By C.J. Atkins
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has begun, and the Pentagon is preparing for more direct US involvement in its ally’s Middle East wars.
Late on September 30 and into the following morning, it was reported that “small raids” and “targeted incursions” by Israel into Lebanese territory were currently underway, but it was also admitted that Israeli special forces have actually already been crossing the border repeatedly over the past year to carry out military operations.
The Israeli air force is bombing Beirut, again, warning residents to get out of the city or risk death. Troops from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), meanwhile, are massed on the frontier, and tanks have been firing into Lebanon for hours.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with local council heads in northern Israel on September 30, according to the Times of Israel, and told them “the next stage in the war…will begin soon.”
The IDF stands poised to make good on Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli’s promise last week that his country would “take over” Lebanese territory to establish a “buffer zone” for Israel. Questions of Lebanon’s sovereignty and violations of international law are irrelevant, according to the minister, because Lebanon “cannot be defined as a state.”
Despite the fresh aggression, the US shows no signs of ending weapons shipments to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is so emboldened that he now threatens to take his war directly to its biggest target – Iran.
Instead of taking action to restrain its ally, the US is instead making moves to prepare for its own more direct participation in the conflict.
On September 30, the Pentagon disclosed that “a few thousand” American troops have been issued “prepare to deploy” orders. They will be sent to “bolster security and to defend Israel if necessary,” according to the Associated Press.
Military spokesperson Sabrina Singh refused to give full details to reporters but said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had given directives to “increase the readiness of additional US forces to deploy, elevating our preparedness to respond to various contingencies.”
US aircraft carriers and drone squadrons have already been active in combat in the region since October 7 last year, especially in deployments against Yemen. Their stay is being extended by Austin.
Bolstering them will be a second aircraft carrier, additional squadrons of US fighter jets and more anti-tank ground attack planes, doubling US airpower in the region. The total number of US troops deployed on Israel’s behalf to bases in Iraq, Syria and other countries is expected to top 43,000 by the time the extra forces are in place.
Netanyahu’s war, Biden’s war
It’s now clear that the Biden administration is getting the wider Middle East war that it pleaded with its ally not to launch.
After funneling billions of dollars of US taxpayer-funded weaponry to the IDF and indicating repeatedly that there is no real “red line” Israel could cross which would make the US reconsider its policy, the expansion of the war comes as no surprise.
Netanyahu and the other far-right nationalist leaders in his government have received ample assurance that President Joe Biden will not place any meaningful conditions on the supply of arms flowing from the US.
Further proof came September 30 when State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller performed the latest round of rhetorical gymnastics to avoid criticizing Israel. He said Biden “of course” continues to support a ceasefire – in both Lebanon and Gaza – but said the meaning of the word “ceasefire” is up for discussion.
Some people, Miller said, “either misinterpret or have their own version of what a ceasefire is.” The US version apparently does not include Israel putting a halt to its bombing, shelling or shooting.
Biden’s successor on the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris, has for months been more forceful than the president in talking about the need for a ceasefire and condemning the human toll of Israel’s war, but she has signaled no intention of fundamentally departing from his policy.
With the status quo vis-à-vis the Democrats seemingly in no danger of change, Netanyahu has chosen to escalate his war, achieving four goals:
- Pushing ahead with the strategy of creating a “Greater Israel” by absorbing other countries’ territories, starting with Palestine and now including Lebanon (Israeli real estate agents are reportedly already advertising homes for sale to settlers in Lebanon, just as they did in Gaza);
- Saving himself from criminal prosecution at home by extending the fighting and delaying court hearings;
- Increasing pressure on Iran with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the government there;
- And creating further political difficulties for Harris so that his preferred candidate for US president, Donald Trump, can hopefully return to the White House.
Polling in Michigan – where there are substantial blocs of Palestinian-American and Lebanese-American voters – suggests Harris’ approach to the escalating war could determine the outcome in this crucial swing state, and thus potentially tilt the election.
It’s abundantly clear that Netanyahu is working hard to put his thumb on the scale for Trump while pursuing his own aims.
In just the past 24 hours, Israeli bombs were dropped on not just Lebanon but also Gaza, Yemen and Syria. Over the September 29-30 weekend, a top Iranian general, Abbas Nilforushan, was killed in Beirut along with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in the 2,000-pound “bunker buster” attack. There were also Israel’s pager attacks inside Lebanon in mid-September that have been widely condemned as terrorism. And several weeks ago, Israeli strikes were carried out inside Iran itself.
Over 100 people in Lebanon have been killed so far, and the official death toll in the genocidal war on Gaza is ticking closer to 42,000 as the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the war closes in.
US imperialism has been and remains complicit in it all, and the Biden-Harris administration could still pay the price in elections that are just weeks away if there is no change in US policy.
Target: Iran
The assault on Gaza and Lebanon – along with Israel’s wider campaign against Iran via attacks on the latter’s allies in other countries – are quickly morphing into a wider war that threatens to explode across the entire region and beyond.
United Nations peacekeepers, who have been in Lebanon since 1978, say they can no longer perform their duty because of Israeli strikes and that they are moving away from the border areas.
The UN force harshly reprimanded Israel on October 1, reminding its leaders that any crossing into Lebanon is a violation of the country’s sovereignty and of Security Council Resolution 1701.
Spain, which commands the UN mission, told Israel to stop its ground invasion. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declared: “We cannot resign ourselves to war being the normal way of relating between the peoples of the Middle East. To achieve peace, there is only one way: Respect for international humanitarian law. This spiral of violence has to stop.”
Israel ignored the UN and Spain, proceeding with its planned invasion. Despite the overwhelming firepower of the US-armed IDF, though, any extended operation in Lebanon will not be smooth sailing for Israel.
Hezbollah, which was founded as a resistance movement in 1985 in the wake of a previous Israeli invasion, will undoubtedly regroup from the assassination of its leader a few days ago and create havoc for the Israeli troops crossing into Lebanon, just as they’ve done before. The fighting will be fierce if a full-scale occupation of Lebanon is imposed again.
But whether it’s going after Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen or Hamas in Gaza, the big target in the Israeli leadership’s sights remains Iran.
On September 30, Netanyahu made a direct threat to Iran, calling for the explicit overthrow of its government and hinting at a bigger campaign to come, saying Iran “will be free…a lot sooner than people think.” In a televised message to Iran’s people, he also boasted “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach, there is nowhere we won’t go.”
US Defense Secretary Austin showed the Biden administration is on board with putting the squeeze on Iran. “Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region,” he declared, “the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people.”
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East policy advisor, gave a preview of the policy a second Trump administration might pursue when it comes to Israel’s wars. Praising the assassination of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, Kushner said “Iran’s fully loaded arsenal aimed at Israel” had been removed and repeated his father-in-law’s encouragement for Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza and then move on to Tehran.
The October 1 missile launch by Iran shows it takes the Israeli and US threats seriously. If convinced that its survival is in question, it’s entirely possible the government there will also resume its nuclear weapons development program, increasing the danger in a region where one power – Israel – already possesses such doomsday capability.
The choice: Join the war or stop the weapons
Rather than trying to dial back the potential of even more widespread death and destruction by restraining Israel, US imperialism is rushing to Netanyahu’s side and joining in on his escalation of tensions with the decision to deploy more American troops and firepower to the area.
The US ceasefire movement and its allies are fighting for a different path: an offensive arms embargo on Israel.
Pro-peace organizations and progressive political groups are working to build support for an arms embargo resolution introduced in Congress by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would block the sale of more than $20 billion in offensive weaponry.
“Sending more weapons [to Netanyahu] is not only immoral,” Sanders declared, “it is also illegal.” He cited provisions in the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, US laws which require that recipients of US weapons not use them intentionally and indiscriminately against civilians.
“There is a mountain of documentary evidence demonstrating” that US-supplied weapons have been used by Israel against Palestinian civilians in Gaza “in violation of US and international law,” Sanders said in a statement. Further, the intentional blocking of humanitarian aid for Gazans also makes Israel “ineligible for US security assistance,” he said.
People’s World (edited slightly for length)
[Photo of Benjamin Netanyahu pointing to next targets: UN News]
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