Originally posted by ner vegas
I don't really understand what's going on, I feel like there's too much happening in the background that we're not aware of to make any real predictions.
israel is operating at a much higher intensity with both the assassinations and the restart of the 'Dahiyeh Doctrine' (ie. targeting civilians and infrastructure in order to put political pressure on Hezbullah), but Hezbullah has been hesitant to escalate beyond the artillery rocket salvos they've been using since October last year. They've started using longer-range rockets which puts most of the north of israel within range and have been targeting airbases and anti-air infrastructure, but these are still relatively cheap and inaccurate rockets that are doing limited damage (which is further hard to guage thanks to the israeli media blackout).
On the macro level, Hezbullah can only win by drawing the IDF into their own territory and defeating them, the humiliation of which is likely to collapse the israeli state. this is more or less guaranteed by Netenyahu's promise to 'return residents to the North' as it'll be impossible for israel to stop the constant rocket barrages without a major ground operation that pushes Hezbullah out of firing range. Hez cannot win by marching into the Galilee.
At this point I would've expected Hez to start using their more modern missiles (everything they've used so far has been available to them before the 2006 war) in order to degrade israeli military capability given that in the defensive war they WANT to fight, the effectiveness of standoff weapons will be minimised due to Hez favouring close combat and heavy cover in order to neutralise the IDF's advantages as much as possible.
It's possible they're wary of escalating at all given that it could start a chain that ends with direct US involvement or the Samsung Option, but allowing israel to operate at the level it does without a direct response begins to cause problems with morale and support within the 'resistance' umbrella, which I've been seeing a bit of (as well as obvious j*ws taking advantage of the situation to claim that Hez and Iran are impotent and not doing enough).
their hesitation have something to do with the US ass-calatiin and retaliation. a precedence was set with the attack on afghanisthan before the US moved in onto its real goal of attacking iraq.
the hezzys is an iranian proxy, and therefore it is safe to say that if and when israel asscalated and the hezzys reciprocated its going to draw the US in and open up an opportunity and its true goal, which is bombing the shit out of iran.
iranians are White, theyre not somalians. they want to live in the cities and enjoy modern life as much as shariah law will permit them. and they dont want to end up like gazans and they sure as hell dont want a weaken shiete state surrounded by rich and powerful sunny neighbors,
this is their dilemma, an asscalation into an all out war will not only set their country back 20-30 years, but will also ruin their chances of becoming a productive member of the BRICS.
