The pager/walkie-talkie explosions are not only an escalation, they're a humiliation - I suppose they are intended to be provocative, and that can only be because Israel believes that they can prevail in any sort of conflict if Hezobollah/Iran retaliate. I suppose that makes sense given they have blanket diplomatic immunity and full military support from the US where the worst consequence is a strongly worded tweet to accompany their next shipment of arms, ammo, and other war machines.
But that begs the question - does Hezbollah have the ability to truly retaliate? What would be a good resource to understand their idelogical beliefs and their organizational, military, and geopolitical capabilities? Is Israeli confidence founded in their actual ability (can they persist with 3 active conflicts with Gaza, West Bank, Hezbollah at once) or is it erroneously motivated only by Netanyahu's selfish goals? Assuming that (1) Israel continues to escalate the conflict, (2) Hezbollah/Iran eventually are forced to rise to the bait of declaring 'open war' or the equivalent, (3) the US continues to be only passively involved, and (4) the other Middle Eastern states continue to be inert in this conflict - how does this pan out next?
I had briefly emerged from my passive but attentive following of this 'conflict' to ask what could happen next just after the pager explosions (thanks
@Raoul and
@nickm for your replies) - seems the answer is here. Perhaps a lot of the statements I am about to make are not grounded in fact or the whole context - I would welcome corrections.
If the death of Nasrallah is indeed true, then Netanyahu and co. were right (so far) in believing that they could prevail in the immediate conflict with Hezbollah. They were seemingly right in believing that Western World (mainly US), despite any pretense at de-escalating rhetoric, would continue to support them - through massive funding, weapons/ammo supplies, and lack of diplomatic action. And this because the leaders of the Western World effectively have the same views as Netanyahu and co - that the devastating human loss of innocent life, livelihoods, families, history, culture, societies, and the ensuing generational trauma is all fair game if it came with debilitating damage to Hezbollah's leadership and organization and furthering of their ally's geopolitical superiority and stability in the region. Don't get me wrong, I am glad terrorists like Nasrallah are dead, they are vile and evil just like terrorists everywhere, Hezbollah and Hamas chose to inflict damage on innocent civilian lives - they didn't care for the children they killed either when it was 'fair game' for their strategic aims.
But my takeaway from this is strengthening of a belief I've had for a while. The pain that I and many others like me feel as a bystander for the suffering of blameless children, of innocent civilians whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - be it in Israel on Oct 7, Gaza the months since, or in Beirut yesterday - this pain and suffering is universal and inevitable. If I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, I will lose loved ones and suffer loss and death as well, there will be none to stand up for me - the same for any poster reading this. We'd all like to believe in and hope for a world where innocent lives and civilians are protected, and in leaders and institutions that stand up for these beliefs, but that world does not and will not exist. Leaders who take us towards such a world - the Gandhis, the Mandelas, the MLKs - are exceptions and outliers, not the norm. The reality is that we live in a Darwinian world where only strength prevails. Where land belongs to the people who win the fight for it, where peace belongs to the people who can nuke their enemies first, where the privilege of declaring what is right and doing otherwise belongs to those countries with the most amount of money and most powerful armies. This is who we are as a species, we are incapable of anything more.
Instead of the 'precise' bombing from IDF and the 'retaliation' from Hezbollah (I am aware of the skew), we would have liked for an inspirational leader in world politics - no matter the country - who could have guided this historically violent and complex geopolitical conflict towards peace with non-violence, by protecting civilian lives and ensuring innocent lives are not affected. We would have liked for a ceasefire first, then diplomatic talks that led to a resolution, then actions taken to appease the inevitable resentment born out of any resolution, then years of lower violence till the status quo of the Middle East was peace. Since we lacked the outlier leaders who could have made this possible - this violence was the only probabilistic outcome.
'What happens next?' was a stupid question from me, in a way. The answer has been the same across all wars through the millenia - doesn't matter if it colonials seizing land and killing natives, doesn't matter if it rebels overthrowing an unjust government, doesn't matter if it is a war fought for ideological beliefs or human rights, or a religious crusade where non-believers are massacred - the result is always the same. The strong win and survive to write history, and the weak die. It's all very obvious, and I don't know why I've rambled on for so long, maybe I'm just overwhelmed after a long week in my personal life and thinking too much.
