Sharing Kushner’s tweet in full because it has to be seen in toto to be believed and it’s important to remember he will no doubt once again be the architect of Trump’s ME policy should Trump retake office.
And also because of this observation from Mohammad Alsaafin of AJ+:
It’s darkly funny that every stupid thing Kushner is saying here reflects the actual strategy and position of the Biden administration.
Ok, here’s Kushner’s victory lap:
September 27th is the most important day in the Middle East since the Abraham Accords breakthrough.I have spent countless hours studying Hezbollah and there is not an expert on earth who thought that what Israel has done to decapitate and degrade them was possible.This is significant because Iran is now fully exposed. The reason why their nuclear facilities have not been destroyed, despite weak air defense systems, is because Hezbollah has been a loaded gun pointed at Israel.Iran spent the last forty years building this capability as its deterrent. President Trump would often say, “Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation.”The Islamic Republic’s regime is much tougher when risking Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian and Houthi lives than when risking their own. Their foolish efforts to assassinate President Trump and hack his campaign reek of desperation and are hardening a large coalition against them.Iranian leadership is stuck in the old Middle East, while their neighbors in the GCC are sprinting toward the future by investing in their populations and infrastructure. They are becoming dynamic magnets for talent and investment while Iran falls further behind.As the Iranian proxies and threats dissipate, regional security and prosperity will rise for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. Israel now finds itself with the threat from Gaza mostly neutralized and the opportunity to neutralize Hezbollah in the north.It’s unfortunate how we got here but maybe there can be a silver lining in the end.Anyone who has been calling for a ceasefire in the North is wrong.There is no going back for Israel.They cannot afford now to not finish the job and completely dismantle the arsenal that has been aimed at them. They will never get another chance. After the brilliant, rapid-fire tactical successes of the pagers, radios, and targeting of leadership, Hezbollah’s massive weapon cache is unguarded and unmanned.Most of Hezbollah fighters are hiding in their tunnels. Anyone still around was not important enough to carry a pager or be invited to a leadership meeting. Iran is reeling, as well, insecure and unsure how deeply its own intelligence has been penetrated.Failing to take full advantage of this opportunity to neutralize the threat is irresponsible.I have been hearing some amazing stories about how Israel has been collecting intelligence over the past 10 months with some brilliant technology and crowdsourcing initiatives.But today, with the confirmed killing of Nasrallah and at least 16 top commanders eliminated in just nine days, was the first day I started thinking about a Middle East without Iran’s fully loaded arsenal aimed at Israel. So many more positive outcomes are possible.This is a moment to stand behind the peace-seeking nation of Israel and the large portion of the Lebanese who have been plagued by Hezbollah and who want to return to the times when their country was thriving, and Beirut a cosmopolitan city.The main issue between Lebanon and Israel is Iran; otherwise there is a lot of benefit for the people of both countries from working together. The right move now for America would be to tell Israel to finish the job.It’s long overdue. And it’s not only Israel’s fight. More than 40 years ago, Hezbollah killed 241 US military personnel, including 220 Marines. That remains the single deadliest day for the U.S. Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima.Later that same day, Hezbollah killed 58 French paratroopers. And now, over the past six weeks or so, Israel has eliminated as many terrorists on the US list of wanted terrorists as the US has done in the last 20 years. Including Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization who masterminded the 1983 killing of those Marines.
There’s nothing less reassuring than bipartisan neocon war mongers declaring victory in the immediate aftermath of their latest atrocity.
Oakchair
There’s nothing less reassuring than bipartisan neocon war mongers declaring victory in the immediate aftermath of their latest atrocity.
——
How about those same war criminals uttering all the above delusions in public because they know the dystopia is so far entrenched that there won’t be any repercussions for their lunatic behavior?
shagggz
He mentions the belligerent Hezbolla killing American marines, yet I imagine he is clueless as to the “ally” “Israel” doing the same to the USS Liberty. A walking monument to motivated reasoning, like his in-law.
Purple Library Guy
Gah. This is how they’ve been thinking for ages, how the Americans thought in (just for instance) Afghanistan. The Americans killed leader after leader in Afghanistan, thinking that would lead to victory. The Israelis have killed Palestinian leader after Palestinian leader for decades now; every time presumably they thought this would bring them a step closer to victory, that somehow the organizations opposing them would, without these leaders, stop fighting.
Every time, what they get is old, cautious foxes being replaced by young lions or wolverines.
I suppose I can see how the reasoning goes, if you start from the appropriate assumptions. So like this:
–Core assumption, we are perfect and everything we do is good.
–Therefore, any place we have invaded to steal their stuff, it must actually be for their own good
–Therefore, nobody could be fighting us because of actual grievances. Anyone fighting us must have been led astray by
–Evil but charismatic leaders!
–Therefore, if we kill the evil but charismatic leaders, the remaining people will have no cause, realize they should be grateful for our civilizing influence, and stop fighting!
–Why does this keep not working?! There must be just one more layer of evil but charismatic leaders hypnotizing them all! Try again!
This is one reason the powers that be keep on fucking up even on their own terms: They believe too much of their own propaganda, and their own propaganda makes a terrible guide for what actions are going to work. But they need the propaganda to maintain social cohesion.
Oakchair
Hezbollah is so belligerent in the Middle East that in the last 20 years they’ve invaded or bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Gaza, Lebanon, and the West bank.
The middle east can’t have peace with a sociopathic monster like that walking around undefeated.
j
Mission accomplished
https://gregfallis.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/missaccomp.jpeg
Carborundum
When someone tells me they’ve spent countless hours studying Hezbollah and almost every statement out of their mouth is about Iran, it tells me they aren’t very diligent students.
different clue
No DemParty Admin would ever move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was the TrumpAdmin which did that. And once it was done, no DemParty Admin would dare to reverse it. ( One wonders how far an office-seeker would get with a platform plank of ” move the US embassy back to Tel Aviv).
Would either a Trump Admin 2.0 or a Harris Admin push the current Israel war ahead equally far and fast? If either would, then would it make sense to vote for Trump to raise the chances of a Harris defeat so as to administer a punitive loss to the DemParty in hopes of educating it somehow? Maybe it would, if a Trump return would make no difference to the Israel policy anyway, and if the domestic Trump decay to institutions, carbon skydumping, etc. were accepted ahead of time as being the price paid to punish the DemParty. And as long as one realizes that the Trump price would be a permanent price which will never be remedied or reversed.
Would a Harris Admin slow down the Israel war or limit its geographic scope and reach? We can’t know that it would. We could run the experiment and see. Worth it?
different clue
I just saw something on Reddit which I think is important. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Foreign Minister’s view on the desirable end-state as given here at the UN and what he says a lot of other governments’ view of the desirable end-state here is . . . he certainly makes very clear what a lot of players say their desirable view of the end-state here is.
I may have thoughts of my own to add or I may not. Right now I have to get back to work. And in my purely intuitive just-an-amateur way, I feel like this is important one way or another. So I will post the link for anyone who wants to give a listen. And then . . . its back to work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MindBlowingThings/comments/1fsuopw/foreign_minister_is_done_with_this_st_drops_mic/