The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed the death of Lebanese Hezbollah leader and all-around terrorist Hassan Nasrallah Saturday following a massive Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah command bunker Friday. //

Nasrallah died as he lived, cowering behind a shield of women and children.

If you were expecting outrage in the region, you need to think again.

Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas
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Syrians are handing out sweets and celebrating the elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (his death is not officially confirmed)
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4:27 PM · Sep 27, 2024 //

These people who suffered from Hezbollah's thuggishness and the perpetual war it created are not sad to see Nasrallah and his ilk destroyed.

It is too early to draw definitive lessons from Israel's post-October 7th campaign against institutional terrorism in the Middle East, but I think there are reasons to be hopeful.

When the much-maligned Jared Kushner undertook his mission to rearrange the strategic map of the Middle East, he intuited that attempting to negotiate with the "Palestinian" leadership was a dead end for the simple reason that those people knew the only way they could stay in power was by promoting victimhood and refusing to negotiate. When the farcical "two state solution" was abandoned, Israel was able to achieve normalized, or at least non-hostile relations with historic foes such as Saudi Arabia. //

If that strategic void is filled by anyone other than Iran's stooges, then the region's security structure could be reordered. I would argue the region is tired of fighting and would really like to do something else, and absent the Iranian-grafted cancer that is Hezbollah, change is possible.

Just two final points. First, Netanyahu's speech at the UN spelled out the issue in no uncertain terms. The region can stagger on in a state of poverty, terrorism, and warfare, or it can pull the plug on the old way of doing business and work together to lift up all nations in the region.

This is not hyperbole; this is a crossroads.

Second, the idea that warfare is an exercise in proportionality has been permanently discredited. I'm a Catholic, and before that, I was an ardent student of military history. I understand "Just War" theory, and I also understand why it is wrong. A proportionate response is guaranteed to prolong conflicts and increase casualties on both sides. As a Southerner, I think the South was much better off for Sherman's March to the Sea and Phil Sheridan's rampage up the Shenandoah Valley than it would have been if the war had extended for another two or three years as the Army of the Potomac ground its way through Virginia and North Carolina. Proportionality is a sop to the conscience; it is nothing more than virtue signaling. Israel's response to the October 7 Massacre is showing the very real possibility of ending the so-called "cycle of violence." //

Which brings me to my last point. Overwhelming violence works. While we may all prefer negotiations to violence, there are times when there is nothing to talk about. Slaughtering 1,200 Israelis brings about such a time. A lot of my friends during the early days of the Iraq War were fond of saying, "you can't kill your way out of a problem." That is false. There may be reasons you don't want to do that, or you may suffer from a lack of ambition or motivation, but to say you can't kill enough people to make the problem go away is fatuous nonsense.