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John Podhoretz has vindicated what I was thinking on Tuesday when I suspected that the Hezbollah "ceasefire" is a result of U.S. pressure & blackmail on Israel:
Swiss Cheese, the Sot, and the Ceasefire - 11/26/24
"The 60-day ceasefire to which Israel has agreed, thus pausing its efforts to degrade Hezbollah in Lebanon to such a degree that 60,000 Israelis can begin to return to their homes near the Lebanese border, may exist because of blackmail. Blackmail from the United States. Netanyahu told the Israeli cabinet that if they did not agree to the Biden terms, the administration would move against the Jewish state in the U.N. Security Council. This threat was a first of its kind for any president; even Barack Obama only allowed a hostile Security Council action to go through without a veto in his final act of aggression against Jerusalem in 2017. This time Biden was threatening to lead the U.N. against its only true ally in the Middle East.
"If what Netanyahu told his cabinet is true, and Biden’s own statement yesterday would seem to provide some confirmation, what we’re seeing here is the final capitulation by this government to the idea that Israel deserves to be held responsible for the crime of defending itself. Not only against the terrorist state that invaded it last October 7, but also against the terrorist state-within-a-state on its Northern border that has fired rockets at it for 13 months without letup, the catamite army of Iran that takes orders from the theocracy determined to destroy the Jewish state and all Jews worldwide.
"So the Biden administration is concluding its time in office as a power player in the Middle East praising itself for its toughness in restraining Israel’s just cause. But in the name of what exactly? Well, a “ceasefire,” of course. Hallelujah. Yes, Biden and his people have secured a ceasefire, as though a ceasefire means anything but its literal definition—a pause in the use of projectile force. It means nothing else. It does not mean peace. It does not mean negotiations. It does not mean a change in the relative positions of the forces at war. It’s a freeze. And when such a freeze freezes the military that’s on the march, it implicitly favors the side that is on its back foot. Thus America has, in effect, sided with Hezbollah.
"End scene. For a minute there, after October 7, Joe Biden knew Israel was in the right. But that knowledge quickly fell through one of the holes in the swiss cheese that is either his currently decaying octogenarian brain or just the same fourth-rate cognitive machine he has used to such pointless effect for more than half a century in Washington.
“Oh no!” someone said to him. “There are Arabs in Michigan!” And suddenly Israel, the most accurate military force in the history of the planet, was being accused of killing people indiscriminately; this country that allowed more than 1 billion tons of food into a war zone to feed its enemy was said to be starving them out somehow; and Israel’s efforts to end the war quickly and cleanly with a victory against Hamas were opposed by Swiss Cheese Man and his map-reading sot of a doyenne, who informed the world there was no way for Israel to prevail in Rafah due to her astounding experience in war, her deep knowledge of tactics and strategy, and her view from the bottom of a bottle of Dewar’s. At long last, Israel finally did go in, and took Rafah in a matter of weeks, and took out Yahya Sinwar. But even this exposure to reality did not change the administration’s determination to stay Israel’s hand somehow. If it couldn’t do so in Gaza, the Biden administration would do so in Lebanon on its way out the door into the annals of history, where it will be remembered for its staggering and almost total failure on all fronts.
"Knowing as he does that in two months he will not be facing a senile president and that president’s intellectually deficient secretary of state, his oft-AWOL secretary of defense, his neurasthenic national security adviser, his Hawaii-based vice-drunkident, and his increasingly anti-Israel party, Netanyahu decided to play the long game. He also may find it useful to have the time to regroup and figure out what that long game should be. But there is great risk here. Israel has momentum and is giving that up. But in the end, the battle here isn’t against Hezbollah anyway. It’s against Iran. And the incoming administration gives every indication that, unlike the present feckless crew, it sees Iran clearly as an enemy. The nominee for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, declared that it was time to make America great again…and to make Iran broke again. And he isn’t even one of the leading foreign policy voices. The others—Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth—are even tougher.
"And who knows what the nation that came up with the pager attack has up its sleeve? What Joe Biden has done is unspeakable, if he can even be said to have done it. What Netanyahu and his government have done is tactical and strategic. They live to fight another day."
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