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THE RETALIATION THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
Why a wider war has yet to break out in the Middle East

SEYMOUR HERSH
AUG 13, 2024
PAID

It’s been more than two weeks since an Israeli drone fired a barrage of missiles into a Beirut suburb and assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior officer of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia headed by Hassan Nasrallah. Four others were killed in the July 30 attack, and eighty were injured, many seriously. Israel did it again a day later in Tehran, firing a missile—it was not a bomb as many have reported—into a government guest house that killed Ismail Haniyeh, a high-ranking official of Hamas who was involved in ceasefire talks with Israel. He was in Tehran to celebrate the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian, a surgeon and the first reformer in two decades to be elected president of Iran.

The murders triggered worldwide fears of a wider war in the Middle East, and the Biden administration quickly rallied the US Navy in support of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who ordered the trigger pulled. A dozen American combat ships, including an aircraft carrier and an attack submarine, were ordered to sail to the Mediterranean. An unnamed senior American official was quoted in the Washington Post warning Iran in a diplomatic message that the Biden administration was “unwavering in its defense of our interests, our partners and our people.” Biden was said to have told Netanyahu in a telephone call that in response he wanted him to be a “good partner” and then added a familiar request: would the prime minister please agree to a ceasefire in Gaza entailing the release of Israeli hostages in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?

A full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah or Iran was not ignited, and American media attention returned to the Olympics, the presidential campaigns, and the misery of a hot summer with wilder than ever weather. There still is no ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force continues its bombing campaign there, and the Israeli Army continues its ground war against Hamas as the world watches the murderous debacle in smoldering anger. (The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Israel put its military on high alert after learning of preparations by Iran and Hezbollah to carry out attacks. The specific preparations were not cited.)

So what is going on? Why didn’t Nasrallah, now engaged in a brutal tit-for-tat war of missiles with Israel, immediately respond after one of his senior commanders and longtime associate was murdered while at work in his office? And why didn’t Pezeshkian seek to avenge the death of an ally assassinated on Iranian soil?

The new Iranian President is known to be eager to do more business with the outside world, and his determination to go ahead with his inauguration, in the face of grotesque murder, has brought him international attention and, more importantly, potential trading partners.

The assassination of Haniyeh eliminated a second key official of Hamas after an Israeli bombing strike in Gaza last month killed Mohammed Deif, who was the leader of Hamas’s military wing. The remaining senior leader, Yahya Sinwar, is living, perhaps on the run, somewhere in Hamas’s vast underground tunnel system. The remaining Hamas hostages, now bargaining chips, are reportedly under his control. How many have survived and their current conditions are not known.

An American official told me that Netanyahu, reassured by the US armada and Iran’s reluctance so far to respond to the Haniyeh assassination, is said finally to be ready to agree to a ceasefire that, in various forms, has been on the table for months. The key element is the release by Hamas of all the Israeli hostages in return for a ceasefire of unspecified duration—and nothing else. There is no agreement on the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, as has been on the agenda since the talks began. I was not able to learn anything about the status of Sinwar were he to be captured alive. It’s not clear whether the ceasefire breakthrough, if it emerges as planned, is tied in any way to a commitment for renewed talks elsewhere in the Middle East.

I have been told that there were other leaders, including some in Russia and Turkey, who played a significant role in keeping the peace. The US armada was seen, in their account, as a necessary sop to Netanyahu, who is now totally in the thrall of Israel’s far right. Its purpose was to keep him from dragging the compliant and feckless Biden administration into a war in the Middle East that would be as disastrous as the war it continues to support in Ukraine.

There are also a number of international business leaders working inside the diplomatic and military world who are skeptical of the views and abilities of Biden’s foreign policy team. These leaders, known and supported by American intelligence, responded to the current crisis by working behind the scenes to keep alive the chance for a major political realignment in the Middle East. It’s not clear whether the president and his senior foreign policy advisers understand the significance, and political usefulness, of dealing with Russia and Turkey on some issues. It could also be the case that the ideologues in the White House simply do not care.

Shukr, the target of the Israeli assassination in Lebanon, was a 62-year-old Hezbollah commander and a long-standing confidant of Nasrallah. He is seen by US intelligence as the key player in the current missile war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has led to the evacuation of an estimated 60,000 Israelis citizens living in the north. US intelligence believes that Shukr was the official in the Hezbollah chain of command who bore responsibility for the errant bombing last month of a Druze community in Israel’s Golan Heights that killed twelve youngsters during a soccer game. The Druze, a religious sect that makes up around 5 percent of the Lebanese population, can also be found in Israel and Syria. Their longtime leader in Lebanon is Walid Jumblatt, who has close ties with Nasrallah as well as with Lebanon’s secular political leadership.

The 62-year-old Shukr was a long-standing target of US intelligence. He is believed to be among those responsible for planning and orchestrating the 1983 attack on a US Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 Americans and 58 French military personnel. The US Treasury offered a $5 million dollar reward for information about him.

Shukr was given a large public funeral, but Nasrallah has not responded to his killing with force, perhaps because the errant bombing of the Druze community was an embarrassment that could shake ties between the two groups. That notion was forcefully disputed in subsequent conversation I had with a former Lebanese official known to be close to Nasrallah, who said that Jumblatt had made it a point to visit Nasrallah immediately and express his regret at Shukr’s death. I was also told by the Lebanese official that Nasrallah is “biding his time” and no response to the assassination is in the offing at present.

The two assassinations triggered fears of a war in the Middle East. The White House opted for a show of force by the Navy. I was told by the American official that “war was not an option. The new guy in Tehran sees the future in terms of economics and more trade and was willing to deal with China and Russia.” He could be further educated on the economic and political importance of Turkey and its mercurial president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The Turks know what’s going on in the Middle East and the world,” I was told. Another factor was Pezeshkian’s awareness that “Iran has no friends in Washington” along with his understanding that “Hamas was threatening the equilibrium in a world of uncertainty.”

The official added: “We know that Hezbollah and Iran are going to connect in some way in the future” and try to take on Israel. “How will they do that? Seek a resurgence of Hamas in Gaza? If that happens, will we tell Israel we cannot support them? Neither one of the three—Israel, Iran or Hezbollah—will back down. They have put themselves into a strategic corner.

“I think Netanyahu would have done it now . . . gone to war because of his nature. Outsiders cannot appreciate the shame and horror of October 7. Hamas screwed the pooch and there cannot be a return to the old status quo.”

His obvious point was that none of these thoughts and worries are on the table in the Biden White House. “What’s so amazing to me,” the official said, “is the universal press disappointment that there is no new and exciting war between Israel and the Iranian ‘axis of evil.’”

Instead, he added, the Biden administration and its foreign policy cluster are “basking in their wisdom in mobilizing a vast US military deployment.

“Watch this space,” he added. “Right now it’s looking good but this is day to day.”

PHOTO: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addresses supporters in a televised speech on August 19, 2022. / Photo by AFP via Getty Images.

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