Once Again, On the Precipice
Middle East War
As has been widely reported, the likely Israeli assassination this week of a Hamas leader in Tehran on the day when the new President of Iran was being inaugurated, as well as the assassination of a Hezbollah leader in Beirut, along with the disclosure of another assassination of a Hamas leader in Gaza in mid-July has brought world one more time to the brink of World War Three.
The murder of Ismail Haniyeh, a former Palestinian prime minister, who was playing a key role in negotiations for a ceasefire, is a good indication that far from wanting peace, Israel is doing all it can to provoke a regional war, one in which the USA will become embroiled (as, indeed, US Secretary for Defense Lloyd Austin has just assured Israel that it will) so that, Israel recklessly hopes, the US can solve all of Israel’s immediate security issues.
To get the war that Israel needs, it is staging provocations, such as the recent assassinations just mentioned, along with continuing strikes on Syria and, with US help, Iraq. On Tuesday, a US strike killed several members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Shia militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS and are part of Iraq’s security forces. The strike was in alleged retaliation for PMF strikes on US military bases in defense of Palestine. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has called for an end to the US-led anti-ISIS coalition in Iraq following what his spokesman has called “a heinous crime and blatant aggression.” The spokesman, Iraqi Maj. Gen. Yehia Rasool, said that:
“Such serious and uncalculated transgressions can significantly undermine all efforts, mechanisms, and frameworks of joint security work to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They also risk dragging Iraq and the entire region into dangerous conflicts and wars. Therefore, we hold the coalition forces fully responsible for these consequences following this flagrant aggression.”
In short, Israel, with the full expectation of US backing, is targetting Hamas and Hezbollah and other militia in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and, let us not forget, the Houthis in Yemen, not to imention Iran, often with scant regard for the dangers to civilians or for the larger consequences of their actions. There is a reasonably good chance of Turkish involvement on the side of Iran.
The fact that Iran has now suffered further Israeli strikes in the wake of what could have been an assassination of former President Raisi on May 20 and, more directly, an Israeli strike on Damascus on January 20th which destroyed a building used by the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, killing at least five Iranians, not to mention a long history of illegal Israeli attacks on Iranian forces in Syria and, before then, Israeli murders of Iranian scientists thought to have been involved in a likely fictitious or very elementary Iranian nuclear weapons program, is raising questions as to the competence of Iranian defenses.
Failure of the Iranian security services to take control of this pattern of assassination by foreign interest (a failure that is perhaps related to tensions throughout Iranian professional classes between globalist/pro-Western perspectives and and nationalistic inclinations, just as there were in Russia up until 2022, just as in Venezuela now, and which still likely characterize China) fly in the face of what is otherwise often regarded as a fearsome military bulwark against potential Israeli aggression. More important than the question of whether Iran is competent, perhsps, are Israeli perceptions of that competence. These may encourage Israel to even more egregious provocation.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered immediate retaliation, directly against Israel. Its previous relataliation, following Israel’s Damascus strike, was also a direct attack on Israel, one that was very carefully calibrated with the USA beforehand, and that demonstrated Iranian power to penetrate a significant Israeli military facility deep in the heart of Israel but with minimal casualties. The most likely outcome of this week’s attacks is some form of a similarly calibrated tit-for-tat response, albeit one that is suitably more dramatic. Mercouris makes the observationin his daily YouTube broadcast today that Western pleas to Iran to show moderatin are rarely, if ever, balanced with pleas to Israel for moderation. Iran has very difficult choices to make. The option of an appeal to the UN in the hope of the eventual applicability of Section 7 sanctions against Isreal seems unreal.
The Israeli attack has been explained by some sources as a reprisal for what is claimed to have been a Hezbollah missile strike against a group of Druze children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Claims that this was a deliberate strike are utterly incredible. Yes, it is conceivable that some of the victims were Israeli citizens, but others were Syrian citizens, all were Arab, and all were living under an illegal Israeli occupation. It is inconceivable that Hezbollah perceived any military advantage. The fact that Hezbollah has denied all responsibity is in itself evidence that it did not, given the group’s record for honesty in such matters. It is conceivable that Hezbollah had targeted an Israeli position and that a missile defense rocket knocked the missile off course, or that Israel had staged a false flag operation in order to furnish a pretext for further triggers towards a regional war and, quite possibly, World War Three.
EurAsian War
In Ukraine, there is further discussion of the possibility, as I mentioned in my previous post, that Zelenskiy may organize a referendum that, amongst other things, would sound out Ukrainian readiness for Ukraine to make territorial concessions as a means towards peace. Zelenskiy has, for some time now, faced growing international demand that he concede to the impossibility of a return to the 1991 borders of Ukraine that were established following the implosion of the Soviet Union. One of the latest voices of realism in this direction of concession has come from the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb.
A referendum might help Zelenskiy along this route, while to some extent saving face, and it might protect him from punishment by his Nazi right-wing for making concessions that they have violently opposed and it would, naturally, provide some legitimacy for such concessions. At the same time, one should interpret the results of any such referendum in the context of a country from which perhaps a third of its population has fled, or has been killed in war, and of a country whose suppression of opposition and free speech undermines the trust that one can invest either in opinions expressed to pollsters or in the machinery of the referendum itself.
What might happen following such an event will depend to a major extent on how far Zelenskiy and his regime (and their Western bosses) are willing to go and on how far the Kremlin will consider itself constrained by the ceasefire terms that were recently indicated by President Putin.
Even if peace talks actually do gain some traction (and Zelenskiy has still to remove the law that makes such talks illegal) there is always the possibility of a further neocon attempt to destabilize the Russian Federation by implementing plans for a color revolution in Georgia where elections are scheduled on October 26 and in which the US color revolution apparatus has been long and expensively engaged. It will follow the usual neocon script as we have seen played out just this week in Venezuela, of a narrowly fought campain, a win by the nationalists that is contested by the foreign-sponsored globalists, backed up with very undemocratic violence in the Street and a fierce anti-nationalist media campaign throughout the collective West.
But before we get to October we should note some very interesting developments occuring today as reported and discussed on the Military Summary channel by Dima. These relate to claims from the British Daily Telegraph and from Ukraine that F-16s are already operational in Ukraine and may have already been used in combat mode. Dima speculates that these reports, not terribly well substantiated, may have been intended to interrupt the news cycle concerning a prisoner exchange between Russia (with Belarus) and the US. This prisoner exchange was mediated by Turkey and negotiated in Ankara, once again underlining the important role that Turkey plays in NATO-Russian-Ukrainian relations.
The exchange involved an unusually large number of people, 26 in all, from an unusually large number of countries, 7. Turkish intelligence sources indicate that 10 of the prisoners were destined to return to Russia, 13 to Germany, and 3 to the US. Dima notes that no Ukrainians were party to this negotiation, and that no Ukrainians were involved in the swap itself. He suggests that such events, historically, are indicative of the ending of hostilities, perhaps prior to peace negotiations. If so, then it would seem clear that Ukraine’s participation was either not invited or was not wanted by Ukraine, and that Ukraine is more interested in signalling the continuation of hostilities (the F-16s being symbolic of the usual “wonder weapon” logic of why the war can continue) than in demonstrating any inclination to concessions.
China has recently taken the decision to impede the flow of commercial, off-the-shelf drones to Ukraine at a time when Russian production of drones is approaching double the number available at any time to Ukraine and Russia adaptations and innovations in drone technology are beginnning to far-outpsce those of Ukraine and its extreme reliance on FPV drones.
Islamic Terrorism in Russia
A curious development links Islamic fury with the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and Israeli torture, rape and degradation of the thousands of Palestinians in mainly illegal custody in filthy Israeli prisons, on the one hand, with terrorism in Russia against both Jews and Christians and Russia’s long history of tensions between three of the world’s largest religions, tensions that are periodically exploited by malign foreign intelligence-related interests to destabilize the federation, on the other.
Writing for the Christian Science Monitor this is discussed by Fred Weir (Christian Science Monitor). As recently as last Sunday, Islamist extremists killed at least 21 people in coordinated attacks against minority Christians and Jews in Dagestan, the third major terrorist incident in Russia in as many monthsThe attackers struck a police station and four places of worship in two Dagestani cities, executing an Orthodox priest and burning down the only synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent. Yet Russia as a whole is overwhelmingly secular. Almost 80% of Russians are Slavs, most self-identifying as Orthodox Christians, although seldom going to church. About 18% of Russians are Muslim, mostly concentrated in several republics, including Dagestan, one of the poorest, and Tatarstan, one of the richest. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s most such concerns were related to Chechen militants. Lately, there has been a growing hostility toward Russia’s large communities of migrant workers, who tend to be mostly Muslims from former-Soviet Central Asia, has been on the rise since the Moscow attack by Tajik citizens in March.
The Battlefields
I noted in my most recent post that there are large concentratioins of Russian forces along the northern border of Ukraine, poised for a possible invasion. This likelihood appears to be confirmed by reports cited today by Dima that Ukraine is removing or changing road signs in the Sumy area and that the SBU is interrogating local citizens whom they suspect of Russian loyalties. In the Kharkiv area there have been no dramatic changes, only further confirmation based on the direction of Ukrainian FPV drones of Russian occupation of the citadel area in the east of the northern sector of Vovchansk, above the Volcha river. Further south, Russia continues to bomb the bridge over the Oskil river near Osynovo (west of Kurylivka and Pishanne) and is struggling for control over territory around Tabaivka. North of Rozdolivka (now controlled by Russia) and Fedorivka, Russian forces have moved north and are likely already to be penetrating Pereizne, south of Kuzmynivka.
Recent reports and geolocated video from Chasiv Yar confirms that there are fierce clashes in the center of Chasiv Yar, to the west of the Kanal and also that Russian forces have crossed the Kanal from each to west, to the north of the settlement. Further south, Russian forces have control over the east of Zalizne and of Pivnichne, they have improved their positions in the center of Niu-York, they have control over Yurivka, and are moving westwards from Toretsk towrds Panteleimonivka and Okeksandropil. They have cut the supply road to Niu-York from Constantinivka. To the west, Russia has destroyed many bridges and supply roads.
West of Avdiivka, Russia has taken under control the settlements of Prohres, Vovche and Lozuvatske and is in the process of taking Vesele (with little evidence of Ukrainian resistance). A bit to the north Russia appears to have taken Tymofievke, and in semi-encircling Zhelkanne and Ivanivka. Russia has most of Krasnohoriivka under its control and its taking territory between Krasnohoriivka and Marinka, and has taken control or is in the process of taking control over a coal-mine in this area.
South of Avdiivka, and south of Pobieda, Russia, for the past five days, has been making very concerted efforts to take Kostiantynivka, deploying hundreds of tanks for this purpose and very likely suffering significant losses as well, while consolidating control over the Kostyantynivka-Vuhledar highway. Westwards towards Urozhaine, Russian forces are moving north towards Makarikva along the TO-518 highway.