstable. The Israeli assault on Palestinians continues to escalate. Sanctions against Iran persist, but Iran is still a significant factor in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and to a much smaller extent in Gaza and Yemen.
Until now, Israel had not attacked Lebanon militarily since 2006 when Hezbolleh defeated the Israeli military and drove them out. The military strength of Hezbolleh is acknowledged by Israel and credible threats of retaliation kept Israel from further attacks until now. Israel alleges that two missiles were fired toward Israel from Lebanon. They claim to have destroyed one, and they say that the other fell in an open field. Such Israeli claims have little credibility, and it is certainly very unlikely that Hezbolleh fired missiles at Israel. Israel shelled Lebanon.
Both Israel and the United States have new governments, but there are no significant changes in either with regard to Middle East policy. It is possible that these new governments have decided to test the ability of Lebanon, and especially Hezbolleh, to respond. However, it is also possible that this conflict will fail to grow bigger. The Israelis know that the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbolleh, has the capability to inflict far more damage than missiles from Gaza
At the same time, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been using Israeli spy software to hack into the phones of people in about 50 countries, including Lebanon. Even French president Macron's phone was hacked earlier this year when he visited Lebanon. Many repressive regimes are using Israeli software to target journalists, dissidents, and critics through their phones. The Lebanese see this as an attack on their sovereignty.
Not much attention is being paid to all these events in the US media, but it is not surprising that people in Lebanon are apprehensive.
Where is the Biden administration in all this? They continue to strongly assert their uncritical support for Israel, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or in pogroms against Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. Biden's latest statement affirms his support for Israel in any confrontation with Lebanon. One of the keys will be how the Biden administration addresses the defunct nuclear agreement with Iran. It is clear that they want to extend that agreement to prevent Iran from playing its regional role of supporting resistance to US, Israeli, and Saudi hegemony.
All these lead to the inescapable conclusion that the region is once again a powder keg which could be set off by any of a number of large sparks. The biggest danger is US and Israeli adventurism in which they use the many pandemic and economic weaknesses to try to destroy any opposition and reassert their domination over the region.
