Netanyahu grabs the wheel as Israel uproots US strategy for Arabia

Alameen Templeton

The United States’ event horizon in Arabia has been drawing inexorably closer since October 7 as it insists on keeping an eye on the road ahead and an eye in the rearview mirror, while Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys untrammelled control of the steering wheel.

Netanyahu understands a warfare truism – tactics beat strategy every time and, as long as Netanyahu and his homicidal generals are allowed to backtrack, betray and walk away from all of and any stated US “plans” to stabilise Arabia, the region’s headlong plummet into widening anarchy looks inevitable.

The weekend assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayed Nasrallah without any heads up from Tel Aviv scuppered three weeks of US preparations for “ceasefire” talks on Lebanon and, who knows, perhaps even Gaza.

Now, the Gazans find themselves back at square one, along with the US that also has egg and blood on its face.

No US choice but to follow

Netanyahu knows he doesn’t have to give a damn about the road ahead, or what history is going to say about the past. As long as he can control the present with on-the-day decisions irrespective of the chaos or homicide they cause, he will continue doing as he likes and thereby controlling the relationship with the White House.

And the US will have no other option but to follow Israel’s lead, no matter where it goes or what its crazy generals decide to do on any given day. US president Joe Biden finds himself with no option but to submit to the present and to prepare his forces in the region to back Israel and its bidding.

And it is clear Israel is only keeping the US “in the loop” when it suits it. The assassinations and bleeper and walkie-talkie attacks have provided ample confirmation of this grim fact, as has its disdain for US president Joe Biden’s many scuffed-out “red lines” in Gaza.

All of which in geopolitical terms then means that Israel with its 9.4million citizens is the world’s real “indispensable” nation, the world’s only “superpower”.

And it will remain that way as long as the United States’ destiny is imprisoned in the hands of a few lunatic politicians and war-drunk generals hunkering down to plot away freely in their “war chamber” in Tel Aviv.

Lining up for all-out war

Middle East Eye says Monday the Israelis are “drunk with power”. Their glee is unrestrained and flush. There will be no public pressure restraining the politicians’ and generals’ hands.

Lubna Masarwa says Israeli reactions around the entire country to Nasrallah’s death who the genocidal nation is now firmly lined up behind the war chamber

She writes: “On Channel 12’s “Meet the Press”, Amit Segal and Ben Caspit raised a glass of arak to mark Nasrallah’s death. Paz Robinson, Channel 13’s  reporter, distributed chocolates in Karmiel. Channel 13 is considered left wing.

“Channel 14’s flagship programme, The Patriots, opened with singing and celebration led by presenter Yinon Magal. Nadav Eyal wrote in Ynet:”[Nasrallah’s] assassination is an event on a regional, historic scale.”

“The media’s delight was matched by politicians of left and right.

“Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats Party and former head of Meretz party who was once regarded as the most leftist mainstream politician in the country, was delighted with the assassination.

“He wrote on X: ‘The assassination of Nasrallah is a huge and important achievement. A new era has begun in the Middle East.’

Gloating and rampant

“A political spectrum that had become deeply polarised over the return of the hostages from Gaza has reunited over the victory Israel believes it has achieved in wiping out the leadership of Hezbollah.

“Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, wrote: ‘Let all our enemies know that whoever attacks Israel will die.’

“Flush with success, the Israeli army published a video of the jets taking off from Hatzerim air base in the Negev desert, which included radio communications between an airforce commander and pilots.

“’You’ve delivered a show of victory here, I believe,’ Major General Tomer Bar, commanding officer of the Israeli Air Force, can be heard saying in the clip distributed to journalists. ‘Well done. Immense pride.’ A pilot responds: ‘We will reach everyone, everywhere.’”

It raises the question: Could the United States restrain Israel if it really wanted to?

Many commentators have expressed misgivings throughout the Gaza genocide that the US is merely pretending to try to restrain Israel – that the genocide and wider war is really an unadmitted US strategy that Israel has been part of.

Israel beyond restraint

That would mean Israel’s delinquency has been part of the plan all along.

But the latest events cast a deep shadow of doubt on that theory and the real danger now apparent is that Israel is beyond restraint, be it from inside or outside the country.

Arabian media outlets say the genocidal state is so inebriated with its own success that its generals are opening up three fronts in expectation of easy victories – one in Gaza, another on the northern border with Lebanon and a third in the West Bank where it has Monday despatched 3 000 troops.

Everyone in Israel is demanding its military seize the opportunity of disarray in Hezbollah’s ranks after the death of Nasrallah to press the advantage and attack now.

And so the US’s event horizon cannot stretch beyond today. Who knows what tomorrow brings, but whatever transpires, the US is doomed to meekly follow Netanyahu’s next mad power grab.