Articles

Over the past twenty-four hours, a battery of indicators on the ground suggests that the war between Iran and the axis formed by Israel and the United States is on the verge of crossing a new threshold–an escalation from which Lebanon is not escaping. On the thirteen day of the military operation dubbed “Epic Fury” by US President Donald Trump, tensions have significantly surged across the dual Iran-Israel and Lebanon-Israel fronts, marked by a striking synchronicity between Hezbollah and Tehran. The overnight intensification of missile exchanges between Tehran and Tel Aviv–occurring just as Hezbollah announced on Wednesday evening the launch of Operation “Eaten Straw” (an allusion to Quranic account of Abraha’s army, decimated by clay stones dropped by birds)–is a direct consequence of rising hostilities around the strategic Strait of Hormuz. This flashpoint now threatens to become a decisive turning point in the ongoing conflict.

Analyses often miss the mark. We tend to drift into an excess of objectivity and a lack of imagination, or vice versa. At times, we even mistake our own desires for reality. It is a sobering fact that neither the most tragic events, nor their ultimate outcomes, were ever foreseen by even the most seasoned analysts. Only a few enlightened minds proved visionary, yet they were rarely heard within the high corridors of power, mired as they were in political, financial, and economic affairs. The Catalyst of the Two World Wars Few predicted the First World War. No belligerent truly desired it, especially following the various agreements and the carving up of global spheres of influence among the great powers of the era. Analysts, convinced that such a conflict could never be repeated and that Germany had been subdued for good, branded it the “War to End All Wars.”

“In every generation they rise to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.” — The Passover Haggadah The conflict currently pitting Israel against Iran and its proxies extends far beyond the military and geopolitical framework in which some persist in confining it. The semiology deployed by both parties — the names given to operations, the expressions chosen to announce or respond to them — reveals a battle that is eminently religious and metaphysical in character, in which each military act claims to inscribe itself within the order of scriptural fulfillment. Where military operation names ordinarily obey a logic of propaganda designed to impress the enemy, the rhetorical ornamentation here plays an entirely different role, standing at the very heart of the war apparatus. It constitutes its essence, helping to explain why this conflict unfolds on a register altogether different from strictly diachronic, historical time.

A serious escalation occurred on Wednesday evening between Israel and Hezbollah. The pro-Iranian party launched nearly 200 rockets in a few minutes against northern Israel and Galilee earlier in the evening. The Israeli air force was quick to retaliate by carrying out a series of particularly violent raids against the southern suburbs, which were quickly covered in thick clouds of black smoke. Following the escalation initiated by Hezbollah, Israeli sources indicated late in the evening (Beirut time) that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was examining with his staff the possibility of expanding the ground intervention into Lebanon. In this context, an Israeli security source stated on Wednesday evening that the United States could participate in air raids « in Baalbek and the Beqaa ». The same source specified that « the military operation will not stop at the Litani ». « We will act from South to North, and all targets are legitimate », added the Israeli source.

For the past week, a new war – the fifth in 34 years – has pitted Israel against Hezbollah. It is yet another war that the Lebanese people never wanted. All the agreements that ended the previous four wars proved to be little more than temporary truces, exploited by Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand and by Israel on the other to prepare for the next round of fighting. All of this unfolded under the watchful eye of the Assad regimes, father and son, and of Lebanese presidents and governments beholden to Damascus or Tehran, particularly during the tenures of Hraoui, Lahoud, and Michel Aoun. The costs of these wars have been paid dearly, willingly by Hezbollah’s unconditional supporters, under the numbing effect of ideology; reluctantly by other Lebanese; and by Arab countries that financed reconstruction for both humanitarian and geopolitical reasons. The same scenario has therefore repeated itself for four decades: war, ceasefire, rhetoric of victory, the deterioration of Lebanon’s political authority, Hezbollah’s preparations for endless wars, mutual deception, and then war again. A proverb drawn from popular wisdom says that “a donkey does not stumble twice on the same stone.”

The population of Lebanon, as well as the populations of the Levant, Gulf, and Middle Eastern countries, are subjected to a veritable Scottish shower (a sudden reversal of fortune). On the one hand, rumors suggest an upcoming end to hostilities on the Iranian front (without encompassing Lebanon), but at the same time, a clear escalation in military operations is perceptible. Wednesday, March 11, and the night of March 10, were marked by an intensification of raids and missile fire in more than one direction. Israeli aviation thus continued its intensive raids on the night of March 10 against the nerve centers and infrastructure of the Iranian regime in Tehran, and against the southern suburbs of Beirut and several villages in South Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley. Missiles were also launched against positions of the Kurdish Iranian opposition in Iraq, while the US-Israeli coalition air force launched raids against the offices of the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia, “El Hashed al-Shaabi” (“Popular Mobilization”), and Iraqi Hezbollah, stationed in Iraq. Several missile alerts were also reported on Wednesday in Dubai and Doha, notably.