War Update: Red Sea Blockade, Palestine

The Ukraine front of World War 3 continues on a steady trajectory. Russia continues to make steady progress at an accelerated but still gradual pace—in terms of territory secured. In terms of Ukrainian casualties, recent estimates have increased to as many as 600 per day. If you’re looking for a general overview, try Brian Berletic: Why "Digging In" Won't Save Ukraine & What the West Got Wrong about Russian Defenses.

Turning to the Red Sea, which has claim to be the hot spot in the global war at this time, I want to highly recommend an article by Scott Ritter: US ‘Builds Trap for Itself’ in Red Sea. Ritter covers all the difficulties facing any attempt to actually break the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea and Suez Canal in detail, and he also embeds some very informative links. In fact, events have moved more quickly than Ritter was able to write. The only way to break the blockade would be to attack the sources of the attacks in Yemen itself. The difficulties in that approach are twofold: 1) It’s unlikely to succeed, due to the mobility and concealability of the launch sites—the Houthis have had years of experience in this game against the US-Saudi coalition; 2) direct attacks on Houthi sites would invite serious Houthi attacks on US warships, far beyond the drone attacks that have already taken place. The US is undoubtedly aware of these complications and has said it will not attack Yemen. But that means that the blockade—which will send consumer prices in the West through the roof—will remain in place, while the US finds itself in a debilitating game of tit for tat, swatting at inexpensive drones with very expensive missiles that are difficult to readily replace. Commercial shippers will not accept that risk by trying to run past the Houthi missiles. It’s a win/win for the Houthis and whoever is backing them. OK, it’s a win/win for Iran, and whoever is backing Iran. That probably means Russia:

Iranian Spy Ship Is Assisting Houthi Attacks On Red Sea Shipping: Intel Officials

The Houthi war on commercial shipping in the Red Sea just escalated in a big way, at least in the minds of national security officials. Western intelligence sources have issued new statements alleging that Iranian intelligence is directly assisting Yemen's Houthi forces with targeting information, after more than two months of war in Gaza has seen some one hundred or so drones and missiles threaten both US warships and container vessels in regional waters.

"Iran’s paramilitary forces are providing real-time intelligence to Yemen’s Houthis that the rebels are using to direct drones and missiles to target ships passing through the Red Sea, Western and regional security officials said," a Friday report in The Wall Street Journal says. This is reportedly via one or more Iranian spy ships which patrol the same waters."

Tracking information gathered by a surveillance vessel controlled by Iran’s paramilitary forces in the Red Sea is passed to the Houthis, who have used it to attack commercial vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb strait in recent days, according to the officials," according to the report.

Turnabout is fair play. The US and NATO have been doing this to Russia for two years, flying drones and EW planes around Ukraine’s borders and over the Black Sea, relaying targeting information back to NATO personnel on the ground in Ukraine who are in command of Western weapons systems that are used to kill Russians. The Iranian ship is on the high seas, just like our drones and planes are (usually) in international airspace. This development is hardly surprising, and the Iranians have probably been doing this for a long time, gaining expertise against US weapons systems. There’s a reason why the US is backing off, despite the urgings of Neocon goofballs like Matthew Koenig, who expresses bankrupt Neocon/Israeli thinking on “strategy”:

This is embarrassing. There is no reason a weak power like Iran and a rag tag bunch of terrorists should be holding the global economy hostage. Hit them hard and they’ll stop. If they don’t, hit them harder. We have escalation dominance. https://t.co/RMptCBlWab

— Matthew Kroenig (@MatthewKroenig) December 21, 2023

Right. When was the last time that worked? It’s the old hammer/nail story, and Kroenig thinks nukes are the hammer—follow the link to his Wiki page. Sample:

Kroenig has drawn criticism over his argument for war with Iran to prevent it from pursuing nuclear weapons.^[15][16][17] Bill Keller wrote that "Kroenig ... apparently aspires to the Strangelovian superhawk role occupied in previous decades by the likes of John Bolton and Richard Perle. His former colleagues at Defense were pretty appalled by his [Foreign Affairs] article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America’s ability to make things better".^[6]

Again, I recommend Ritter’s thorough article. In one of his embedded links we learn that 12% of global trade passes through the Red Sea. Now, it’s true that the blockade diverts that traffic, rather than stopping it outright, but the costs passed on to the West will be very substantial. Here’s Ritter’s summary conclusion:

The deployment of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower into the Sea of Aden comes on the heels of its brief foray into the Persian Gulf, ...

Never in the history of the American Navy have so many carrier battlegroups been moved around the globe with so little impact.

The reality of modern warfare is that small nations and non-state actors such as the Houthis can be armed with modern military weaponry which negates the military impact of multibillion-dollar investments such as the carrier battlegroup. ...

The final score card regarding Operation Prosperity Guardian has yet to be written. But the reality is that it will most likely not succeed in its mission of preventing Houthi attacks against either Israel or maritime shipping. This failure goes far beyond the issue of security for the Red Sea. The United States has long maintained that it could guarantee that if Iran ever sought to close the strategic Straight of Hormuz, the US Navy would be able to reopen it in a very short period. Operation Prosperity Guardian puts a lie to that claim. ... The US has, in effect, put all its eggs in one basket through its over-reliance upon the carrier battlegroup when it comes to force projection.

The looming failure of Operation Prosperity Guardian exposes the impotence of the US when it comes to being able to accomplish its plans for regional dominance in the Persian Gulf, South Pacific, and Taiwan, and signals a new era ... For a nation like the United States, which has premised so much of its foreign and national security on the notion of strength-based deterrence, the revelation that its military power projection capabilities are more bark than bite undermines its credibility as an ally and partner in a world largely defined by conflicts created by, or on behalf of, the United States.

Fujihita @fujihita

The US sent 3 ships. The UK sent 1 ship. Canada sent 3 officers. Spain and Australia did not agree to join. China, Saudi and the UAE rejected the invite. France left, saying they only cared about EU ships, not Israeli ships. TL;DR: It imploded.

1:31 PM · Dec 22, 2023

Turning to Palestine,

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Netanyahu to Putin:

"If you want to help the Palestinians, take them to Egypt and help them there"

Israel has rejected Russia's offer to build a modern hospital in Gaza demanding that Russia dislocate the Palestinians to Egypt.

Israel and its American proxy stand against world opinion. Problem: Things aren’t going according to plan. This brief (4:51) video with Danny Davis is quite powerful. We learn that the three IOF soldier/prisoners had escaped from Hamas and had been on the lam in Gaza for five days before they were hunted down and killed by two separate detachments of IOF fighters. Davis emphasizes, as he has in the past, how these facts shed further light on Israel’s rules of engagement, which amount to: shoot anything that moves. To her credit, the interviewer keeps pushing. She points out that 20% of Israeli casualties so far are the result of “friendly fire!” Davis says this is the result of training deficiencies, but admits that it also indicates rule of engagement issues. Davis won’t come out and say it, so I will: This is just one more indication that the IOF isn’t really an army in the sense that Americans understand that term. The IOF is, in essence, just one more Middle Eastern tribal or ethnic militia, albeit with more high tech weaponry than most. It lacks discipline and cohesion breaks down under stress, as was previously demonstrated in Lebanon 2006, in Gaza 2014, and now again in Gaza 2023. Check this out:

There’s another story that the Israeli government is trying to keep under wraps. It turns out that a battalion the so-called “elite” Golani brigade got caught in a triple ambush and has had to be withdrawn from Gaza. A spearhead unit was ambushed, and then two successive “rescue” units were also ambushed. And this happened in an area that the IOF claimed had been secured. This is not a military that’s ready to try another invasion of Lebanon. Anyway, that incident led this response:

Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal

After the Israeli Golani Brigade's 13th Battalion was pulled out of Gaza due to heavy casualties, including the loss of its commander, Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, Lt. Omri Akshlama justified killing kids and destroying their families' homes on the grounds that they "nurse anti-Semitism and terrorism with their mother's milk"

1:21 AM · Dec 22, 2023

That’s a common refrain I’ve heard many times from Jews with regard to Poles: They drink in anti-semitism with their mothers’ milk!” The famous terrorist, Menachem Begin, although he had spoken favorably of Poles in his book White Nights, later used that exact phrase. A commenter on the Blumenthal feed found that refrain puzzling:

So strange how zionists hold more hate and rage for Palestinians than they do to Nazi Germany. The ones who killed millions of them. This really preplexes me, or maybe they are wired wrong!

Go figure. And then there’s this:

Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal

Israel's national broadcaster celebrates the life and crimes of Ezra Yachin, a terrorist participant in the Deir Yassin massacre of Palestinian civilians in 1948.

This October, Yachin instructed Israelis, "If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him".

…

1:41 PM · Dec 21, 2023

These two tweets (7 hours ago) will lead to the conclusion of this post:

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Hezbollah targeted a group of Israeli officers & soldiers in Even Menachem settlement near Shtula, killing several.

@Spectator_MENA

Megatron @Megatron_ron

Serious security incident on Israeli-Lebanese border, the Israeli military apparatus has enforced a gag order

According to Al-Mayadeen, there are also direct clashes taking place between Hezbollah and the IDF near Avivim.

Israeli sources speak of an 'unusual' and 'extremely worrying incident' that will only be published by official sources when the government allows.

@Middle_East_Spectator

With that as a lead-in, I want to highly recommend this half hour discussion between Judge Nap and Alastair Crooke.

Crooke focuses quite a bit on the Hezbollah angle, a topic he’s very familiar with. His view is that the Israelis, just as in 2006, have somehow persuaded themselves that this will be the time that they’ll finally be able to deal with Hezbollah—with US help. To that end the Neocons have been sending dual US/Israeli citizens to Lebanon to try to get Hezbollah to pull back from Southern Lebanon—a desperate exercise in futility, but all the US can do to avoid Israel ordering America into another war. Crooke is convinced that, by the end of January, Israel—constrained by Netanyahu’s promise to return evacuated Israeli’s to their border settlements—will launch an attack on Hezbollah. He predicts another disaster. For my part, I have to wonder whether the poor IOF showing in Gaza and the snowballing effects of the Red Sea blockade will force a backdown. One hopes so.

Crooke also discusses the tensions between the US and Israel. All in all, I found it absorbing.