Ceasefire

There were reports of heavy rocket fire and 'suicide drones' (really just using drones as guided missiles) by Hezbollah in the hours leading up to the ceasefire announced today; Israel, meanwhile, struck Beirut. In the wake of the announcement reports are of troop movements by the army of Lebanon to the southern regions that they had abandoned to Hezbollah at the start of the conflict. 

The official Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) depends upon and intertwines more than it likes to admit with Hezbollah. The US funds and equips the LAF, which our State Department likes to pretend is a reliable stabilizing force. Since we were also funding the IDF, this meme is almost accurate:


The rockets on the right are Iranian, of course, not US-provided ones; but thanks to the Obama administration and the Biden administration, we probably bought those rockets too. Hezbollah does get other forms of war materiel from us via the LAF. The only real inaccuracy is that this a shot of rockets coming from Gaza, so those are Hamas' Iranian-provided rockets rather than Hezbollah's. 

None of this implies that peace is breaking out in the Middle East quite yet, as Israel and Iran are still going at it. The war against Hamas isn't over yet either. Things are a little bit quieter, though, assuming the ceasefire holds for a while. Right now that's as good as it gets. 

3 comments:

E Hines said...

The cease-fire with Hezbollah also apparently includes UN forces as part of the cease fire enforcement crowd.

Since it was the UN's decision to have its peacekeeping force, assigned the task after the prior Hezbollah war on Israel, allow Hezbollah back into the areas adjacent to the Israeli-Lebanese border in contravention of that agreement's requirements, UN participation this time around should have been a deal-breaker.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

Eh, the UN is useless at best in every circumstance; but the deal will only hold if Hezbollah wants to abide by it, and only for as long as they do.

E Hines said...

Certainly, but they're more likely to be held to the deal, or less likely to violate it, if the UN isn't there fronting for them.

Eric Hines