Time of Israel : “The United States is continuing to send forces to the Middle East ahead of an expected Iranian attack on Israel, with flight tracking sites showing American F-15E aircraft en route to Jordan.” //

The U.S. is bolstering its military presence in the region after intelligence reports suggested that Iran might attack Israel using Iraqi territory.

“The U.S. is trying to deter Iran from attacking Israel and is concerned that if it does strike Israel from Iraqi soil it would further escalate the regional war,” the Axios reported Tuesday. “Israeli and U.S. intelligence indicates Iran is planning a significant attack against Israel from Iraqi soil in the coming days (…).”

Based on recent IAEA reports, one nuclear watchdog group concludes that Iran has completed all the steps needed for full nuclear weapons breakout and — whenever it makes the decision to go nuclear — could produce up to nine nuclear warheads in a month, and 15 in five months. Moreover, it was discovered last year that Iran has built a new nuclear facility under a mountain near Natanz that is so deep underground that it might be beyond the reach of conventional weapons. With this facility, it will be able to make nuclear warheads even faster.

Whatever the scope of Iran’s secret nuclear activities, it almost certainly has not been producing nuclear weapons. Rather, what Iran has been trying to do in secret is get ready to produce nuclear weapons. In order to engage in serial production of nuclear weapons, Iran will need the far-flung facilities that it has developed under the guise of a civilian program. All it has to do is to stop cooperating with the IAEA and withdraw from the NPT (whether formally or de facto) so that it can pull a veil of secrecy over the entire program.

From that point forward, we will have to assume that Iran is a nuclear weapon state. North Korea didn’t conduct its first test of a nuclear device until 2006, but by then the U.S. had long since been forced to accept the high probability that it was a nuclear weapons state.

Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT will result in a cascade of disastrous consequences. Saudi Arabia has said that if Iran gets the bomb, it will get one, too. Turkey and Egypt are then likely to join the club. And consider how desperate Israel’s position will become. It will have to assume not just that any ballistic or cruise missile launched from Iran could be nuclear-tipped, justifying the use of its own nuclear deterrent, but that Iran could smuggle a nuclear device into Tel Aviv with plausible deniability that it had done so. //

As practiced by Iran and its proxies, on the other hand, missile terrorism is an entirely different kind of threat, as the July War itself had shown. The 100+ rockets that Hezbollah fired at northern Israel every day for a month caused few casualties. But they scared a third of Israel’s population into bomb shelters for weeks. Many Israelis started leaving for the United States, in many cases indefinitely.

Hence, missile terrorism poses a threat to the existence of Israel that is far beyond the potential casualty figures: A state that cannot make its people feel safe going about their daily lives, that can’t even keep its airports open because of terrorism, is in danger of failing. Whereas Palestinian terrorism targets Jews for the sheer satisfaction of murdering them, Iranian terrorism targets Israelis’ faith in the state of Israel. Iran has realized what too many Israeli leaders have not: that missile terrorism is an existential threat. Missile defenses such as Iron Dome have lulled too many Israelis into thinking that the threat is manageable. It isn’t.

So here is the question. After holding back from helping Hamas in its confrontations with Israel for nearly 20 years, why did Iran decide to join the fight this time? Perhaps Iran sensed a unique opportunity to combine the missile terrorism of all its proxies and the mayhem that antisemites and wannabe terrorists could cause in Western cities and universities to deliver a fatal blow to the morale of Israel.

Maybe. But alas, Iran’s decision to fight Israel now was likely part of a much more dangerous plan. //

The NPT allows states to withdraw with 90 days’ notice. When North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 1993, it waited to see what America’s reaction would be. When it seemed that Clinton might be prepared to use force, North Korea went down to the wire and “suspended” its withdrawal from the NPT a few days before the 90 days were up. North Korea then bluffed its way to nuclear weapons by threatening to unleash war on the Korean peninsula, a real bluff considering North Korea’s dictatorship could not have survived three days of such a war.

We should expect similar gamesmanship from Iran. We are at “the River” in Texas Hold’em. All the community cards have been revealed. Iran has a weaker hand than its enemies but is willing to risk far more. Israel is keeping its cards close to the vest, American surveillance and leaks notwithstanding, but its one ace — nuclear weapons — is worthless now. America has by far the strongest hand in the round, but it has become risk-averse to the point of torpor: its increasingly besotted national security establishment equates deterrence with provocation, which is the strategic equivalent of unilateral disarmament. Iran likes its chances.

Obama Undermined the Diplomatic Option to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program.

When Iran’s nuclear program was first discovered in 2003, the U.S. could have nipped it in the bud with a single airstrike. The argument against that move at the time (and against military action since) was that Iran would quickly reconstitute the program.

If that was the right answer, it was the wrong question. The military option on Iran’s nuclear program has to be assessed in terms of what Thomas Schelling would call a “tacit negotiation” between the U.S. and Iran: Properly conceived, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program would be an important but incidental benefit of military force; the right goal — as with sanctions — would be to convince Iran to abandon the program.

And for that strategic objective, the target list is much broader and includes everything the regime needs to survive in the short term. That means oil refineries, power plants, ports, and military command-and-control, up to and including Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the offices of the Atomic Organization of Iran. Targeting any of those early on could have fatally undermined the internal influence of Iran’s nuclear hawks.

Solving problems before they become crises is always a good idea. In international relations, the time to stop a dangerous deterioration in the status quo is at the start, before it has run its course. That is the single most important lesson of the chain of events that led to World War II, and it is particularly true in the case of a rogue nuclear program. It would have been much easier to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions when it had just one pilot facility that it half-expected somebody to bomb at any moment.

Now the nuclear weapons program is the crown jewel of the Islamic Revolution, to which the mullahs have subordinated all other priorities. As Henry Kissinger wrote, in order to avoid the use of force, it is sometimes necessary to threaten its use. Because we have not done that, we are now playing defense at the one-yard line and may have no other option.

Though its chances of success were never very high, there was a diplomatic option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program — until President Barack Obama cashiered it in his Joint Comprehensive Plan Action (JCPOA), one of the most consequential examples of aiding and abetting terrorism in world history.

During the administration of George W. Bush, the U.S. was able to orchestrate a powerful Iran sanctions regime, backed by the U.N. Security Council with the support of Russia and China. That was a remarkable feat considering that Iran is an important client of Russia and China is more dependent on Iranian oil than any other major economy. Obama, to his credit, built on those sanctions, which soon brought Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse. In 2014, Iran’s currency lost more than half its value.

But just in the nick of time, Obama came to the mullahs’ rescue with the JCPOA, which dismantled the sanctions regime and provided Iran with a massive infusion of cash, just to secure Iran’s forbearance to go nuclear for a few more years. Needless to say, Iran took the money and ran.

Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. moved quickly to abandon the JCPOA. But alas, its benefits for Iran had already largely accrued. Obama’s cash infusion (which his dunce Secretary of State John Kerry had promised would not be used for terrorism) allowed Iran to lavishly fund the IRGC and Hezbollah. Even worse, the international sanctions regime could not be resurrected. The U.S. imposed “maximum pressure” through sanctions of its own, but while those exacted a heavy price, the reality was that Obama had fatally undermined the diplomatic option for stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

In the supposed interest of peace and stability, the U.S. has waited until its most virulent enemy is in a position to turn the world upside down. The moment that the mullahs have been waiting so patiently for, suffering through decades of sanctions and privations, is finally here. They have a nuclear weapon within their grasp. They need but seize it, knowing that the odds of America’s folding are in their favor, and overwhelmingly so, as long as Joe Biden or Kamala Harris is in power.

All Iran needs to do now is withdraw from the NPT, and it will be a brave new world.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced this week that it is moving military assets to the Middle East to deter continued Iranian aggression against the U.S. and Israel after Iran vowed this week to hit Israel following last week’s strikes in Iran.

The Pentagon ordered the deployment of “additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.”

The forces will arrive in the region in the coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to leave the region.

The move of B-52s and missile defense is interesting. The B-52, it should be noted, is strictly an offensive platform, and its use presumes U.S. air superiority where the BUFFs are deployed, thus perhaps the movement of fighters. //

“These deployments build on the recent decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Israel as well as DoD’s sustained Amphibious Ready Group Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) posture in the Eastern Mediterranean,” a statement said. //

anon-nn7q
11 hours ago
Is this a decision made by our senile president Biden? If not, then by whom?

This decision is a very big deal, irrespective of whether one thinks we should or should not intervene. Harris, as VP, does not have the Constitutional authority to give such an order. Biden doesn't have the mental capacity to do anything other than what someone tells him to do.

Is this Doctor Jill's decision? //

anon-x8p1
12 hours ago
JOE BIDEN is the sole commander-in chief. He gives the orders.
Let that sink in. Harris does not care. let that sink in too.

The Obama game plan is to leave a huge stinking pile of garbage on your successors lap, before you get booted out the door.

Obama's plan is still working perfectly. Obama made sure all the biggest Obamacare costs and impact kicked in only after he left office. Then Trump gets blamed for raising the public debt.

You cannot hate Democrats enough.

Tabatabai's move to a role where she won't have access to classified information about special programs, the current location of U.S. special forces, intelligence assessments, and much more, is considered by some observers as essentially a demotion and a tacit admission that she was, in fact, the leaker, and they are working to contain the damage while the investigation continues. //

According to counterterrorism analysts who spoke to RedState in October 2023, Tabatabai's been a subversive force at the Pentagon since she arrived from the State Department in 2022:

"[C]ounterterrorism analysts speaking to RedState on condition of anonymity, whose reports would have crossed Tabatabai's desk, say that for at least the past year their product has been watered down, misquoted, or outright quashed. Tabatabai had the opportunity to shape the intelligence to meet her needs, the analysts say, and they say it's likely that the overt intel collected during that period went to Iran."

Tabatabai's position at State was as a policy adviser to disgraced Iran envoy Robert Malley, who's accused of mishandling classified information himself. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, Tabatabai has been a frequent guest at the White House courtesy of Phil Gordon, who's Kamala Harris' national security advisor and who's collaborated with Tabatabai on multiple opinion pieces "argu[ing] against sanctions on the Iranian regime": //

Anyone who would be appointed as DoD's chief learning officer at this point is undoubtedly woke and likely not extremely helpful in terms of readiness and quality training, but having Tabatabai there is an insult. She should be nowhere near the Pentagon due to her relationship with the Iranian regime, but this is a very slight move in the right direction.

Israel has temporarily shifted the focus of its air campaign in Lebanon and Syria from plinking jihadists cowering in bunkers to wiping out Hezbollah's infrastructure. Israeli strike fighters hit eleven locations associated with Hezbollah's financial operation after giving people in the target areas 20 minutes' notice to evacuate. //

This has created a cash shortage for an organization that needs a large cash flow to pay fighters, benefits to the families of slain fighters, and to carry out the social work that propelled Hezbollah into prominence in Lebanese politics. Because Hezbollah doesn't have access to international banking channels, it requires large quantities of cash to operate. Recall that when the Israelis bounced a JDAM off Hasan Nasrallah's turban, over $500 million in cash and gold was also lost. //

“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” Asher noted.

“I’ve heard from my Israeli counterparts that the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons,” he added.

The one constant in the entire "Islamist terrorist" issue is that their leaders 1) never place themselves in any direct danger, although sometimes danger in the form of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) manages to find them anyway, and 2) they generally live in wealth and luxury while their fighters and the people forced to live in areas they control are in misery.

The latest example? The recently-unalived Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, whose bunker was loaded with United Nations rations, millions in cash, weapons, and much more.

Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was prepared to hide out the war in his secret bunker beneath Gaza flushed with UN food rations, thousands in cash, cologne and his own shower, Israeli officials say. //

At the back of the bunker was a small room reserved for the Hamas chief, with a large safe beside his bed containing “millions” of shekels — the Israeli currency, according to the soldier.

“He lives here in a good way, with all his millions, while the civilians above ground are living in poverty and are starving,” the IDF soldier said. //

This IDF soldier's use of the present tense is happily in error, as Sinwar's birth certificate has now been permanently revoked, along with a lot of his followers. There are, no doubt, others in line behind him, but it's a safe bet the IDF already has possible successors identified, and is making plans to likewise un-alive any follow-on goblins, pour encourager les autres. //

Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s wife was reportedly spotted fleeing into a Gaza tunnel with a $32,000 Birkin bag hours before the Oct. 7 massacre, Israeli officials claimed.

Sinwar, 61, and his wife Abu Zamar — holding what appears to be a super lux Hermes bag — can be seen helping their two young sons through the narrow bunker hallway at 10:45 p.m. on Oct. 6, 2023, timestamped footage released by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday shows. //

And remember what the thing is about martyrs - they're dead

Jennifer Van Laar
@jenvanlaar
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🚨🚨 NEW: A US intelligence source tells RedState that the Top Secret documents leaked were leaked from the Pentagon's office of low intensity conflict/special operations - which is where suspected Iranian spy Ariane Tabatabai works with Christopher Maier https://wilsoncenter.org/person/ariane-tabatabai
11:04 PM · Oct 19, 2024

As Van Laar and Streiff have reported, numerous red flags have been raised regarding Tabatabai and Biden's special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley. //

Rep. Mike Waltz
@michaelgwaltz
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It’s crystal clear: the Biden-Harris administration has been infiltrated by pro-Iranian apologists.
Jason Brodsky
@JasonMBrodsky
Very serious: CNN reports the documents that appeared on a pro #Iran regime Telegram channel are authentic and were marked top secret and have markings indicating they are to be seen only by the Five Eyes.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics/us-israel-iran-intelligence-documents/index.html
8:35 PM · Oct 19, 2024 //

Indeed. Biden's and Harris' silence on the matter thus far speaks volumes. //
StPHarper
an hour ago
In the mid-1970s, other soldiers and I were told that; because we were 'in the know,' as holders of TSSI clearances, if we ever simply commented on the validity or falseness of any published articles, we would be subject to punishment. Such punishment could include: loss of clearance, reduction in rank, court martial, and possibly time in Leavenworth. And now we can read this:

According to CNN, one person in the intelligence community confirmed the authenticity of the documents, thereby raising the level of seriousness of the breach.

We are not the same country for which others, and I, have served. This sh*t has got to stop.

soxfan4life StPHarper
37 minutes ago
Weird I was told for the rest of my natural life. These people spill the beans and face zero consequences. And then wonder why we hate them. //

bk
2 hours ago

Waltz: "It’s crystal clear: the Biden-Harris administration has been infiltrated by pro-Iranian apologists."

I wouldn't say "infiltrated", since that means they sneaked in for nefarious reasons opposed to what is intended.

The tide of this war changed when Israel, and Netanyahu, stopped caring what America says or thinks.

The drone that hit the Prime Minister's house was accompanied by two others that were shot down. The only one to make landfall is the one that hit the home. There are concerns that no warning sirens were sounded. Reports say the military is investigating the incident and potential failures of Israel's warning system. //

Equally, even after the death of Hamas's leader Sinwar and the harrowing footage of his last moments, Hamas still pledges to hold the hostages until the end and not give up. The problem with this enemy has always been the ideology. Death is a reward for them and they care not for the lives of anyone around them, or their own.

Israel understands the complexity of the tragic conditions of this conflict. Complete victory is the only answer. They are well on their way and the days of this war are numbered.

The damage shown in the video was caused by the first tank shell that struck. Sinwar can be seen sitting in a red chair with his arm gashed open. His face was wrapped and he wore a military-style vest. He appears to try to call someone on a radio before tossing a stick at the drone, apparently having no other weapons left to use.

It's an incredible scene. A man who committed such evil acts was left sitting in a destroyed room full of debris and tossing a stick while resigning himself to what was coming. He knew he was done for. There was no further attempt to escape, if he was even physically capable of moving, and moments later, another tank shell would finish the job. That's how the story of Hamas' leader ended. Not in a grand battle, but cowering in a chair like the rat he was.

IDF soldiers located an underground compound stretching across 800 meters that served as a command center for Hezbollah’s Radwan Forces.

Inside the underground compound, the IDF found helicopter-fired missiles, mortar shells, motorcycles, living quarters, and means for long-term stays, including a kitchen stocked with food and supplies.

Hezbollah intended to mobilize these weapons as part of their “Conquer the Galilee” invasion plan and deliberately embedded this underground command center below a civilian area in southern Lebanon. //

ThePrimordialOrderedPair | October 14, 2024 at 10:19 pm
IDF Discovers Expansive Hezbollah Underground Compound Stocked With Weapons

Deja vu …

Back in 1982, when Israel had to go after the PLO in southern Lebanon, they found large caches of Soviet weapons. I seem to remember something about a gigantic cache found in a soccer stadium.

Back then, Israel was capturing so much Soviet weaponry from arab armies and terror groups that Israel had become the largest(?) exporter of Soviet weaponry outside of the Soviet Union, itself.

The years pass … and the names change … but it’s all still the same.

As an Israeli retaliation for Iran's massive ballistic missile strike looms, the Biden White House has decided to deploy a six-launcher battery of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles to shore up Israel's air defenses, and at least 96 US soldiers will man the missile battery. //

THAAD was developed as part of the ballistic missile defense program and has proven itself effective against Iranian-designed missiles. THAAD can counter short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats and is the only U.S. system designed to intercept targets outside and inside the atmosphere. //

In previous Iranian attacks on Israel, US aircraft and warships have engaged Iranian cruise missiles and drones but only in international airspace. This deployment not only places American soldiers in Israel as the region slides, inexorably, in my view, toward a regional war that has the possibility of going nuclear; see Israel Hammering Iran's Proxy Armies Sends a Clear Message to Tehran That the Rules Have Changed – RedState, it marks the beginning of positive rather than incidental participation in the brewing war.

Purrl
10 hours ago
To me what this signals is Biden ignoring his pro-Iran advisors. As much as I despise the man, until he became a vegetable he was a pretty strong supporter of Israel (IIRC), and now that he's in full "screw you" mode I suspect he's reverting to type. Also, still in awe of the level of love for the mullahs displayed by the State Department; there's no good reason whatsoever to protect Iran's nuclear facilities.

But whatever his reason for adding another layer of defense for Israel, I approve. //

streiff wildmlm
11 hours ago
we are all pretty sure that Iran has enough fissile material (they were 2-3 months from that point in 2015 according to the Obama administration. They probably have a nuke ready to test. We know they have the delivery system.

Black Magic streiff
9 hours ago
Yes, Streiff is probably totally correct, and if anything is possibly low in his estimate.

And the Iranians idea of a test, will likely be to launch the missile at Israel and see if it works.

May God bless and watch over the Israelis.

And I truly pray he is still willing to bless and watch over America after the evil of the last 4 years.

Purrl wildmlm
10 hours ago
For the most part, anything you can put a conventional warhead on you can put a nuke on.

streiff Purrl
10 hours ago
once you have the fissile material, the rest is an engineering problem that was first solved 70 years ago.

Venture capitalist David Magerman, who previously donated $5 million to the University of Pennsylvania, halted his financial support of the institution shortly after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. His decision was prompted by the school’s refusal to take action against the spread of antisemitism on campus and its failure to protect Jewish students from members of the pro-Hamas crowd, which held numerous demonstrations on the premises while threatening Jewish students.

Magerman recently announced that he plans to reallocate the funds he previously sent to UPenn to five Israeli colleges in $1 million increments. These include Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Bar-Ilan University, and Jerusalem College of Technology.

“I don’t see much value generated by giving to American universities. I think that liberal colleges in America are flawed institutions that are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world,” he told Fox News.

Magerman urged other donors to follow his lead, arguing that universities are not “reformable.”

Asked what his message is to other prominent Jewish donors still contributing to Ivy League schools, Magerman said pointedly, "Stop." He said it's naive to believe that elite U.S. universities are "reformable."

"They're fulfilling the mission they want to fulfill. Their goal, it seems, is to indoctrinate their students to question the validity of Western civilization, to question the value of the Founding Fathers and to criticize Western society. I don't think that's what these philanthropists believe and I don't think that they should be donating money to support propagating that ideology," said Magerman.

Other high-profile donors have taken similar steps. Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, canceled a $100 million donation to UPenn in December over similar concerns.

In late August, Mark Memmott, the senior director of standards and practices at CBS News, sent an email to all CBS News employees reminding them to “be careful with some terms when we talk or write about the news” from Israel and Gaza. One of the words on Memmott’s list of terms was Jerusalem.

Of Jerusalem, Memmott wrote: “Do not refer to it as being in Israel.”

He continued, in a note sent to thousands of journalists at the network: “Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital. But its status is disputed. The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and undivided’ capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem—occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war—as the capital of a future state.”

Jerusalem’s status is indeed contested. For instance, the United States’ embassy in Israel is in Jerusalem, and the Jordanian Islamic Waqf has custody of its holy sites. But acknowledging the competing claims on different parts of the city, or declining to refer to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, are one thing. Denying that it is in Israel at all is quite another.

In which country is the Israeli Knesset, the home of the Israeli prime minister and the home of the Israeli president, located? The answer to that question is self-evident. Except, it seems, at CBS. In the rest of the United States, the answer is clear: Since 1995, when Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, the government has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Media Research Center
@theMRC
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Must watch TV as the Press Briefing leads to KJP storming out

Peter Doocy & KJP get heated over Biden sending money to Lebanon without Congressional approval but refusing to do so for North Carolina.

Doocy: "You can't call a question you don't like misinformation."

3:03 PM · Oct 7, 2024. //

But as Doocy pointed out, Biden is "fond" of saying, "Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.". //

Imagine you're suffering from the hurricane or you have family who are, and you see that, what must you think? Why can't that money be deployed for hurricane relief if it can be deployed for relief for people in Lebanon? And why are you spending it on Lebanon?

Doocy also noted that Joe Biden was posting about how the Small Business Administration disaster loan program was going to be running out of money too, "if Congress doesn't come back."

To most people, Doocy explained, "A taxpayer dollar is a taxpayer dollar is a taxpayer dollar."

"That is not misinformation," he declared. "That is a FACT." //

Froge
30 minutes ago
What is asinine about the money to Lebanon, is the people who need "refugee" money are Hezbollah, their operatives and families who have been defeated by Israel.

So Israel finally gets rid of them and here we are paying for temporary housing for the terrorists. How nice of us.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces eliminated the replacement of former Hezbollah boss Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in late September, as well as another possible successor to the top job. //

Netanyahu appeared on television to speak directly to the Lebanese people:

"Today, Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many, many years," Netanyahu said in a message tailored directly to the "people of Lebanon."

"We’ve degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, we took out thousands of terrorists, including [former Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement." //

Netanyahu asked if the residents of Lebanon remembered when the country was called “the pearl of the Middle East.”

“I do,” he continued. What happened? Iran and Hezbollah happened, he explained:

Netanyahu said Iran has "conquered" Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah serves Tehran’s interests in the region by turning it into a "stockpile of ammunition and weapons" serving as a pseudo "Iranian military base" on Israel’s border.

"Now you, the Lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice," he continued. "You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity." //

anon-7npa
9 hours ago
Recent Babylon Bee headline last week:
"Young Hezbollah Recruit Can't Believe He's Already Made Regional Manager"
He's in line for another promotion //

20th Century Ltd
9 hours ago
Adapting Netanyahu's spot-on comments:
"Netanyahu said Iran has "conquered" America to ensure the Democratic Party serves Tehran’s interests in the world by turning it into a "stockpile of authoritarians, central planners, and DEI betas."

"Now you, the American people, you stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice," he continued. "You can now take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity."

"If you don’t, the Democratic Party will continue to try to fight rural areas from densely populated areas at your expense," the prime minister added. "Free your country from the Democrats."" //

Forty U.S. Army soldiers who were in Israel as the advance team for what they thought was a routine training exercise last October 7 suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war, unarmed, and being forced to beg reluctant Pentagon officials to send an Air Force plane to extract them.

Approximately a quarter of the soldiers were just miles from Gaza in off-base housing near the IDF’s Tze’elim base when the attack began. A group of local Israelis – IDF reservists, police officers, and ordinary citizens – got them to the base, which Hamas terrorists were quickly heading toward. With his men in mortal danger, the U.S. team leader requested permission to open the arms locker so they could retrieve their firearms but was denied at the US Central Command level and “denied and/or ignored” at a level above that, according to a military intelligence analyst with knowledge of the mission and exfiltration.

The rest of the soldiers had just arrived in Tel Aviv, where Hamas rockets were hitting near their hotels. //

“With everything going on, with all kinds of indirect fire, with rockets, for a good six, eight hours those [soldiers who were at Tze’elim] were in very mortal danger and the military and civilian leadership [at the Pentagon] was perfectly willing to not even worry about it.” //

Approximately 40 hours after the attacks started, and only after lengthy “conversations at the 3-star HQ level,” a U.S. Air Force C-17 briefly touched down in Tel Aviv to exfiltrate the soldiers.

Hamas fired a barrage of 150 rockets at the airport shortly after the C-17 took off for Kuwait. //

Thanks to three separate military sources – one of whom was personally involved in the mission – who spoke to RedState exclusively, the harrowing and disturbing story can now be told. The sources are not named due to fear of retaliation. //

There’s never been an official acknowledgment that there were U.S. troops in Israel on October 7, but an October 31, 2023, New York Times story states: “But other U.S. officials said the Defense Department has dispatched several dozen commandos in recent days, in addition to a small team that was in Israel on Oct. 7 conducting previously scheduled training.”

Overnight, Israel carried out air and sea strikes against an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ammunition dump on the Russian naval base at Khmeimim/Hmeimim, Syria. The attacks avoided Russian-manned facilities and were timed to coincide with the arrival of a suspected shipment of weapons from Iran by the sanctioned Qeshm Fars airline.

Russian and IRGC air defense systems were used, but video demonstrates their ineffectiveness to attacks from air-launched and sea-launched weapons. //

Shortly after the attack, Russia began evacuating diplomats and citizens from Lebanon and encouraged the 1.5 million Russians living in Israel to leave the country "while such opportunities exist." //

Russia has a decision to make about its adventure in Syria. It has shown that it is unable to either prevent attacks on its areas of interest or to credibly defend those areas when they are attacked. By allying itself with Iran, its reputation is inextricably attached to Iran's fate. If it continues to let IRGC thugs snuggle up to its facilities, inevitably, Russians are going to be killed, and then the Kremlin will have a whole new level of humiliation to contend with. //

Laocoön of Troy
2 hours ago
Word of caution:

"... Russia ambassador in Tel Aviv recommended that citizens in Israel consider leaving the country "while such opportunities exist." He said this in an interview with TASS. ..."

Evacuating your nationals from territory and nations you are preparing to go to war with usta be a sign of impending hostilities. We've done it, the old Soviet Russians have done it, and the Putinist Russian Federation have done it. If that holds in this instance are we looking at direct hostilities with Israel by the Russians? Are the Russians that stupid or desperate?

This bears watching.

This is a conflict of good vs. evil. There is simply no other way to describe it.

Fawzia Amin Sido, an innocent girl, was kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery. That's an act of such depraved barbarity as to be hard to imagine among civilized people, and yet, that's what happened. She was rescued by troops from Israel - the same Israel that clueless useful idiots on American college campuses accuse of "genocide." Israel was acting on information provided by the United States - the same United States that the mullahs running the theocracy in Iran accuse of imperialism. The United States was given that information by unnamed officials in Iraq, which is unfortunately at the crossroads of the entire Middle East (and thus all its conflicts).

Civilized people don't take children as captives and sell them into slavery. Good people don't do these things. Uncivilized, evil people do these things. Savages, barbarians, and the utterly inhuman do these things.

And they would do them here, in the United States, given the opportunity.

Those are the stakes. Fawzia Amin Sido's case serves as a horrible reminder. Her captivity is over, but she will bear the scars, emotional and physical, as long as she lives. She is back with her family, but the memory of her captivity will no doubt always haunt her. But if civilization does not prevail, her suffering, and the suffering of untold thousands like her, will have been for nothing. //

Claudius54 Indylawyer
16 hours ago edited
You really don't need to 'expect' ... 300K missing children in U.S. is a documented known fact due to Harris/Biden (illegal) immigration policy. Waltz tried to paint this as 'compassion' the other night. You really don't need to turn your eyes a half world away to witness barbarity. Most likely it's occurring right next to you. Truth be told the cartels probably make Hamas look like pikers. The difference is that IDF is resolving crap like this is Gaza ... while juvenile immigrant chattels in the U.S. are depending on Alejandro Mayorkas. I'm old enough to remember when they started putting missing kid's faces on milk cartons. Now all the talking heads can manage to do is change the subject or obfuscate the definition of "legal status".

Iran had already been concerned for years that Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency, had infiltrated Tehran’s ranks, the outlet reported. Following Nasrallah’s death, that concern has grown larger — and Iranian officials have become worried about Khamenei’s safety, officials and sources close to the matter told Reuters.

“The trust that held everything together has disappeared,” an Iranian official told Reuters.

“[Khamenei] no longer trusts anyone,” another source close to the Iranian regime told Reuters. //

Authorities have opened investigations to see whether some Iranian officials or members of Iran’s military are compromised, another Iranian official told Reuters. The investigations are particularly centered around officials who travel or have family outside the country.

Authorities are reportedly suspicious of Iranian military members who have recently been in Lebanon, one of the officials told Reuters. One of the military members had recently been asking about Nasrallah’s location, raising eyebrows among other officials. That individual was arrested, along with several others, the official told Reuters. //

Chillypod anon-ymous99 an hour ago

Mossad is freaking the Iran leaders out and it's probably by design. They will not trust their most trusted people right now and it's great. Think about them arresting their own close people, it's bound to make quite a few other ones very nervous. //

KJSpeed Chuck in TX 2 hours ago

It would be like Israel to plant incriminating evidence on anyone they want taken out. Let the Ayatollah be the means to his own end. //

veritaseequitas 2 hours ago

Mohammad nowhere to be found. No comfort, no peace, no absence of fear.
Islam is a cult, worshipping a man. //

DonH-Texas 2 hours ago edited

Isn't it odd that the ayatollahs are not so ready to be martyred as they are to send off their flunkies to die? They act a whole lot like godless politicians in secular states.

If you want to know what people really are, don't rely on what they say, look at what they do. //

Gabriel Noronha
@GLNoronha
·
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The missiles hitting Israel right now are the same ones Biden and Harris worked to lift UN sanctions on the first month he took office.

They said it would help promote diplomacy with Iran.

12:54 PM · Oct 1, 2024 //

Brytek
36 minutes ago
Wars end when you annihilate the opposition or force an unconditional surrender, wars on end begin with proportional responses. Perhaps Israel has learned anyone pushing a proportional response is not their friend and is in fact the worst kind of enemy to have, as all it does is bleed both sides whilst the “allies” military industrial complex sell weapons to both sides, while draining their own populations of wealth to fund it.