- 20 hours ago
Mutual attacks between the Israeli military and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia continue despite planned direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. Middle East security analyst Shukriya Bradost on a long-lasting conflict and what the US-Israel war with Iran has to do with it.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hours after the ceasefire deal was announced between the U.S. and Iran,
00:04Israeli bombs started falling on Beirut, and the missiles keep flying in both directions.
00:10Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is no ceasefire in Lebanon,
00:16though Iran insists it was part of the truce reached with the U.S.
00:22I wanted to discuss Israel's endgame in Lebanon with Shukriya Bradost,
00:27a Middle East security analyst with the Washington Institute,
00:30a think tank that promotes American interests in the Middle East.
00:34Israel says it's keeping up its fight against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
00:39Why, when that strains, this ceasefire reached between the U.S. and Iran?
00:47Thank you, Ben. Thank you for having me.
00:50To answer your question, we have to understand the key point here.
00:55When we're talking about Iran war, there is a difference between U.S. goal and objectives and Israel objectives.
01:03And for U.S. is a known goal by Trump administration,
01:07they're trying to secure a deal with the Iranian, remaining part of the Iranian regime,
01:13the deal that's better, stronger than GCPOA, the deal that Obama secured with Iran 2015.
01:20You know, the political comparison is so important and matters for Trump.
01:26So Trump's goal is reach to that deal.
01:28For Netanyahu and Israel to eliminate Iran's security threat,
01:33and that's the goal Israel is trying to achieve.
01:37One of the main goals to eliminate Iranian security threat is to disarm or to weakening Hezbollah's power
01:44as the main Iranian proxy group in the region.
01:47For this reason, you can see that even the attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon started weeks ago,
01:56before the Iran war started.
01:58So Netanyahu, Israel already started the war against Hezbollah a week before the Iran war started.
02:04That tells you, and when you go back to Iran, you say,
02:08okay, what's the Iranian reason for pushing for this negotiation to be involved
02:15or include the ceasefire in Lebanon and against Hezbollah
02:19and asking for the fight against Hezbollah to stop?
02:22The point is here, what we know about Iran's axis of resistance is they created a united front.
02:29A united front means all of them are together, this axis of resistance.
02:34And when the Iranian regime are negotiating or have a ceasefire with the U.S. and Israel,
02:40and Hezbollah is under fire, that means this united being broken by Israel.
02:46That's the goal.
02:47That's Israel's goal, to try to break this link, this axis of resistance.
02:55And for the Iranian remaining part, it's so important.
02:58And why it's important?
03:00Because inside Iran, there is a main base of the supporting the regime.
03:06These main base are the hardliner.
03:09They are the ones that they believe in Shia ideology,
03:13different from previous commanders who they have this ideology
03:18or this belief of the Ummad Islamiyah, it's mean the nation of Islam.
03:22But the remaining one, they believe on the Shia Islam, it's mean supporting the militia groups in Hezbollah,
03:29Husis and other Shia militia groups.
03:33For this part of the IRGC commanders who are in the power,
03:37which one of them is Speaker of the Parliament, Qalibov,
03:40his name we hear these days, he will be part of this team for negotiation.
03:47So he knows this base.
03:49He's trying to keep this base to support the regime.
03:54So that's a part of inside dynamic.
03:57When you zoom out and see outside what's going on for this axis of resistance,
04:02if Iran's go for negotiation with Trump and meanwhile Hezbollah is under Israel's attack,
04:09that's mean the other militia group in Iran, like Husis, Hashishab in Iraq,
04:14they cannot trust Iran anymore when the Hezbollahs,
04:18the group that engage in the fight against Israel in support of Iran in this war.
04:23That's mean the reliability between Iranian regime and this proxy group going to be damaged
04:32if the peace or ceasefire go this way.
04:36You mentioned negotiations before.
04:39Let's have a listen to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a second.
04:45Following repeated approaches by the Lebanese government to open peace negotiations with us,
04:50I instructed the cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon in order to achieve two objectives.
04:57First, the disarmament of Hezbollah,
04:59and second, a historic sustainable peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon.
05:05Explain to our viewers why Netanyahu has approved talks with Lebanon's government
05:10when Israel's fight is with Hezbollah.
05:14It's so important you have to see the change in the Lebanese government.
05:21That's for the first time in the Lebanese history we see the governments
05:25abandoning Hezbollah's political and security activities.
05:29For the first time we're seeing Lebanese government expelling Iran's ambassador from Lebanon.
05:36And we're seeing Iranian citizens for the first time required to have a visa to enter to Lebanon.
05:43So all these steps tells you that Lebanese government's already on the same page with Israel
05:50to disarm Hezbollah, and they're trying to actually have a direct negotiation with Israel,
05:57which means in the same time they are working together indirectly to disarm and weaken Hezbollah.
06:04Hezbollah, when we're talking about the weakening Hezbollah,
06:08we're not just talking about the security and military wing of Hezbollah.
06:12We're talking about the political power of Hezbollah in Lebanon's weakening.
06:17Hezbollah that was under Hassan Nasrullah's leadership is different from Hezbollah we see today.
06:24The new leader doesn't have the same charismatic personality that Hassan Nasrullah had,
06:30or the popularity.
06:32And that's why Hezbollah don't have this coherence and this strong holding the power in Lebanon.
06:39They had it.
06:40Look at the airport of Beirut, the way Hezbollah had control over the airport, the border.
06:46They don't have it anymore.
06:47So when you see the change inside Lebanon, inside the government,
06:52the reality of the power, who hold the power in this country, tells you for Israel it wouldn't be that
06:59difficult
07:00to have a cooperation with the governments which is willing to work in the same way that Israel is planning
07:07to work.
07:07So to disarm Hezbollah and take Hezbollah's power, political power, away from this group.
07:14The state from the state that Hezbollah created for a long time in this country.
07:18And tell me more about this cooperation between Lebanon and Israel against Hezbollah.
07:28How tightly knit is this cooperation, do you think?
07:34If I take you back to the previous proposal being written or proposed by European countries,
07:44the main ones came to mind is France.
07:46Macron tried to bring these two parties together.
07:51U.S. has been pushing for this policy to have a kind of cooperation directly between Lebanese government and Israel.
07:59None of them actually work.
08:02The reason is right now we're seeing this cooperation directly is happening between these two parties,
08:07Israel and Lebanon's government, own government.
08:09Because for Israel, it's clear.
08:11Previous proposal, previous actors couldn't make it.
08:16And the only actor can have the clear proposal or clear way to solve this issue, disarm Hezbollah.
08:24And Weakening Hezbollah is government of Lebanon itself, because the governments of Lebanon knows Hezbollah,
08:33but then any other actors or any other governments, they know how to deal with them.
08:38But the issue is to have a cooperation between two parties, because that goes back to the internal of Lebanon's
08:46society, political division.
08:50When we're talking about the internal society division, we're talking about the Shia and Simney issue.
08:56Let's take our Zoom on the Shia in Lebanon.
09:02The huge number of the Shia, they are still followers of the Hezbollah,
09:05because the power of the Shia came back to Lebanon due to Iranian support for Shia,
09:12the Hezbollah's power in this country.
09:14The history of the Shia being excluded in power in Lebanon tells you that Shia has seen Hezbollah as a
09:21kind of the only way to have a representative or to hold power.
09:26But when we're talking about the Lebanese government, that's made Lebanese government have to have a plan for this part
09:32of the population too,
09:33to bring them, include them in any political future.
09:38That's the plan that only with the Lebanese government working with Israel that's seen as the only threat right now,
09:46and Hezbollah using Israel's attack as a kind of the card to use it to control the power.
09:53Without Israel, Hezbollah cannot use any other card to play the game inside the country,
09:58to have a more Shia following Hezbollah.
10:00And why I'm saying that, because if you go back to the population of the Shia population inside Lebanon,
10:06you will see the way Hezbollah's engaging with Iran war make Hezbollah's followers unhappy, to dissatisfied,
10:17because they don't want any problem, any war in Lebanon because of Iran.
10:22They want better life, better welfare in their own country.
10:26Not just Shia followers of Hezbollah, even Sunni Muslims in Lebanon and other communities,
10:31they are tired of this forever war with Israel.
10:37That's why there is a best opportunity for these two actors, as I said,
10:42Israel and Lebanon's government to cooperate in this time.
10:44So, would you say Israel's achievements in Iran have been a breakthrough for Israel's objectives in Lebanon?
10:58We have to wait for the end of this war, how it's going to end.
11:02For now, for Israel, the day Israel actually, before even starting 12 days of war,
11:09it was, and with the old plan, long-time plan against Hezbollah,
11:15Israel has achieved some part of its goal, which is, as I explained,
11:19weakening of Hezbollah's political and military power in Lebanon.
11:24Hezbollah has always been Israel's main concern.
11:27Even one can even argue that one of the reasons 7th of October happened,
11:33because Israel's focus was mainly on Hezbollah neglecting the growing power of the Hamas
11:41and the capability of Hamas during that time.
11:44That was one of the reasons they were shocked or surprised by 7th of October.
11:48So, Hezbollah has always been the main target when it's coming to Iran's proxies
11:52and Iran's militia groups against Israel.
11:55For this reason, Israel is trying to defeat Iran in the way that the Iranian regime cannot stay in the
12:04power
12:05to be able to help these groups to rebuild or rearm Hezbollah.
12:10That's why I'm saying we have to see and wait the end of the Iran war to see how it's
12:18going to end.
12:19And Israel knows that.
12:20That's why they don't know how it will end, because they're not alone in this war.
12:24They are with the U.S. and with Trump.
12:26That Trump, as I said, they're looking for a better deal.
12:29That's why Israel is trying to finish Hezbollah's job, disarm Hezbollah before this war ends.
12:35So, Netanyahu cannot stand against Trump's decision.
12:39If Trump says we have a ceasefire, Netanyahu has to go for the ceasefire.
12:44If Trump says we have to end the war, as we saw during 12 days of war, suddenly the war
12:50stopped
12:51because Trump asked Netanyahu to do it.
12:53That's why for Netanyahu right now is the opportunity to finish the Hezbollah job
12:57before anything happened with the Iran war or it's ended any way that Trump's decide.
13:02But tell me one more important thing.
13:04Is it possible to entirely stamp out this militant group?
13:08I mean, Hamas still exists in Gaza.
13:14The answer is no.
13:17And the reason is because there is ideology.
13:20The ideology of this group, you can never eliminate this ideology.
13:26Look at the Al-Qaeda, ISIS, all other non-state actors, the Islamic ideology.
13:33Ideology is going to stay forever, but the group as a power is going to diminish the power
13:38of this group.
13:39The weapon they have, the political power they're holding, this you can have success in this
13:45perspective.
13:46But for the ideology and this group, they're going to stay forever.
13:48That's why it's difficult for, I can't explain the way we have a war against Husis even.
13:56The latest war we had, the U.S. with all this military power, they attacked Husis, they
14:02couldn't end this group.
14:04Which is, Husis, we're not talking about just ideology when it comes to the Husis, we're
14:08talking about a non-state actor acting like a state controlling territory and have the
14:15capacity to hold the main important sea routes.
14:19So you can see this is really difficult to eliminate them forever.
14:24If you don't talk about the ideology, you talk about the location they control.
14:28If you don't talk about the location they control, you're talking about the state or
14:32country who support them.
14:34Against Husis' case, you can see China supporting Husis in some cases.
14:39You can see Russia's supporting for Husis and that's how it's really difficult to defeat
14:46these groups.
14:47So many interesting insights.
14:49Middle East security analyst, Sukriya.
14:51Braodos, thank you very much for your time.
14:54Thank you, Ben.
14:55Thank you for having me.
14:58And a big thank you for watching.
15:00Let us know in the comments what your hopes are for peace in the Middle East.
15:04I'm Ben Fazulin.
Comments