US deploys warships to defend Israel from retaliation – National & International News – FRI 2Aug2024
US deploys warships to defend Israel from retaliation.
Venezuela: US recognizes opposition candidate as victor in elections.
US deploys warships to defend Israel from retaliation
Earlier this week, Israel carried out two high-profile assassinations. The first killed Fuad Shukur, a top Hezbollah military commander, in a strike on his apartment building in Beirut, Lebanon. The second killed Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh as he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran. That assassination was apparently carried out using a hidden explosive device rather than a missile strike.
The two strikes appeared to be a calculated attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to spark a regional conflagration that would draw the US into direct military involvement against Iran. Yesterday, Dr. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft wrote that “the US can still stop the region from descending into chaos, but only if it is willing to put clear and public red lines in front of Netanyahu”. Today, it appears that is not what’s going to happen. Instead, the US is deploying a carrier strike group, a fighter squadron and additional warships around the Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean in an attempt to fend off possible retaliatory attacks against Israel.
A four-front war (at least)
Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, has an estimated arsenal of 100,000+ heavy-duty missiles capable of striking within Israel. Earlier this week, Israel assassinated their top military commander, but this is unlikely to severely compromise Hezbollah’s fighting ability. If Netanyahu has any notions of invading Lebanon, Hezbollah also has more than 100,000 fighters who have been battle-tested in the Syrian civil war.
The Houthis in Yemen, which despite their relative fledgling status in the alliance, has performed impressively in the last several months in the Red Sea. US forces in the Red Sea have been kept busy for months fending off Houthi attacks on shipping to Israel, as well as shooting own drones and missiles aimed at Israel. Recently, the Houthis managed to evade these defenses as well as Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome missile defense system, striking an apartment building in Tel Aviv and killing a resident.
Iran-backed proxy militias in Iraq, which have recently stepped up their attacks on American military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. These groups also have missiles capable of striking Israel and have scored hits on Israel’s major port city of Haifa. In January, an attack on a US military outpost in Jordan by one of these groups killed three US reservists from Georgia.
Iran itself has thousands of missiles that are capable of reaching Israel from its own territory. Following Israel’s attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria, in April, Iran launched about 300 projectiles. A combined effort of forces from the US, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, France and the UK was able to take down most of Iran’s missiles before they ever reached Israel. At least nine of Iran’s missiles made it past all these defenses as well as Israel’s Iron Dome to strike their targets in Israel.
In April, Iran gave two weeks warning to allow the US and Israel’s other allies to get their assets in place. They apparently did this in hopes they would do some damage, but not enough to give Israel cause for serious retaliation. This time, there is no telling when Iran will choose to strike. The April attack also probably gave Iran’s Revolutionary Guard valuable insights on Israel’s defenses that they will use to their advantage this time.
Netanyahu gambles with US blood and treasure
Eran Etzion, a former Deputy Head of the Israeli National Security Council, published an analysis on Twitter that looks rather bleak for Israel. Etzion doesn’t see a reasonable possibility that Israel could withstand sustained attacks from all these various front. While Etzion says this reality doesn’t seem to have sunk in among much of the Israeli public, this fact probably isn’t lost on Netanyahu. In fact, he may be counting on it.
By authorizing these inflammatory attacks, Netanyahu gets a lot of what he wants personally, regardless of the cost to Israel, Israelis, or their allies. Netanyahu has no incentive to stop the current 10-month military assault on Gaza, which has inflamed regional tensions and left Israeli more isolated on the world stage. Even President Biden has admitted there was “every reason” to believe Netanyahu was prolonging the war to maintain his grip on power. An end to the war will mean the end of Netanyahu’s government, and consequently a likely jail sentence for bribery and corruption charges against him. It would also mean a long-overdue reckoning for his failure to prevent the deadly Oct. 7 attacks, despite repeated warnings. He recently rebuffed calls for an inquiry into that very subject.
By killing Haniyeh, Netanyahu put off any prospect of a Gaza ceasefire in the near term. Haniyeh spent months at the negotiating table pushing for a comprehensive and permanent deal with Israel, despite Israel’s murder of many of his family members. In his sole comment on Haniyeh’s assassination, Biden acknowledged that it “doesn’t help” with the peace negotiations.
A regional war will also box in Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has attempted to distance herself, at least rhetorically, from Biden’s no-holds-barred support of Israel. Netanyahu received a notably frosty reception from Harris in Washington last week, who broke with Biden to lay the blame for the stalled ceasefire negotiations not on Hamas but on Netanyahu himself.
US recognizes Venezuelan opposition as victor in elections
During the Trump administration, the US adopted an absurd diplomatic fiction with regard to Venezuela. In a direct challenge to Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration recognized Juan Guaido as President of Venezuela. Guaido had not even run for the position in the most recent elections. Nevertheless, Guaido was greeted at international summits all over the world as the President of Venezuela.
The Biden administration is now poised to adopt a similar tactic following Venezuela’s election this past Sunday. Officially, Maduro won another 6-year term, garnering 51% of the vote. However, the chief opposition group declared victory, claiming that their candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had won 70% of the vote. Opposition leader María Corina Machado claims to have receipts from 80% of Venezuela’s polling places to back this up, though she has so far not produced this evidence.
Despite this lack of evidence, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed there is “overwhelming evidence” that Gonzalez won. Accordingly, the US, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru have recognized Gonzalez as Venezuela’s President-elect. Meanwhile, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have called on Maduro’s government to release the data from all the polling places in Venezuela.
Bay of Piglets
The US and other foes of Maduro have pointed to voting “irregularities” such as polling places that opened late in some areas, the inability of most Venezuelans who have left the country in recent years to cast a ballot (which violates Venezuela’s constitution) and reports of voter intimidation. All of those things are condemnable, but certainly don’t provide proof of an electoral victory one way or another.
Members of Maduro’s government have accused the opposition and the US of attempting to orchestrate a coup. It would not be the first time. Aside from the Guaido gambit, in 2020, a group of about 60 poorly armed and trained mercenaries (mostly Columbian and some Americans) attempted to invade Venezuela and instigate a coup. They were arrested almost as soon as they landed on Venezuelan soil, and the whole episode came to be ridiculed as the Bay of Piglets.
The Bay of Piglets plot was never tied directly to the Trump administration, but it had significant backers on US soil. One of these was Jordan Goudreau, a former US Special Forces soldier based in Florida who had provided security for some of Trump’s rallies.
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